Gibraltar’s tax officials probe Panama Papers

Gibraltar’s tax authorities are scrutinising the Panama Papers for evidence of tax-dodging by people resident on the Rock, the Gibraltar Government said yesterday.

The development comes after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the organisation that played a key role in worldwide reporting on the documents, launched an online database revealing details of thousands of offshore companies around the globe.

The ICIJ stresses that there are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts.

But in common with governments around the world, Gibraltar’s tax authorities will pore over the documents to establish whether anyone in Gibraltar has used those structures to illegally duck their tax bill here.

“The Gibraltar tax authorities scrutinise all data available to them as standard practice,” a spokesman for No 6 Convent Place told the Chronicle. 

“Any evidence contained in the so-called ‘Panama Papers’ indicating that any Gibraltar resident has used offshore accounts to evade paying tax will be investigated in full.”

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published in searchable format information on over 300,000 offshore entities.

The data is drawn from 11.5m leaked documents belonging to Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, one of the world’s top creators of companies, trusts and foundations.

It is the largest ever release of information about offshore companies and the people behind them, although the ICIJ is not publishing the totality of the leak or disclosing raw documents or personal information en masse.

The database contains details of company owners, proxies and intermediaries in jurisdictions around the world, but it does not disclose bank accounts, email exchanges and financial transactions contained in the documents.

In all, the interactive application reveals more than 360,000 names of people and companies behind secret offshore structures.

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