(8.April) Revelations of tax avoidance and related activities, mentioned in the leaked Panama Papers this week, could lead to a change in the current climate of tacit approval for this kind of “socially damaging behaviour”, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) said.
An example of such tax evasions is flag of convenience (FOC) shipping, which states that a vessel owned in one country can be flagged in another, and according to ITF General Secretary, Stephen Cotton, “as an FOC flag – the largest in the world – Panama is essentially a tax haven like many of the UK territories that have been mentioned in these papers.”