The rich people are removing their money from their own countries and putting that money in other country's banks etc. so they don't have to pay taxes on it.
That means that these rich people are failing to contribute to their country's back bone, the financial foundation of the government and government services. Now that's a bad thing, just based on general principle, when you're a billionaire playboy. But it's much, much worse when you are the leader of a country failing to contribute to your country's financial infrastructure.
And a few leaders in a few countries have gotten their hand caught in this Panamanian cookie jar. The Prime Minister of Iceland, Sigmunder David Gunlaugsson, was forced to resign.
The ugly Americans lucked up this time around.
There haven't been too many white rich men like Donald Trump caught up in this scandal, not in the numbers I assumed there would be, because "the Panama-based Mossack Fonseca law firm at the center of the scandal doesn't like taking on American clients, one of its founders says."
If this law firm had liked taking on Americans, even if they hadn't gotten one the richest presidential contenders caught up in this mess, it might have made more of a positive impact for Bernie Sander's campaign.
Think about it.
If a bunch of millionaires, some of them attached to the too-big-to-fail shenanigans of 2007/2008 that nearly tanked this country's economy, a whole bunch of senators and representatives might have to sit up and pretend that they are up for the new United States that Bernie proposes.
The article below, however, only addresses how this is a world wide issue for women, a feminist issue, without going into the details of the feminization of poverty.
The release of the Panama Papers by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is the biggest data leak in history, and this time it’s some of the world’s most powerful people who have cause to worry, with the spotlight finally falling on their own secretive tax arrangements....
If you look at the names of politicians and business leaders in the leaked documents you will see that those benefiting from using tax havens are overwhelmingly male. This perhaps reflects the fact that positions of power are currently mostly held by men.
On the other hand, we know that those who are worst impacted by the consequences of tax dodging are the world’s poorest, who are disproportionately women and girls. Financial secrecy and tax dodging, and the resulting lack of public funds, threatens women’s and girl’s access to public services, increases the care work they do for free and shifts the tax burden onto those who can least afford it.
Read More
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/08/why-panama-papers-are-feminist-issue
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