5 ways celebrities in the Pandora Papers use the offshore system

Alongside politicians and billionaires, the Pandora Papers reveals how the rich and famous also make use of offshore havens, from Jackie Shroff to Shakira, Ringo Starr to Sachin Tendulkar.

Shakira did it. So did Ringo Starr, Claudia Schiffer, Julio Iglesias and cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar.

They have all set up companies “offshore,” in places like the British Virgin Islands (BVI), where tax rates are low or zero and where their businesses — and their identities — are hidden from the public.

And they’re among the celebrities, politicians and billionaires named in a trove of leaked files obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Those records are part of the Pandora Papers, an investigation of the offshore financial system that the rich and famous use to buy yachts and private jets, invest in real estate and protect their families’ wealth while avoiding scrutiny.

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Biden pushes to end ban on negotiating Medicare drug prices; Big Pharma pushes back

Undoing the ban is the linchpin of President Joe Biden’s healthcare agenda. It would mean lower costs, with savings put into things such as dental coverage for retirees.

As a participant in Medicare’s prescription drug program, Florida retiree Donna Weiner would like to pay less for her medicines, which cost her about $6,000 a year.

And as a retired accountant who spent 50 years handling the books for companies, she sees a way to get there.

“You know from working in a business that it makes no sense for an administrator of a plan or a company not to be involved in what they have to pay out,” said Weiner, who lives in Longwood, Florida, near Orlando.

For Medicare “to negotiate those prices down would be thousands of dollars back in my pocket every year,” she said.

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Modern-day mafia plagued by mismanagement and bad hires, ex-FBI agent claims

A former FBI agent who spent years pursuing New York’s mafia said modern mobs are struggling with poor management and flaky new hires who are not used to the cutthroat world glamorized by The Godfather and Goodfellas.

The newer generation of mobsters who were raised in the suburbs is accused by its elders of being too soft, stupid, and obsessed with phones, according to a Wall Street Journal interview with Scott Curtis.

One associate for the Colombo crime family, for example, is accused of sending threatening text messages to a union official being extorted.

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