Panama Papers and Nepal

So, for the past few weeks we have been hearing a lot about the "Panama Papers" leaking hundreds of documents online. It's influence has been so huge, even the Prime Minister of Iceland had to resign immediately after it's announcement!

SO

What exactly is Panama Papers? Let me give you a simple example!( in reference to VOX and reddit) . 

Lets say you earn Rs. 200,000/month and out of which, you manage to save Rs. 100,000 every single month.            


Now, you keep those Rs 100,000 inside your piggy bank and your parents , your siblings they all notice it.

So, your parents demand a certain amount of money from your savings for additional purposes, but you don't wanna give them and want a way through which you can hide your money without having them notice! meaning that you want to have all money by yourself for your own purpose and not giving it to them!

WHAT DO YOU DO?
Well, say your neighbors are extremely busy and they hardly take any notice about your money and you notice this thing! Now, you go to your neighbors house, say Ram and ask him to keep your money safe!

You start to use his house as a base for keeping your money. But let's say Ram wasn't totally honest at all! So, one day he gets invited at your dinner and accidentally , discloses your activity of keeping money at his house . Now this news reaches to your parent's ears and they demand a report of his undoings !

Consider this event to all the recent happenings right now! Politicians , actors, relatives of the ministers or Head of State's all dumped their money into an offshore company of Panama so as to get rid of Tax exemptions that are applied by their country's government and invested in an offshore company(offshore company are normally applied by very little tax rates as compared to ONSHORE company) so as to have their money intact!

Now, IS IT ILLEGAL?

Well investing in offshore companies isn't illegal as it can give many advantages, but what is illegal here is the investment they are involved in that involves illegal business of money laundering, or providing such money to conduct terror activities in nations like Syria and issues of similar kind!

As per stated by theatlantic.com, investing in offshore investment has become too easy that anyone can evade taxes or even dabble in offshore finance, without expert intervention.

They further state," With just an internet connection and a few thousand dollars, anybody can create shell corporations and other offshore vehicles in a matter of minutes. It's a child play to dodge taxes, debts, child support and so on by putting assets in one of those structures- though there is a risk of getting caught, audited, and possibly prosecuted."

That brings us to our country Nepal where few people have been linked to get involved in such offshore shell companies and the NRB has created a forum to conduct an investigation regarding the involvement of people relating to it! However, names of the people haven't been disclosed yet , but there is a company named after our country called as ," NEPAL VENTURES LIMITED" involved as shell company and further investigation ongoing!

Evasion of taxes could mean serious problems in reduction of government's revenue as tax is their main source. If the monitoring of such activities is poor, then people can enjoy such serious activities and thus result in serious corruption activities.

As for now, leak of more than 11 million documents have led to resignation of Prime Minister of Iceland , raising more allegations to Prime minister of Pakistan, athletes , relatives of ministers and celebrities and countless of other people.  It's the biggest leak of documents after the infamous Wikileaks and hope it does uncover more and more dark truths about the frauds in the financial world!