After an unprecedented leak from the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca, we asked you what you think of the findings

The revelations from a major leak of 11.5m files from the database of Mossack Fonseca has led to outrage around the world. As a result the prime minister of Iceland has stepped down, there have been calls for the PM in Malta to do the same, and our very own David Cameron has come under scrutiny after it was revealed his late father used offshore funds.

We asked you how you feel about the hidden fortunes of the elite. Are you hopeful things will change? Or do you think it’s just another story emphasising the gap between the rich and the not so rich?



To millennials caught in the rent trap, the Panama Papers matter | Kate Lyons Read more

‘As millennials we’re used to being fucked over’

Gavin Bray, a 22-year-old studying international business at Leeds Beckett, barely raised his eyebrows at the news. “As millennials we’re used to being fucked over,” he said. “It started with the tuition fees and now most of us won’t even be able to get a mortgage without the help of our parents. I still love this country, and I am still grateful I was able to grow up here. But this is just one of many reasons I feel I have no future here and will be moving abroad after I graduate.”

His biggest concern is that we have crossed a point of no return. “I fear society won’t have the capability to apply enough pressure into forcing change which may lead to even further secrecy measures and protection. Because it is tax avoidance not evasion it’s not illegal but it is certainly immoral. The beauty of it is the rich still use the society they refuse to contribute fully to.

“It makes me very happy that these morally inept people have finally been caught out on a grand scale.”

‘This is a class war and ordinary folk have to fight back’

David, a self-employed industry risk consultant from Hertfordshire, doesn’t believe the leaks will change behaviour. “I envisage greater levels of secrecy and more opaqueness in the global financial system as the rich, politicians and lawyers they employ restructure the system to maintain their advantage and privilege.”

From a working-class background and raised in a single parent family David was the first from his family to go to university. “I suppose I am meant to be one of Thatcher’s progeny, imbued with the culture of aggressive ‘aspiration’, but I’ve never forgotten where I came from,” he said.



“I have always been honest in my tax affairs because I am afraid of being penalised by the HMRC. The rich live by different laws. It’s one rule for them and one for us. In the context of austerity and tax evasion, the rich and powerful have ripped up the social contract with the people that had secured the rule in return for our acquiescence. The laws no longer have moral legitimacy. I see no reason why I should abide by the rules set down by the corrupt and deceitful ruling class.”



For David offshore tax havens should be seen in the context of class and privilege: “This is a class war and ordinary folk have to fight back.”

One rule for them and one for us. David Cameron should resign

‘I don’t mind paying tax if everyone pays theirs’

Carole Campbell from Linton, Cambridgeshire is now retired but used to run the post office in Haslingfield with her son. After the coalition government downgraded local post offices, reducing services and pays of sub-postmasters Carole found it difficult to make a living.

“I am disgusted,” she said. “I always paid my tax when I had the post office. I don’t mind paying my tax, we get a lot for them, but I want everyone else to pay theirs, especially those that can afford it. Sometimes it was a struggle to pay them but we always managed.

“One rule for them and one for us. David Cameron should resign. Of course he has benefited from his late father’s finances. How dare he stand up and say they have done more than any other government. I am sick of him bandying supposed facts about that are clearly untrue.”

Despite the Panama Papers Carole doesn’t think anything will change. “I am quite left wing and the idea of people hiding money away so they do not contribute to services in our country appals me.”



Jason

‘Perhaps if we stop taxing the rich so much they wouldn’t look for loopholes’

Jason Fielding, who works at Bolton Sixth Form College as an examinations officer feels very demoralised by the whole affair. “From 2010 to 2014 I had a pay freeze like so many other public sector workers,” he said. “In 2015 and 2016 I got a 1% & 0.9% pay rise respectively while MPs got 1o%. And I hear it’s due to go up another 1.3%! The rest of us in the meantime who are ‘all in this together’ won’t see a decent pay rise for a long time to come.”

In response to the Panama Papers he would like to see the world rally together and rise up against the leaks but he’s not hopeful. “In a word it makes me feel sick but doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “I’m working class and no politicians have thought about us for 30 years, and without the working class the world is nothing.



“Its time to change our ideals and greed. There will always be poor people as well as rich, always have been, but the rich are getting richer and everybody else is being left behind in a world of greed and corruption. Perhaps if we stop taxing the shit out of the rich they wouldn’t have to look for loopholes but their needs to be a balance.”

I’m working class, but politicians haven’t thought about us for 30 years





‘Enough corruption: the world doesn’t need to work like this’

A single parent living in Sidley, Bexhil-on-Sea and receiving employment and support allowance (ESA) Jon can’t quite believe the findings. “I’m very pissed off,” he said. “I have four children, a long-term condition that is getting worse and facing a cut to my income. We live in a housing association house and the amount of tax I pay is significantly more than those who have been caught with their fingers in offshore pies.”

For Jon it seems unfair that those who can afford to do so avoid paying tax. “I cannot avoid paying it and it’s not on that there are loopholes for them to avoid it. It really is not fair to make those of us who are unlucky and unfortunate to be dealt with the shit we are dealt with to pay so much more for so little in return. Especially as spending on public services are cut again.



“It’s time we took control and kicked this corrupt government out of office! The world does not need to work like this. Enough of this corruption. People are dying because this money is in the hands of greedy fuckers.”



‘The rich and powerful do not value the societies they serve’



Twenty-seven-year-old Jason is a freelance designer in London who owns his business. As someone in the top 2% of Generation Y he feels the 1% of Generation X are to blame. “I’m infuriated,” he said. “The game appears to be rigged by those who write the rules. Politicians are public servants - they should serve society, not out-manoeuvre the system.

“The fundamental issue is the rich and powerful do not value the societies they serve and rig the system to their own ends. You strip away power, wealth and we are all just human. I can’t imagine what is going through the mind of the NHS nurse/doctor, the benefit claimant or the Tata steelworker.”

The revelations however do not mean Jason despises those with privilege. “I’ve learnt that a person’s upbringing is the keystone in their character. I want to be in a nation that defines itself by progress in all walks of life. Ultimately I believe life is all about choice, its about what you can do for yourself, and in that you can define the world you want to live in - it’s just whether you care enough to do so.”

‘There is nothing wrong with legal tax avoidance’

Michael is 36 and lives and works in London. A few years ago he worked through a legal tax planning scheme that was recommended to him by his accountant. “The arrangement was not dissimilar to the scheme that Jimmy Carr infamously used,” he said. “Since 2012, my life has gradually been turned upside down. Moral arguments aside, despite the legality of the arrangement I was involved with, I am now facing almost certain bankruptcy because recent successive finance acts have changed the law retrospectively to target contractors in my situation.”



Despite trying to settle with HMRC Michael’s been rebuffed on several occasions. “There are tens of thousands of contractors in the UK who are in my situation. People are losing their homes, marriages, families and careers, and almost no one knows this is happening because of the social stigma now attached to tax avoidance - a term that simply didn’t exist in people’s vocabularies when many entered these schemes.

“David Cameron has probably done nothing wrong and in my view there is nothing wrong with legal tax avoidance. What I do find distasteful however is the hypocrisy. They have blurred the line between tax planning, avoidance and evasion, bringing ‘morality’ into an area that surely only requires clearer legislation. In this case it appears to have come back to bite them.”



Some names have been changed for anonymity.

