The ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) conducted a project and exposed the much-talked-about Pandora Papers. These papers revealed how famous public personalities and politicians take secretive measures to hide their activities.
A total of 12 million documents were disclosed. It exposes the secrets of the rich.
These documents describe how huge wealth is being hidden from the legal tax system schemes and stored in secret bank accounts.
It is essential to understand that the money hidden in these transactions involves earnings from illegal activities, and utilizing the legal loopholes for their benefit.
Pandora Papers highlight the problem in the legal system. It protects the highly rich and enables them to become richer.
Although these papers are leaked now, this reality was not hidden. Everyone knows that the rich pay little tax despite big wealth, and the poor are forced to bear the brunt.
As per the International Monetary Fund in 2019, up to $600 billion a year in tax is lost by the avoidance systems of the rich.
There is a massive web of the system hiding and multiple companies are set up to hide, protect and access the money of the rich personalities.
Such companies facilitate big corporations to transfer money between borders and within borders.
Big corporations take advantage of natural resources in developing nations and hire local workers. Then somehow show little or no income
And escape paying the minimum and no local taxes.
This is an exploitation of the developing countries in the South. These developing nations need jobs for their population, who in turn have to pay taxes to the country. While they also need these big corporations operating in their countries for growth in the economy.
These differences in the tax system, then lead to poor healthcare, education, and infrastructure of the developing nations. The children and young generation of these countries continue to suffer.
Jeff Bezos, (with a wealth of $210 million) is one of the richest people in the world. He reportedly takes many tax breaks for his company, Amazon.
Instead of contributing to the development of developing nations, they are eager about space exploration. Further, the human workforce is being gradually replaced with robots in warehouses for operation and management.
This is open exploitation of the poor in the world. No doubt, the priority in capitalism is increased profits. But, the corruption by such big corporations has introduced new economic colonialism, increasing the gap between rich and poor.
Another aspect is that after gaining profits by exploiting the poor, the representatives of such big corporations take part in elections and politics. They become a part of the government for the protection of their evading system and keep their secret under wraps.
If not themselves, then they fund political candidates for their win in elections. Apart from politics, they have other good job options for a secure career. The big corporations are safe with the support from politicians. They get support and favours in exchange for election funds. When they vacate the office, they have various techniques to keep their system intact.
In this case, some basic and simple reforms by authorities to tackle a small issue of this big problem do not work. The partial efforts are left meaningless. A vital change or shift in power for the benefit of the working class and poor is the best way to find a solution to this problem.
For this change, Pandora Papers are crucial because they identify more than 336 corrupt politicians. This can be a feasible step in the right direction for a significant change. But it remains to be seen what the fate of these corrupt politicians will be?