
More Than 100 Universities and Colleges Included in Offshore Leaks Database - turkishgetup
https://www.icij.org/blog/2017/946/universities-colleges-offshore-leaks-database/
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jayess
These "leaks" are annoying. They just give you a page with virtually no
information, just a chart showing some connection. Release everything. Don't
insult my intelligence by deciding for me what to release.

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sacheendra
I partially agree with the parent. Showing these "connections" without any
context and detail is just infuriating and leads to click-bait headlines with
no actual purpose served.

I don't think they are trying to insult anyone's intelligence though. They are
just being careful with the data so that their sources are safe.

While safety is important, this reminds me of the story of the boy who cried
wolf. If they keep doing this multiple times and there is no substantial
info., people will stop paying attention when there is some real info. and
demagogues will use this as evidence of fake news.

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ellius
The problem is that incorporation documents are frequently only a small part
of the story. It does allow you to correlate ownership, but unless you can
actually show some kind of money movement into and out of accounts, it is
difficult to show evidence of a particular crime.

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tonfa
Looked at one randomly, looks like some University fund is a shareholder (with
over 200 other funds) of a Warburg Pincus fund (a private equity company).

I'm not exactly sure how that's a big deal, nothing there implies they avoid
taxes or anything. (Maybe the fund they invest in does shady things, but it
doesn't look like they have any kind of weird offshore setup)

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vixen99
Do you mean evade or avoid? Everyone avoids tax. Currently taxes on property
transfers in the UK are 5% on property priced at £925,000 and 10% if priced at
£925,001. I guess Joe Nonavoider sets the price at the latter figure?

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zimpenfish
> Everyone avoids tax.

No, not everyone. And not everyone evades or optimises tax either.

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DoofusOfDeath
I don't really understand the premise of these articles.

If an organization is working within the legal confines of the relevant tax
systems, exactly what are they guilty of? Being the best possible stewards of
their donations?

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ThomPete
Because the legality is set up so that it's only those who have a lot of money
who can do this.

This is the problem.

I am all for not paying more taxes than necessary but it should be the same
for everyone not just for the few with money to pay the lawyers and pay the
fees.

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DoofusOfDeath
Wouldn't that be an argument against the legislature, or perhaps lobbyists,
rather than against the nonprofits stuck with the law?

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jiggunjer
Indeed, taxes (or tax differences > 0) could be payable on income from
overseas subsidiaries.

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bkohlmann
For some reason, the top link for Stanford goes directly to the Stanford
Marching Bands homepage. A band known more for satirical themes rather than
music.

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Declanomous
Can someone explain to me why Universities, which are mostly non-taxable
entities, would use offshore banking?

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fovc
"The only time university endowments pay taxes is when they invest in debt-
financed financial firms such as private equity funds and hedge funds. These
investments are considered a business activity unrelated to their tax-exempt
missions."

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Declanomous
Somehow that part of the article didn't click for me. The NYT article linked
in the following sentence does a great job of explaining why they are being
taxed if you don't have a finance background.

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ringaroundthetx
Yeah I think ICIJ's outrage-bait here is a swing and a miss.

UBIT 40% tax on charities was not created to hit university endowments. This
is a reason to use an offshore entity.

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gaius
_UBIT 40% tax on charities was not created to hit university endowments_

So you're saying we can all simply pick and choose which laws were created
with us in mind?

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ringaroundthetx
obviously you can, not sure what the argument here is.

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ickwabe
This article provides little context or analysis. This article from the
NYTimes provides a better jumping off point on this same topic (colleges and
universities mentioned in the paradise papers) and is better at making clear
what the potential ethical problems are.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/world/universities-
offsho...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/world/universities-offshore-
investments.html)

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mirimir
I don't see Caltech or MIT. Interesting.

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jiggunjer
I don't see Europe. Where are they hiding their money?

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yorwba
I don't think European universities tend to have large funds that they could
evade taxes on, since they are usually funded _by_ taxes.

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seanmccann
You can incorporate in Delaware to allow shareholders from any US state avoid
double taxation. You incorporate (mostly funds) in zero tax countries to allow
worldwide investors avoid double taxation. A shareholder of an "offshore"
corporation often still pays the taxes in their home country.

There's certainly a lot of abuse, but there are valid reasons to own offshore
stock.

~~~
hippich
"You can incorporate in Delaware to allow shareholders from any US state avoid
double taxation" \- could you please expand on it? Are you talking about
corporate tax + dividends tax, or about something else when saying "double
taxation"?

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xbzbanna
I'm not the person you are asking, but I think it means a US shareholder in a
US company being taxed both by the state the company is incorporated in, and
the state the shareholder resides in. There are a lot of state taxes that
Delaware doesn't charge at all, or can be avoided. It's almost like Delaware
is a discount seller of corporate residency. Charge a low price and make it up
on volume. Smart strategy by the states/countries with the political will to
do it.

If you live in a state where you are taxed on your investment earnings, you
might feel "double-taxed" if those earnings were already taxed at the
corporate level.

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hippich
ah.. that sounds like tripple-taxing then. 1) Federal Corporate Income Tax, 2)
Incorporation state income tax, 3) State of shareholder residency taxing
income (and then shareholder spending money to buy things and pay sales tax..
- 4?)

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seanmccann
Funds with international investors often incorporate in a place like the
Caymans. If the fund was incorporated in the US, a UK investor "deal with"
US+UK tax, even if they don't visit or do business in the US.

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icc97
The UK's offenders:

* Oxford

* Cambridge

* The University of Law Employee Benefit Trust

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stordoff
Cambridge, FWIW, seems to be mostly individual colleges rather than the
University itself. Given the size (and presumably diversity) of their
endowment assets[0], I don't find this much of a surprise.

[0] e.g. Trinity ~£1bn per [https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/alumni/giving-to-
trinity/annual-r...](https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/alumni/giving-to-
trinity/annual-report/financial-faqs/), Gonville and Caius ~£150m per
[https://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/alumni/campaign-brochure/the-
endow...](https://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/alumni/campaign-brochure/the-endowment)

~~~
icc97
I'm guessing these are just the ones that got caught. I would be surprised if
the London Universities e.g. Imperial, LSE would miss out on doing similar
things with their funds.

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d--b
At this stage it's the companies that _don 't_ do offshore tax avoidance that
deserve front page news...

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rubatuga
Surprising to see University of Toronto there too. I was expecting only US
ones for some reason.

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0xbear
Why was it surprising? [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/05/justin-
trudeau-...](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/05/justin-trudeau-
adviser-stephen-bronfman-offshore-paradise-papers)

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sendaikiri
"Paradise Papers" should be in the title.

