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The embarrassing Panama Papers revelations have not yet touched prominent U.S. citizens, corporate executives or politicians. The McClatchy group of newspapers and Fusion, a Miami-based cable station, have been poring over the records as the U.S. partners in the international reporting consortium.
They have uncovered 211 scanned U.S. passports and about 3,500 shareholders in offshore accounts with U.S. addresses.
Americans have been slowly running out of places to conceal their cash from the federal government, offshore experts say.
In 2007, the veil of secrecy was shattered by a whistleblower named Bradley Birkenfeld, who disclosed that 19,000 U.S. citizens were hiding an estimated $20 billion in Swiss accounts held by the bank, UBS.
Through a federal whistleblower reward program, Birkenfeld received $104 million and UBS was fined $780 million in a tax-avoidance case brought by the U.S. Justice Department.
That case sent a chill through the offshore world.
Whistleblowers who participate in the IRS program can receive between 15 and 30 percent of the amount of the fraud.
The IRS says it has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars under the program and has tens of thousands of cases pending.
Investing in the offshore world has never been riskier, tax experts say.
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2016/04/panama_papers_reveal_a_perilou.html
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