The Inconvenient Truth About The Pandora Papers

Introduction.

Worldwide the publication of the Pandora Papers has led to a public outrage about the 'moral' of all these people including and what 'should be done' about 'offshore banking' as it is officially called in so-called 'tax-havens' including in The Netherlands and many exotic locations globally.

In this article he shares his personal experiences from 2001 until 2011 and until this day and the inconvenient truth about off-shore banking and 'investigative journalisme' today.

Nobody likes paying too many taxes.

Since off-shore banking was invented by the Dutch in Curacao during the golden age of The Netherlands, the use of corporate and private legal structures has been an integral part of the global financial-economic system as we still know it today.

There always have been differences in different types of taxes in different countries across the World, including within the European Union. In many cases, this 'offshore banking' industry for corporates and private clients is crucial to the local economy of the country concerned in terms of employment and local taxes as is for instance the case in countries like Luxemburg, Northern Ireland (Dublin) and exotic locations like the Cayman Islands and the Virgin Islands. The same thing goes for the U.S. Many Internet-companies are structured in Delaware.......

My first contact with this strange 'off-shore banking' industry was in 2001 when I started to work for ABN Amro Trust in 2001. Shortly afterwards, 9/11 and the War on Terror occurred and that resulted in a focus on terrorist financing and anti-money-laundering legislation worldwide.

I then discovered (read 'Empty rooms' in 'Diary of a banker' in Dutch) the strange world of different types of corporate and private structures worldwide. Including the financing films, private structures of renowned musicians and artists, of members of royal families (including some that were 'discovered' in the pandora-papers) and of many, not to say most international corporates.

And I learned about the 'Waterbed-principle': if you change laws in one country, the customers will move elsewhere, and new structures will pop-up in other countries. And in many cases (like in the case of terrorist financing) cash and digital money was and is transformed into famous paintings, gold, silver and real estate. With nested structures across jurisdictions that were almost impossible to unravel.

The advantage of these assignments was that I was allowed to visit many exotic locations for ' address verification' across the Globe. Did it make a difference? Of course not. But it was fun while doing it....and I learned a lot about how our current financial-economic system really works.

The inconvenient truth about the Pandora papers.

The inconvenient truth about the Pandora Papers is that most corporates worldwide and many private clients worldwide have been and are still advised to set up different types of offshore corporate and private legal entities to pay as little different types of taxes as possible in the EU and across the Globe. Including on the purchase of software for instance: the difference in VAT between one jurisdiction and another can make a huge amount of difference in the profit- and lost statement of any corporate and multinational for your shareholders.

Off-shore banking and tax-optimisation in general is if we like it or not an integral part of our current world-wide financial economic system. Real professional journalists should therefor explain how the current financial-economic system works and how difficult it is to change the current global financial-economic system if it is possible at all (I personally do not think so to be honest). 'Normal' people pay taxes, and many international and national corporations and high-worth individuals don't or do as little as possible.

But many politicians and main-stream journalists do not want to give that message. Because they would be forced to admit that the Internet can not be regulated, and that 'tax-optimisation' is an integral part of our current unsustainable financial-economic system. And that there will always be differences in tax-regimes worldwide. You only have to look at all the new facilities the United Kingdom created 'off-shore' in preparation of the Brexit, what China is doing and what many national governments are doing to attract data centers of large companies like Google and Microsoft and warehouses of Amazon.com for instance within the borders of their own country of province.

Am I a pessimist? No, I am a realistic optimist. If you want to change systems, you should first explain how they work in a holistic way instead of focusing on incidents and symptoms.?

Dr. Tony de Bree EEP MBA worked from 2001 until 2004 at ABN Amro Trust (corporate & private trusts worldwide) and from 2004 until the end of 2011 in Global International Private Clients Compliance, Private Clients Due Diligence, Due Diligence Global and as global split-up manager KYC after the hostile take-over of ABN Amro in 2008 by RBS, Fortis and Banco Santander.

He had to risk-assess UBOs and different types of corporate and private legal structures worldwide in the aftermath of 9/11 and of the Cease & Desist Order on ABN Amro in 2005.

Since Novemer 2011 he is self-employed business owner and on-demand consultant, speaker at the Speakersacademy, trainer, business coach and serial writer of books and e-books.

p.s. The picture above this post was taken during my honeymoon on Curacao in 2019, one of the popular former off-shore banking locations in The Netherlands.