BPK Chairman Clarifies His Link With Panama Papers to Tax Office

Jakarta Globe, Dion Bisara, April 16, 2016

Harry said that he set up Sheng Yue in 2010, when he was still a lawmaker in the
House of Representatives, to help with a family business. But, the endeavor was
later cancelled prompting him to disown the company. (Antara Photo/eno Esnir)

Jakarta. Harry Azhar Aziz, head of the Supreme Audit Agency, or BPK, on Friday (15/04) told the tax office he sold his offshore company for one Hong Kong dollar last year, clarifying that he was not using the company to avoid tax.

Harry has been in hot water this week after Tempo magazine unveiled his name as the owner of Sheng Yue International Limited, set up with help of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. The law firm was the source of the so-called Panama Papers, the largest leaked financial records to date that shed lights on tax scandals among public officials, corporate and the rich and famous across the world.

The Finance Ministry's directorate general of tax summoned Harry on Friday to learn why his name end was on the lists. Harry met President Joko Widodo on Thursday, also to clarify the ownership.

Harry said that he set up Sheng Yue in 2010, when he was still a lawmaker in the House of Representatives, to help with a family business. But, the endeavor was later cancelled prompting him to disown the company.

"The company has no assets. You can say it was a one-dollar paper company," Harry said as quoted by Antaranews.com, after a meeting with tax officials on Friday.

"There has been no transaction and I sold it early in December 2015," he said. He also argued that setting up a paper company is a common practice in the country that allows them, in order to simplify transactions across borders and save costs.

Ken Dwijugiasteadi, the tax director general, said that that his office is still verifying Harry's claim.

"If there are back taxes, I believe he would pay. As a public official he will show a good example to the rest of the citizens," Ken said.

Last week, President Joko instructed tax office to scrutiny every name found in Panama Papers, in order to maximize tax revenue this year.

Merkel Praises Indonesia's Development in Meeting Focused on Education

Jakarta Globe, Eko Prasetyo, April 19, 2016

President Joko Widodo in a discussion with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in
Bundeskanzleramt, Berlin, Germany, Monday (18/04). (State Palace Press Photo/Laily)

Jakarta. German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised Indonesia’s developments and achievements while meeting with President Joko Widodo in Bundeskanzleramt, Berlin, on Monday (18/04).

“It is a challenging duty for a country to develop itself, especially for Indonesia with 250 million citizens and 17,000 islands. I am amazed by Indonesia’s achievements. Surely, we can discuss many issues together,” Merkel said in an official statement.

Prior to the visit, Joko said the two will focus on efforts to increase and strengthen partnerships in vocational education in a number of sectors.

“Indonesia wants Germany to assist vocational education, especially those related to industry, such as power plants, textile, maritime and others,” Joko said.

Both leaders agreed in their meeting to follow up the vocational partnership commitment in a technical meeting in May.

Both countries agreed to complete the "scooping papers," which will accelerate the establishment of a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.

The meeting touched on terrorism and the place of soft and hard power in eradicating the threat, as well as a proposal to establish a Steering Committee to oversee the application of 2012 Indonesia-Germany Comprehensive Partnership.

Germany is Indonesia's top European trading partner and its seventh largest investor.

Why few Americans appear in the Panama Papers

Yahoo –AFP, Jeremy Tordjman, April 8, 2016

Issues of the German daily "Sueddeutsche Zeitung" featuring the "Panama Papers"
 with illustrations by German artist Peter M Hoffmann depicting heads of state
(AFP Photo/Christof Stache)

Washington (AFP) - From Russia to China, and Britain to Iceland, the revelations of the "Panama Papers" have tarnished officials and the wealthy over the implication that they hide riches offshore.

But one group is not there: prominent Americans. US tycoons and politicians are notably absent in the leaked files of the Panama law offices of Mossack Fonseca, which created thousands of shell companies worldwide to hide the identities of their ultimate owners, some of whom may have been evading taxes.

There is Hollywood mogul David Geffen, the Asylum Records and Dreamworks SKG co-founder. But there are no Americans comparable to Iceland's prime minister, or henchmen of the Russian president -- all in the Panama records -- at least in what has been disclosed so far.

"There are a lot of Americans, but they are more like private citizens," said Marina Walker Guevara, deputy director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists which coordinated the investigation and release of the Panama Papers.

However, that hardly means Americans have fully embraced financial transparency, she told AFP.

"It doesn't show that the US is outside of the offshore system; the US is actually a big player."

The Tax Justice Network's Financial Secrecy Index (AFP Photo/Alain

Bommenel, Jean Michel Cornu)

Other options

One possible reason for their small presence in the Panama documents is that US citizens hoping to hide funds and activities offshore were not drawn to Spanish-speaking Panama as a haven, when there are options like the British Virgin islands and the Cayman Islands.

"Americans have so many tax havens to choose from," said Nicholas Shaxson, author of "Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World," a 2011 book on secretive centers for hiding money.

Indeed, Americans do not have to go abroad to hide funds and activities behind anonymous corporations: they can create them at home.

States like Delaware and Wyoming allow the creation of such companies, for just a few hundred dollars, that conceal their ultimate financial beneficiary.

And while US banks are normally required to "know their customers," they can bypass that rule and open accounts for shell companies, ensuring total discretion for someone who wants to move money around quietly.

The US Treasury is moving to stop the practice, which can be used by arms and drug traffickers to launder funds and lands the United States in third in the Tax Justice Network's ranking of the world's least transparent countries, well above Panama.

"We're in the last stages of drafting the final rule," a Treasury official told AFP.

The most popular tax havens (AFP Photo/Laurence Saubadu, Jonathan Jacobsen)

'Very frightened'

But there is another possible reason that Americans are not so visible in the Panama Papers.

Spurred by the need to halt huge, blatant tax evasion by Americans using foreign banks, Washington in recent years has cracked down with lawsuits, arrests and tighter laws that have targeted both the banks offering safe haven and those hiding money in them.

Swiss banks were hit in particular. UBS and Credit Suisse, respectively, had to pay fines of $780 million and $2.6 billion for having helped US citizens hide money.

The result, Shaxson said, is that now "there are a few tax havens around the world that are very frightened of American clients, because they know that the US can hit them."

Nevertheless, the seeming absence of Americans from the Panama Papers has fed conspiracy theories, such as claims the leak of the files was orchestrated by the CIA to destabilize Russia and other countries.

But Walker Guevara said there is still a lot to be examined in the trove of 11.5 million documents that make up the Panama Papers, and there could be more about Americans in there.

"It's a huge trove of documents and maybe there's something hiding there that we haven't found yet. It's a work in progress."

"@USTreasury has taken new action to prevent more corporations from taking advantage of one of the most insidious tax loopholes" —@POTUS

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 5, 2016

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