The Pandora Papers investigation has also exposed offshore assets of Indian cricket ace Sachin Tendulkar, pop music diva Shakira and supermodel Claudia Schiffer, reports said on Sunday.
However, Shakira’s attorney said the singer declared her companies, which do not provide tax advantages. Schiffer’s representatives said the supermodel correctly pays her taxes in the UK, where she lives.
In most countries, it’s not illegal to have assets offshore or to use shell companies to do business across national borders. Businesspeople who operate internationally say they need offshore companies to conduct their financial affairs.
But these affairs often amount to shifting profits from high-tax countries, where they are earned, to companies that exist only on paper in low-tax jurisdictions. Using offshore shelters is especially controversial for political figures because they can be used to keep politically unpopular or even illicit activities from public view.
In the popular imagination, the offshore system is often seen as a far-flung cluster of palm-shaded islands. The Pandora Papers show that the offshore money machine operates in every corner of the planet, including the world’s largest democracies. The key players in the system include elite institutions – multinational banks, law firms and accounting practices – headquartered in the US and Europe.