Where there is a will…

There are millions of Panama Papers. Literally millions, 12.7 million to be precise. The 600-odd that name people of Pakistan origin are a mere drop in this ocean of information. For those with an interest in taxation, money laundering and the ‘grey’ financial sector, it is a trove waiting to be mined by governments if they are so minded — and Denmark is setting an example by spending money to find money. Like Pakistan, there are only a small number of people of Danish origin named in the Panama Papers, 500-600, but the Danish tax minister has decided that he will pay the equivalent of one million British pounds for information on Danes listed in order to pursue an investigation, and if possible pull money back into the treasury to which it was entitled.



What the Danes are telling the world is that there are ways around the complicated hedges that have been erected by those wishing to put their money beyond the reach of inquisitive tax authorities. The government of Pakistan is unlikely to be doing any such thing because those that would be investigated will have links into governance as well, and will be delighted that the prime minister in protecting himself from inquiry has by extension protected every other Pakistani from investigation as well. This in turn will not have gone unnoticed in the discreetly murky world of tax avoidance and evasion — the difference between the two being no mere matter of semantics but that of legality — just — or illegality. The fact is that the prime minister is not named in the Panama Papers and he and his team have mounted an effective stonewalling defence that has deflected all the opposition parties, neutralised them in this respect politically, and the prime minister can sit back and watch them flail about expending energy and large sums of money fighting a battle they have not a snowballs chance in hell of winning. Had there been genuine political will to get to the bottom of the matter, the government would have ensured the passage of effective legislation to look into the Panama affair. That, sadly, is not going to happen. As for the Danish tax minister, hunting in the financial undergrowth, well we wish him luck, there are big beasts swimming in the Offshore Sea.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2016.

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