Pandora Papers:
There are at least 380 persons of Indian nationality in the Pandora Papers.
- The Pandora Papers investigation is the world’s largest-ever journalistic collaboration, involving more than 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries.
- The investigation is based on a leak of confidential records of 14 offshore service providers that give professional services to wealthy individuals and corporations seeking to incorporate shell companies, trusts, foundations and other entities in low- or no-tax jurisdictions.
- The entities enable owners to conceal their identities from the public and sometimes from regulators.
- Often, the providers help them open bank accounts in countries with light financial regulation.
- The Panama and Paradise Papers dealt largely with offshore entities set up by individuals and corporates respectively.
- The Pandora Papers investigation shows how businesses have created a new normal after countries have been forced to tighten the screws on such offshore entities with rising concerns of money laundering, terrorism funding, and tax evasion.
- The Indian Trusts Act, 1882, gives legal basis to the concept of trusts.
- While Indian laws do not see trusts as a legal person/ entity, they do recognise the trust as an obligation of the trustee to manage and use the assets settled in the trust for the benefit of ‘beneficiaries’. India also recognises offshore trusts i.e., trusts set up in other tax jurisdictions.
