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THE only two certainties we have are death and taxes, so the saying goes.

The head of a major Russian state-owned bank dismissed as nonsense reports that President Vladimir Putin is linked to as much as €2bn in offshore transactions allegedly involving people close to the Kremlin leader.

The offshore financial dealings of the rich and famous have been exposed by a cache of 11.5 million leaked records, an international coalition of media outlets said.

British PM David Cameron has come under intense pressure to crack down on offshore tax havens after a massive data leak exposed the scale of efforts by the rich and powerful to hide assets.

France’s finance minister said yesterday that Paris had not restricted the use of HSBC client data it passed on to UK authorities to help pursue tax evaders, contradicting comments by a senior British official.

Millions of emails and leaked records from offshore tax havens have exposed the identities of thousands of holders of offshore accounts, including the family of the president of Azerbaijan and French president François Hollande’s former campaign treasurer, The Guardian and Le Monde newspapers reported.