Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with this update from Reuters on how David Cameron has been dealing with the fallout from the Panama Papers:
U.K. PM Releases Tax Records After "Panama Papers" Storm
LONDON, April 10 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron published his tax records on Sunday in an attempt to draw a line under questions about his personal finances raised by the mention of his late father in the Panama Papers for setting up an offshore fund.
The revelations have led to demands for Cameron's resignation and handed ammunition to opposition lawmakers who questioned why he was reluctant to detail his financial connections with his father.
Cameron took the unorthodox step of releasing the normally confidential details after saying he should have handled the scrutiny of his family's tax affairs better.
The documents from RNS Chartered Accountants - which cover six years - show Cameron paid tax of 75,898 pounds ($107,198) on income of 200,307 pounds in the 2014-2015 financial year, the most recent one included.
His income comprised his 140,522 pound salary, taxable expenses of 9,834 pounds, 46,899 pounds from half of the share of rent from his family home in London and 3,052 pounds in interest on savings, according to the record.
Scores of politicians and business figures have been implicated in the Panama Papers, including the prime minister of Iceland who has since stepped down. The 11.5 million documents leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca detail the creation of more than 200,000 companies in offshore tax havens.
While Cameron is not accused of doing anything illegal, he made four different statements over four days about his late father's inclusion in the documents.
He said on Thursday he once had a stake in his father's offshore trust and had profited from it.
He said the unit investment trust was not set up to avoid tax but to invest in dollar-denominated shares and that he had paid all taxes due on his own investment, which was worth "something like 30,000 pounds" when he sold out in January 2010, before he became prime minister.
Read the entire article here
And here's a few tweets that have caught our eye:
And here's another Cameron-related item, courtesy of Reuters:
German Politicians Urge U.K.'s Cameron To Do More In Fight Against Tax Evasion
BERLIN, April 10 (Reuters) -- German politicians have called on British Prime Minister David Cameron to do more in tackling the use of offshore companies set up in British overseas territories to evade taxes.
"We'll only be convincing on the international stage if we are, first of all, fully compliant in the EU and for me, that includes Britain exerting influence over its overseas territories - we need to make that clear to the Brits in upcoming talks," senior conservative politician Ralph Brinkhaus told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
Carsten Schneider, a budget expert for Germany's Social Democrats, the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition, also said the British prime minister needed to take action in the light of last week's revelations from the "Panama Papers".
Media that have seen the files leaked from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca say more than half of the 200,000 offshore companies set up by the firm were registered in the British Virgin Islands, where details of ownership do not have to be filed with authorities. The law firm denies any wrongdoing.
"If David Cameron still wants to be taken seriously personally and politically in the fight against tax fraud and tax evasion, Britain needs to close the loopholes in its own country immediately," Schneider told Welt am Sonntag.
Earlier on Sunday, Cameron announced he had set up a national task force led by its tax authority and the National Crime Agency to search through the the Panama Papers.
Cameron, who has sought to take the lead internationally in tackling tax avoidance and evasion since Britain hosted a G8 summit in 2013, faced calls from political opponents for his resignation last week after revealing he once had a stake in his late father's own offshore investment trust and profited from it.
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, said Britain had a "huge responsibility" as many tax havens are British overseas territories, like the British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands, or Crown Dependencies, such as Jersey and the Isle of Man. (Reporting by Michelle Martin; editing by Greg Mahlich)
You can find some nice data visualizations of the fallout from the Panama Papers here:
The International Red Cross has found itself implicated in the Panama leaks scandal and the organization is not too happy about it, according to this AFP report:
Red Cross Threatened By Unauthorised Panama Papers Link: ICRC Head
Geneva, April 10, 2016 (AFP) -- The unauthorised use of the International Red Cross's name by entities listed in the Panama Papers poses "enormous" risks for its operations and staff, the head of the humanitarian body said in an interview published Sunday.
Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), made the comments in Le Matin Dimanche, after the Swiss paper detailed how shell companies set up by Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca inaccurately listed the ICRC as their beneficiary.
"The (risks) are enormous. If we were found, for example, to be associated with an offshore company owned by an armed group, I dare not imagine what we could be implicated in," Maurer told the paper.
"We are going to do to everything in our power to stop this abuse," he added.
According to the Swiss paper, Mossack Fonseca set up two entities -- Brotherhood Foundation and Faith Foundation -- which it offered to clients as an asset holding body.
The ICRC was listed as a beneficiary of the two "foundations", without the ICRC's knowledge, a move reportedly allowed under a legal loophole.
"We have never had a relationship with Mossack Fonseca and we have never received money from them," Maurer told the paper.
Read the entire article here