Paradise Papers
Categories: Investing
The title of a romance novel? John Milton's memoir? No, the name refers to the prime documents in a major scandal involving offshore banking.
In late 2017, a German newspaper started publishing details of a trove of documents outlining the use of offshore investments by politicians, celebrities, and big companies in an effort to avoid taxes.
The items (totalling more than 13 million individual documents) were leaked from a law firm and included a number of famous people, such as members of the British royal family and a member of the U.S. cabinet. Major companies, like Apple and Nike, were named in the papers as well.
The name "paradise" got attached to scandal because many of the financial institutions used to set up these tax shelters were located in tropical nations where banking regulations are lax.
