https://www.buzzfeed.com/talalansari/massive-document-leak-reveals-use-of-tax-havens-by-trumps?utm_term=.vgDWR6qLk#.taeA3GnXV


A massive leak of financial documents appears to reveal that many of US President Donald Trump's advisors, members of his cabinet, and donors hold accounts in offshore tax havens. Those individuals include US secretary of state Rex Tillerson, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Trump's ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman, among others, according to reports.

The leaked documents also show that Trump's commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, retained business investments with a Russian shipping company with ties to a Russian oligarch subject to US sanctions, and Vladimir Putin's son-in-law, according to the New York Times.

The massive leak of 13.4 million financial documents also paints of a picture of how the world's most powerful individuals and companies — from the Queen of England to Apple — use and benefit from offshore tax havens.

The documents, obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, come a year after the Panama Papers similarly revealed the inner workings of offshore tax havens. As with the Panama Papers, Süddeutsche Zeitung handed over the 1.4 terabytes of data to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which then distributed the documents to around 100 media outlets around the world.

"Many of the stories focus on how politicians, multinationals, celebrities and high-net-worth individuals use complex structures of trusts, foundations and shell companies to protect their cash from tax officials or hide their dealings behind a veil of secrecy," wrote the BBC, one of the media outlets that received documents from the ICIJ.