What the Shadow Vault Tells Us--Quiet Fault Lines Between Japan and the Panama Papers -2016, Japan

What the Shadow Vault Tells Us--Quiet Fault Lines Between Japan and the Panama Papers -2016, Japan

In 2016, the massive internal documents leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca - commonly known as the Panama Papers - shocked the world. The confidential files, numbering some 11.5 million items, detailed methods of asset concealment and tax evasion using tax havens, and implicated a number of Japanese nationals and Japanese companies. Advertising giant Dentsu Inc. established a corporation in the British Virgin Islands, and Sony officials were also found to be managing assets in their personal names. Names of former executives of real estate and trading companies were also found to have established corporations for inheritance and investment purposes. Although the illegality is not immediately apparent, the ethical distance between wealthy individuals and society emerges behind the scenes. The IRS implemented additional taxation, and Japanese society also faced questions about wealth and responsibility. Tax havens are not merely loopholes on a map, but a mirror
of the contradictions of our time.