Pandora box opened on 3rd October, 2021(Sunday), after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICJI) obtained confidential documents.
Pandora Papers are the set of millions of leaked documents that expose tax haven secrecy. It has been labelled as the ‘biggest ever leak of offshore data’ that exposes the financial secrets of the rich and powerful of the world. Amounting to 11.9 million confidential documents, the list includes powerful government officials and other elites conceal trillions of dollars from tax authorities, prosecutors and others.
It has a list much larger than the 2016 Panama papers release. The secret documents to offshore assets also named at least 380 Indians including nearly 60 prominent individuals and companies. Cricket superstar Sachin Tendulkar, corporate lobbyist Niira Radia, and Anil Ambani were among the very few of those names.
Ambani has 18 asset holding offshore companies, after declaring bankruptcy. Businessman Nirav Modi’s sister sets up a trust just one month before he fled India.
According to The Indian Express that is one of the contributors to the report, Sachin Tendulkar asked for the liquidation of his entity in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), just three months after the Panama Papers expose.
Pandora leak has arrived in the middle of a pandemic. The pandemic had led to ordinary taxpayers being burdened by tax rises that are not likely to end soon. This brings about the moral argument against the secrecy, complexity and unfairness of the offshore stashing by the world’s superrich.
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