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Re:Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax h... by SandB0x on Sunday April 03, 2016 @02:40PM (#11417092)
What would be the economic impact of a country recovering tens or hundreds of billions of dollars? It couldn't immediately actual economic productivity. Would it simply work out to reducing a country's debt obligations? Would it cause inflation? In what form is this wealth stored?

This is beyond my understanding of economics, would love to get any insights.

Re:Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax h... by akamaka on Sunday April 03, 2016 @02:58PM (#11417158)
One article claims there is $20 trillion hidden in tax havens.[1]

That sounds like a lot, but considering that this is money that has accumulated over the course of decades (say 30 years), and only a portion of it would be taxable (say 20%), that would give an annual revenue stream of $133 billion per year. If that all went to the US, that would be about 7 times more than is collected by the estate tax, which is less than 1% of government revenues, but still only about half of what is collected through corporate taxes.

(That $20tn estimate is actually global, though, but no breakdown by country is given)

My guess is that it would noticably benefit a country to stop tax havens, but not to the point of any drastic difference.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/business-18944097

Re:Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax h... by drcode on Sunday April 03, 2016 @07:20PM (#11418317)
> and only a portion of it would be taxable (say 20%)

Well, I think some of these hidden funds were accumulated through outright theft and could in theory be 100% recoverable. (Though in practice any recoveries are extremely unlikely, I'm sure...)

Re:Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax h... by jblow on Sunday April 03, 2016 @03:27PM (#11417254)
$133 billion per year! That would buy us one F-35 fighter jet per year!
Re:Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax h... by cefstat on Sunday April 03, 2016 @05:07PM (#11417744)
You are off only for about a factor of 1000.
Re:Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax h... by jblow on Tuesday April 12, 2016 @07:13PM (#11484412)
Good point!
Re:Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax h... by TelAviv on Sunday April 03, 2016 @03:54PM (#11417368)
That's about 1/5th of the tax burden we pay in the U.S. dealing with obesity-related illnesses each year.