United States President Obama hailed new Treasury Department rules cracking down on corporate tax inversions Tuesday, calling the practice of merging with a foreign company to escape U.S. taxes one of the most insidious tax loopholes out there.
Pressure mounted on Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday to impose “direct rule” on British overseas territories after several of them figured as tax havens in the leaked Panama Papers that have caused ripples around the world.
In another unexpected to come from this Panama Papers scandal, the head of the Chile office of the corruption watchdog group Transparency International has resigned after his name appeared in the data leak.
Dominica-born Baroness Patricia Scotland began this week her job as Commonwealth Secretary-General, pledging to focus on several issues of concern to the Caribbean, including dealing with violence against women and the effects of climate change.
Gibraltar and Falkland Islands flatly deny any “colonial situations” as was referred to by the foreign ministers of Spain and Argentina, and regret profoundly that two large countries with democratic credentials “seek to gang up to bully two very small territories and in the process completely ignore the right of their people to choose what they want to be”.
Argentina and Spain have decided to re-launch bilateral mechanisms that have been “asleep” for too long, promoting political and trade relations, said Argentine foreign minister Susana Malcorra who on Monday met with her visiting Spanish peer, Jose Manuel García/Margallo.
Attorney General Jose Eduardo Cardozo told the congressional impeachment committee Monday that Rousseff had done nothing wrong and to remove her would be tantamount to a putsch.“As such, impeaching her would be a coup, a violation of the constitution, an affront to the rule of law, without any need to resort to bayonets,” Cardozo told the 65-member committee.
Argentine President Mauricio Macri came on stage on Monday to defend himself as he is one of the world leaders to appear as director of an offshore society in the so called “Panama Papers” leak that triggered a worldwide scandal.
The United Stated Department is reviewing the leaked documents from a Panamanian law firm that reveal the offshore financial arrangements of global politicians and public figures, a department spokesman said on Monday. The department is determining whether the documents point to evidence of corruption and other violations of US law.
Politicians from seven parties in Brazil were named as clients of a Panama-based firm at the center of a massive data leak over possible tax evasion, O Estado de S.Paulo said on Monday.