Germany may punish off-shore tax firms

Germany is considering scrapping tax benefits for companies that do business with tax havens abroad as a reaction to the Panama papers, Der Spiegel magazine reported yesterday.

Banking watchdogs across Europe have begun checking whether lenders have ties to the massive document leak from Panama that showed how offshore companies are used to stash clients’ wealth.

Four decades of documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which specialises in setting up offshore companies, showed widespread use of those instruments by global banks and triggered investigations across the world.