...

Super-rich may hide up to 32 trillion dollars offshore

Society Materials 24 July 2012 04:39 (UTC +04:00)
The world's super-rich have stashed away at least 21 trillion dollars (17 trillion euros) in offshore accounts in order to avoid the taxman, according to a study released Monday.
Super-rich may hide up to 32 trillion dollars offshore

The world's super-rich have stashed away at least 21 trillion dollars (17 trillion euros) in offshore accounts in order to avoid the taxman, according to a study released Monday.

The Britain-based Tax Justice Network, an organization devoted to bringing transparency to tax evasion, issued the report. It concludes that "inequality is far worse than we think."

James Henry, former chief economist with McKinsey & Co, led the study. He found that the hidden wealth could be as much as 32 trillion dollars - equal to the combined economies of the United States and Japan, dpa reported.

Worldwide, the offshore accounts could lead to lost tax revenue of up to 280 billion dollars each year. Henry called it a "huge black hole in the world economy."

"The lost tax revenue implied by our estimates is huge," Henry says in the report. "It is large enough to make significant difference to the finances of many countries."

The estimate is considered to be conservative, as real estate, yachts and other assets were not included in the estimate.

Henry used data from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, the Bank for International Settlements as well as the central banks and finance ministers of individual countries.

The gigantic wealth is spread out among fewer than 10 million people, the report says, and "less than 100,000 people worldwide own 9.8 trillion (dollars) of wealth held offshore." dpa das vos fff Author: Daniel Schnettler

Latest

Latest