大象传媒

The wealthiest people in the world hide their wealth. This is common knowledge, as is the need to reverse the trend of growing wealth inequality.

Yet even knowing this, the expos茅 by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is still jaw-dropping. Journalists from 150 news organizations around the world obtained the offshore financial records of more than 330 public officials, including 130 people on Forbes Magazine鈥檚 list of billionaires, in more than 90 countries and territories.

The reporting was based on 11.9 million financial records that reveal a yet-unknown amount of hidden wealth that could reach into the trillions. Globally, anywhere from $5.3 trillion鈥攁bout 鈥攖辞 to be held in offshore tax havens.

And the real shocker is that these records were held by just 14 financial services firms. This is barely scratching the surface of a vast invisible economy of, by, and for the ultra-rich.

Indeed, as The Washington Post pointed out, some well-known Americans like in the leaked documents. Even Donald Trump is only tangentially mentioned.

That doesn鈥檛 mean America鈥檚 wealthiest people aren鈥檛 making use of offshore accounts. But it鈥檚 also true that many Americans don鈥檛 have accounts in those places, as they鈥檙e often attractive primarily to wealthy people in countries with less-robust financial sectors, and where graft and corruption are commonplace.

And as other investigations have revealed, that they don鈥檛 necessarily need to hide their money overseas.

But where there鈥檚 a need, there will be a market, if not for Jeff Bezos, then for the around the world.

A widespread vehicle the ultra-rich use to hide their wealth is trusts鈥攁ccounts that hold someone鈥檚 wealth, but are managed by third parties, providing a legal gray area as to who legally owns the capital. And one of the U.S. jurisdictions that has been , which is home to , the most of any state.

鈥淪tates have been putting legal frameworks together to attract global capital since the 1980s and 1990s,鈥� says Chuck Collins, the director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of .

in that regard, repealing its usury laws that capped the amount of interest banks could charge in 1980. Financial firms took note of the newly deregulated state, and Citibank鈥檚 credit card division was the first to decamp for the lucrative pastures of Sioux Falls. The bank, then and , had lost hundreds of millions of dollars because the inflation rate was higher than New York鈥檚 cap on interest that could be charged on debt.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 why they can charge 27% interest on your late credit card,鈥� Collins says.

Since then, South Dakota has continued to make itself attractive to financial services, including offshore trust providers, joining a race to the bottom of jurisdictions competing for lucrative tax offshoring.

That鈥檚 similar to policies enacted by some other states, such as , which has made it attractive to people and corporations setting up anonymous limited liability companies.

It is possible that, outside of a sense of moral indignation that the wealthy play by a different set of rules, a person of low to average income would not notice any direct impacts from wealth hoarding on their own standard of living. There are, however, four harms the practice of hiding wealth does to civil society, Collins explains:

1. When rich people don鈥檛 pay taxes, everyone else gets stuck with the bill for a nation鈥檚 expenses, everything from pandemic recovery funding to veterans鈥� health care, military expenditures, retirement programs such as Social Security, and so forth.

2. The hidden wealth system is how the wealthy Global North extracts value from the poorer Global South, continuing the harms of colonialism to those people who are most vulnerable to them.

3. Wealth offshoring enhances the power of kleptocrats around the world engaged in looting their nations for personal gain.

4. Finally, the practice fuels the extreme wealth inequality that creates dynasties of unearned inherited wealth and power, perpetuating the other three harms down through generations.

Plus, the offshoring system has consequences for the U.S. in its dealings with other nations.

鈥淭he U.S. can鈥檛 go around the world complaining of corruption when we鈥檝e become a tax haven,鈥� Collins says.

In 2016, the investigation was based on the largest leak of documentation that revealed a tiny slice of the vast amount of private wealth squirreled away in offshore accounts. That investigation, based on leaks from a single Panama law firm, Mossack Fonseca, had many real-world aftereffects, including the and the removal and later sentencing of Pakistan鈥檚 prime minister .

The Panama release also precipitated changes to beneficial ownership laws in many countries to reveal who owns what, and a treaty between the U.S. and Switzerland to prevent Swiss bank accounts from avoiding oversight by U.S. tax authorities.

But it wasn鈥檛 enough. For example, the U.S. doesn鈥檛 have a reciprocal agreement with Switzerland to subject bank accounts to Swiss scrutiny, Collins says. And the release of the Pandora Papers this year has exposed just how little transparency is still out there, even in the U.S.

鈥淲e鈥檙e like the deadbeats, the laggards, and that鈥檚 what these global billionaires are taking advantage of,鈥� Collins says.

Europe鈥檚 reaction to the Panama Papers expos茅 provides a way forward. 鈥淚t mostly shamed Europe into changing their practices,鈥� Collins says.

In response to the exposure, European to allow joint tax investigations, and have since recovered hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of new probes. Even to share foreign taxpayers鈥� information, and the if they ever return to the European Union.

The U.S. needs to follow Europe鈥檚 example, Collins says, and then some. The Corporate Transparency Act, which Congress passed Jan. 1, 2021 as part of the annual defense authorization act, to file ownership information with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which is part of the Treasury Department. That law, enacted over Trump鈥檚 veto, closed a significant loophole, one which former president Trump (among many others) exploited to create hundreds of anonymous shell companies to hold his and his clients鈥� assets.

But it鈥檚 not the only loophole or harmful law that needs addressing, as the release of the Pandora Papers demonstrates. At the very least, the U.S. should put its own house in order and end the use of tax shelters within its borders. That, for starters, would give the country the moral authority to hold others to account.