Bitcoin Forum

https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/paradise-papers

The Queen of England Elizabeth II, Soros, Sheldon Adelson, Queen of Jordania, Juan Manuel Santos (president of Colombia), Justin Trudeau (Canada), some people close to Trump, big celebrities like Bono from U2, Madonna.... huge list.

The elite continues avoiding taxes with their billions, meanwhile they will hate you for owning a small 5 figure bitcoin holdings and will put you in jail if you don't tax it.

Isabel II? Are you referring to Elizabeth II? Well, with even monarchs in the list along with celebs, I wouldn't be surprised if this would be a bigger scandal than the Panama papers. Sadly, very few people would probably get jail time out of this. I mean, can you imagine punishing a queen for this?

If they all went into BTC nobody would know about where they would hide their wealth :)
Not sure though if this is what BTC is aimed for, but as long as it is anonymous it's one of its advantages for some of the rich among us!

Wealthy people have always had many ways to hide their wealth. The problem was for the rest of people that they didn’t have as many ways, if they had at all. With cryptos this has changed: bitcoins+mixers+different wallets and alts like monero have opened a path for the average person to hide wealth from the state. If coins like monero get widespread governments will change the way they tax us, they will still collect tax but it will be different.

I remember back then the Panama Papers, the leak was huge too, many involved with off shore accounts in Panama... but what did it really do? At the end of the day, it seems not many went to jail or paid anything back, the crimes already prescribed, so they were free to keep moving their money around. At the end of the day everyone on these lists are going to remain rich and free because they will pay whatever bullshit fees that they want to confront them with to try to save at media level.

The elite simply can't lose, they will always find a way to win while you remain at the bottom.

No one goes to jail for having bitcoins and paying no tax for that. Who pays tax for bitcoins? Unless the government of that particular country has legalized bitcoin as a currency to be used within the country like fiat, otherwise, i don't think a person would have to pay anything if there is no such rule for bitcoin in that country. In my country, there are no rules about bitcoin, and i can have as many bitcoins as i want without even paying a penny to the government for that because it has nothing to do with the rules of my country because it is not something within my country.

You are right, I got confused with the spanish queen Elisabel II for some reason. In any case, just as you said and as poster above said, I doubt this will have any relevant consequences for them, they have enough money to never put a feet inside a cell.

Let's see, we've had OffshoreLeaks in 2013, Falciani's List with its Swiss secrets and the agreements and secrets of multinational enterprises in Luxembourg in 2015, the Panama Papers in 2016 and then more secret agreements but this time within elite soccer players: FootballLeaks.

How many of these people went to jail? how many did pay the taxes that the poor citizens with no offshore leaks where getting raped with in the meantime?

So what do you make of this? The system is built as such so it is more efficient for the wealthy to avoid taxes. If taxation was reasonable then more wealthy would actually be paying it but right now it is in their best interest to invest in legally avoiding it as they would be paying out less this way.

On Bono and Madona though, I think that it'quite hypocritical coming from them. They were quite big in politics and it's very hypocritical for them to advocate for things they don't follow themselves.

If you "translate" her name to Portuguese she is actually Isabel II. In portuguese or brazilian press she is usually referred as "rainha Isabel II" rather than queen elisabeth the second.
Anyway everybody knows off shores exist and that is actually a way for those smaller nations to attract capitals. Here in Portugal is very funny people being angry at off shore capital and then they provide a tax safe heaven for the european elderly that wish to come and spend there retirement tax free in portugal. Hipocrites.
Long leave BTC and any other privacy focused crypto.

Good find, OP. Nice info there.

It is known for sometime that there is a network of tax havens which operate off the books for the wealthy and powerful. There is a key angle present which the media neglects to mention. While these tax shelters offer the advantage of avoiding taxes, fees and penalties--it also functions negatively as a system of control.

Tax shelters are designed around a trust based system where large sums of money are being held hostage. Many world leaders, presidents, dictators, senators and businessmen have the majority of their funds held hostage in this system of tax avoidance which allow globalists to exert influence over and control those in positions of power.

To give you an example of how this works, let's say that Bill and Hillary Clinton have $100 billion dollars. Their money could be held in a tax shelter which would allow them to avoid taxes. But as the tax shelter is designed around a trust based system, which would also give those who run the tax shelter network influence over both Clintons.

Looking at the list of those who use tax shelters, there will always be a large number of world leaders, dictators and politicians listed for this reason. Its no coincidence. When people vaguely refer to globalists, these networks of tax shelters are in a sense, what they're referring to.

That's not true in the least, Blockchain analysis would be something which would probably help to find all of the money through time. And if these people were buying millions of Bitcoin, that'd be something that people would REALLY comb through. Bitcoin isn't this mega anonymous Coin that people set it out to be, you have to be very and I mean VERY careful to make it even close to private.

The only reason that people know about these peoples money being in these 'paradise' islands, is the fact of a data leak. This is something which would also hit Bitcoin as well, so it's not like Bitcoin would do anything different in a situation like this.

Is anyone surprised?! I mean really, people with a lot of money are always going to try to find a way to save it, or make more. They say that only two things are certain - death and taxes. It seems these ultra-rich elite don't get that. Why not get involved in politics to make sure money is spent wisely instead of trying to avoid paying tax altogether?

Personally, I am supporting leaks as it really involved the invasion of privacy but since this has been done already we might as well use the information to the benefit of everybody. The thing here is that these members of the elites are just taking advantage of the ways and means available to them while they are in the position of power. And this is just human nature and I am not complaining on that basis alone.

I agree. These people should be gravely ashamed if ever they are thinking of controlling something which they should not have any role of...that of cryptocurrency. I believe that Bitcoin should be belonging to the people as we are now returning the power to create their own destiny here. They should never allow that greed to get into their heads and start controlling us.

They can do with whatever billions of fiat money they might have but please they should not snatch our choice of getting into cryptocurrency otherwise there would really be a big revolution on the street!

I typically ask myself about the relevant of this leak to bitcoin taxation. I guess I’m not good on determining the connection or am I too confused about this leaking that is happening this past months. Panama and Paradise papers leak may good on exposing them publicly but the people already know that our justice system is a corrupted one and will only punished a regular worker not paying small tax than a celebrity with fame that is breaking the law. Sad but insanely true.

This is so true!
Avoid paying millions of dollars of taxes when you earn billions and you are admired.
Avoid paying 1000 bucks when you are a "normal" person and you are a criminal.

I recently read about it in my local newspaper today morning. That's a sad reality of our current government system. There are companies who will help you to set up foreign investments so that you can evade tax in your country and have the benefit of the dual tax treaty using some legal loopholes. However, government will still want people like us to pay tax on our small bitcoin revenue. Because we are not billionaires and can't buy out the system with out money. So face it!

Bunch of hypocrites. :( It is just quite unfortunate that the whole thing would die down and no one on that list would even be punished for it and they just keep living their lives without issues and then a common man would evade tax and a whole rain of judgment would be poured on him. Same people imposing the laws are the ones not abiding by it. It is just a world filled with oppression and wickedness, but what can a common man do?

We already knew this, at least I did. It is not surprising to me to find out about more celebrities and presidents hiding money, anyone that has been paying some attention knows the wealthy all have off-shore accounts. Apparently when you get rich, first thing you get is financial agents knocking on your door offering you awesome deals. "Trust us, we will keep your wealth safe and you will pay less taxes". Im sure a lot of celebs, specially football players, don't even know what they are doing, but presidents and people with high studies have no excuse.

Im yet to see Soros being mentioned on the mainstream media, they only talk about celebs and some politicians.

I don't really remember anyone going to jail from the Panama Papers and it would probably be the same for this one. We'll probably not hear much from these people as their cases are settled away from the eyes of the media. "The strong do what they can..."


Especially Madonna, who paints herself as a very charitable woman. So she'll give money to people but would not pay her taxes?  ;D

This is not the first scandal connected with offshore. The entire global financial system is built for the rich. They can officially not afford to pay taxes, but we take the last. Who then can blame bitcoin is that we do not pay taxes for its use? Bitcoin is the offshore for ordinary people. That's why I never will pay taxes from using bitcoin. I am against any state intervention in the cryptocurrency.

In many instances some of the biggest Banks are involved with the transfer of these funds and nothing happens to these

Banks. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mexican-cartels-launder-their-money-2015-2  The tax havens are well known,

but authorities just look the other way. Why? The Jamie Dimons of the world are protected.. Why? It is just one big cesspool

of fraud and corruption.  >:(

I prefer to call it a conspiracy, state organizers make regulations for others, but they anticipate to look for loopholes to enrich themselves without binding taxes. That is why I started to leave fiat and contribute to bitcoin, because the current financial system is ultimately dominated by names involved in paradise / or other papers that the media will never see.

Taxes only stifle the poor anyway and it permeates bureaucracy, inefficiency and corruption through the entire economic system. The rich/powerful have always had ways around taxes and the rules.

The entire concept of tax is fundamentally flawed. Nobody should be forced to give what they do not want to give - that is called theft.

Block-chain technology and the Crypto economy gives us an opportunity to come up with whole new ways of financing governments without having to thieve from people.

Since eventually most of them would be the ones controlling the exchanges anyway, I won't be surprised when they start stashing up in bitcoins. Staying anonymous is what they have always wanted but you cannot really stay that anonymous again with bitcoin except they want to start the controlled exchanges for their own benefits without them getting caught in any of these most especially those in the top government or maybe invest in coins like Monero or use a mixing service.

I do not really know how that would work though, but it is just perplexing to know these same people who would impose such tax laws would be trying to evade it.

And it would get crazier and which is why any working class people at this stage should better buy in before these dudes start stepping in cause like you said, if they start getting waves of some of these coins like monero and so many of them still popping up, crypto world is going to get even more huge and then hardly are we going to see cryptocurrency ever going into extinction when some of the top players already have their money stashed in it.

This is just...disheartening. It looks like the average joe really can't win. Strict compliance is expected of us while the elite just gets richer using underhanded tactics. They're likely to get away with it too.

This is why we need cryptocurrencies. Here, we can at least play on (mostly) even grounds. Money can still talk, yes, but everyone has to follow the same protocol.

Obviously would be a bigger scandal with the names on that list. I am so surprised at some of the names though and I am kind of wondering where this world is headed to. I am even trying to imagine the funds some of these guys could have started storing up in their bitcoin wallets if they already have the chance to have knowledge about it. I guess we won't just know.

There was ukrainian and russian politics. even our president Poroshenko tried to go off-shore, but they denied him. the richer is a person, the more he is greedy!