Supporters of the new tax law said the corporate cuts would lead to a $4,000 increase in the annual paychecks of ordinary Americans. Others, including those in the administration, claimed $9,000.
The bill’s now law. Raise your hand if you make $50,000 – roughly the average wage – and expect a $9,000 raise this year?
I suspect few hands went up.
Two years ago we published the Panama Papers after an anonymous source provided 2.6 terabytes of internal data from the dubious Panamanian law firm of Mossack Fonseca. We shared the data with 400 journalists worldwide and together revealed how the wealthy and powerful use shell companies to hide their assets. Such companies are exploited by dictators, drug cartels, mafia clans, fraudsters, weapons dealers and regimes like North Korea and Iran to hide their shady business transactions.
Russia’s economic means are limited. Therefore, the Kremlin prefers cheap asymmetric or hybrid warfare, such as the hacking of elections, cyberwarfare, manipulation of social media and the corruption of foreign politicians. We need to respond asymmetrically, hurting the Kremlin more than it hurts us.
Anonymous companies are ubiquitous in most money-laundering schemes, and in the allegations against Trump campaign associates Paul Manafort and Richard Gates. Shell companies are formed with no record of the true owners, and because they are so easy to set up — especially if you’re a lawyer — you can easily layer dozens of them to confuse investigators and hide dirty money.
Corrupt deal-making at the highest level is happening right now, even in the U.S. In a year that has already seen ending anonymously-owned companies a top priority for some U.S. lawmakers, “McMafia” shines a light on these secretive companies and the uncomfortable truths that we at Global Witness have been campaigning on for many years.
The Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Rewards Act Would Establish a Rewards Program for Whistleblowers
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation Tuesday afternoon to combat terror finance and foreign government corruption in a move that was welcomed by the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition.
