GLOBAL trade unions welcomed yesterday the revelations of corporate tax avoidance in the Panama Papers leak.

International Transport Workers’ Federation general secretary Stephen Cotton drew the link between Panama’s position as a tax haven and a maritime flag of convenience.

“And who pays the price? Seafarers, who are subject to poor conditions and lower wages because they’re at the mercy of a system that allows for minimal regulation and the acquisition of cheap labour.”

Public Services International general secretary Rosa Pavanelli said money for vital public services “has been swindled away from the people.

“The victims of tax evasion have a human face: they are the children who attend deteriorating schools, the elderly who see their health costs rise,” she said.

But the revelations by the corporate-sponsored International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the US government-funded Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project are likely to be just the tip of the iceberg.

British documentary-maker Mark Donne told Telesur news on Wednesday that Mossack Fonseca, the company at the centre of the scandal, was not even among the top 10 tax avoidance law firms.

“Every single one of the top tax haven law firms are headquartered in London or headquartered in a UK overseas territory.”

Mr Donne pointed out that the world’s biggest tax avoidance law firm, Maples and Calder, was founded by the
late Conservative Party MP and deputy chairman John Maples.

He said that transnational corporations’ network of shell companies in offshore tax havens amounted to a “second British empire” that had robbed developing nations of much-needed revenue.