Where are the Americans???

The Panama Papers: Where are the Americans?

For hiding U.S. money, experts say, Panama's hopelessly out of style.

By Danny Vinik

The Panama Papers sent ripples across the globe Monday after revealing that 140 politicians from more than 50 countries, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iceland President Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, were linked to offshore accounts set up by the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

Despite its breadth, the scandal so far has barely touched American individuals and companies. There were no mass protests, as occurred in Iceland where protesters demanded the resignation of Gunnlaugsson; no U.S. leaders were forced to deny accusations of tax evasion as Putin did.

How have Americans so far escaped the biggest leak of financial data of all time? It’s not because wealthy Americans don’t use offshore bank accounts to avoid U.S. taxes: they do—to the tune of $1.2 trillion in 2014, according to one estimate. Some professors have suggested that Americans may have disguised their accounts at Mossack Fonseca behind another party. But there’s also a more structural answer, tax experts say—one that has to do with shifts in global financial policy—and, to an extent, taste.

Tax evasion overall is a far larger problem in developing countries, where norms around paying taxes are weak and rules designed to stop such evasion are ineffective. And when wealthy Americans do want to evade taxes, they turn to Bermuda, or the Cayman Islands, or Singapore. They don’t park their money in Panama.

“Within the [high-net worth] world, there is a national taste as in anything else,” said Edward Kleinbard, a professor of law and business at the University of Southern California, “and I think Panama is a disfavored country among U.S. advisers because it is viewed as an outlier relative to world norms.”

If the Panama Papers had come out in the early 1980s, the scandal may have implicated far more Americans. Back then, experts say, Panama was a popular spot for parking money offshore for its lax bank secrecy laws and currency controls. But in 1989, under then President George H.W. Bush, the U.S. invaded Panama and deposed the military dictator, Manuel Noriega, and wealthy Americans have largely avoided the country since.

At the same time, countries such as Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and the Cayman Islands all have changed their laws to court investment, giving them significant advantages over Panama. Those three countries operate under a derivative of English common law, which gives American lawyers a sense of familiarity and confidence in their legal systems. Further strengthening that trust, Panama is a Spanish-speaking country, while Bermuda, BVI and the Cayman Islands all use English. Wealthy Americans are also more confident in the political systems of the three countries as opposed to Panama, which many see as more unstable. Other countries have also become more appealing spots to hide money by combining strong bank secrecy laws with a stable legal and political system.

“If there was a leak from Singapore, as opposed to Panama, which is what we have so far, we might find more [evasion],” said Reuven Avi-Yonah, a law professor at the University of Michigan who has testified before Congress about tax evasion.

Last year, economist Gabriel Zucman in his book “The Hidden Wealth of Nations” estimated that 8 percent of the world’s financial assets were held offshore, costing governments nearly $200 billion a year in lost tax revenue. But that 8 percent figure masked wide variations between countries. America’s offshoring problem is relatively modest. While 4 percent of U.S. financial wealth was held offshore, that number was 52 percent for Russia and 57 percent for the Gulf countries.

The United States and other European countries have made cracking down on offshore tax evasion a priority in recent years. Congress passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in 2010, which imposed new requirements on foreign banks to provide information about their American clients. Since the law took effect, there has been a notable uptick in the number of Americans renouncing their citizenship. But experts also say it has also made a tangible impact on reducing tax evasion.

“The United States and other countries have made a lot of progress on shining a light on the assets of individuals from their respective countries held in offshore accounts,” said Kleinbard.

One place Americans can hide assets, though? The United States. Experts point out that it's stable, it's safe, and the laws make it fairly easy to structure your holdings – legally – to keep taxes low.

“Not too surprised,” Zucman wrote in an email about the lack of Americans in the Panama Papers. “Part of the reason is that it’s unfortunately way too easy to create anonymous shell companies in a number of US States like Delaware and Nevada, so no need to go to Panama.” In fact, multiple international organizations rated the U.S. as one of the world’s biggest tax havens last year.

So even as Congress has passed laws like FATCA to force foreign banks to hand over more information about Americans, the U.S.’s own legal system offers them plenty of creative ways to stash their money. For instance, a limited liability company, or LLC, acts as a partnership, so any income is passed through to the partners, avoiding the corporate tax. For foreign-owned LLCs, this structure allows them to avoid U.S. taxes.

According to Fusion, which collaborated on the Panama Papers release and also raised the question of where the American names were, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has identified 211 people with U.S. addresses in the data—not necessarily Americans, but account holders whose address is listed in the United States.

None of the half dozen tax experts I spoke with were surprised with the lack of American names in the Panama Papers. And they also emphasized that storing money in an offshore account does not necessarily mean that the account holder is breaking the law. The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which was one of the leading news organizations behind the leak, has been careful not to accuse any of those with accounts at Mossack Fonseca of wrongdoing, and it has not released—and does not intend to release—the actual data.

But the paper does intend to release more stories in the days ahead, and those stories may include more Americans. When asked about the lack of Americans in the original release, the German newspaper’s editor responded mysteriously: “Just wait for what is coming next.”