The so-called Panama Papers span thousands of pages, revealing that many of the world’s elite have been hiding their money in offshore accounts in an attempt to shield their income from taxes.
Their release—the biggest data leak in history—depicts a world of rampant tax noncompliance. However, it also reveals just how vulnerable all electronic data in the 21st century is to discovery.
One of the results of the release is greater transparency. And this trend—along with the move toward a cashless society and other economic changes—explains why the United States could one day soon close its “tax gap,” or the difference between what taxpayers are legally supposed to pay and what they actually pay. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimated the tax gap at $450 billion for 2006.
