South Dakota is the home of Mount Rushmore and cattle and pigs outnumber the citizens by a factor of six. It is also a favourite place for the wealthy to store their assets.
Today on Please Explain,business investigative reporter Sarah Danckert joins Jess Irvine to discuss the biggest data leak of offshore tax details in history.
Australians with undisclosed overseas assets should seriously consider making a clean breast to the ATO before the tax office comes knocking.
The Pandora Papers have been described as one of the world’s biggest data leaks and lifts the lid on the parallel economy of offshore finance.
Westpac director Steven Harker says he used a Samoan superannuation fund set up by one of the firms at the centre of an investigative journalism sting to avoid paying more tax than necessary.
The ATO says it will analyse a trove of secret documents that allegedly shows the secret tax affairs of the super wealthy and famous to see if it can identify any possible Australian links.
A massive trove of private financial records exposes secretive offshore systems used to hide billions of dollars from tax authorities,creditors and criminal investigators.