You shouldn't be surprised a firm in Panama is involved in global financial corruption

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel very interesting, this fact has a lot to do with it in my opinion.
He says that’s because Panama has long been the site of much corruption.
In the Transparency International Index, Panama is ranked 72 out of 168.
“Panama has for a very long time been the site of much corruption, political intrigue and financial exchange,” he explains. “There is a reason the canal was built there.”
Panama is a highly strategic site in the Americas. It's a political and financial space that connects North and South America. It is far closer to Europe that many other Latin American capitals. And it has lots of links with people and businesses from Asia.

I've read a few articles over the last two days or so about this topic. One comment caught my attention and I semi-agree with it:
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"The actual US tax rate isn't the problem.
The problem is how we have our taxes set up for foreign sales.

Lets pretend you're setting up a company to sell widgets in US, Canada, and Mexico.

If you set up in Canada or Mexico:
You pay US taxes for sales in the US.
You pay Canadian taxes for sales in Canada.
You pay Mexican taxes for sales in Mexico.
Duh, right? Yeah, well that's the rules for setting up in a lot of countries...

Now, Lets say you set up in the US:
You pay all of the above, same-same in every country.
AND you pay extra taxes on any profits in an area with lower taxes than the US has, to raise those taxes to the US rate. So if you paid 10% taxes in Ireland; you owe 10% to them, and another 29% to the US to raise those taxes to the 39% US rate. Canada or Mexico won't do this, but the US will.

There is no rate for US taxes that evens this out and makes you competitive worldwide. You are always financially better off being based on a country that doesn't double-tax you on top of the tax rate where the sale was made.

So regardless of the US rate (unless it is the lowest worldwide and you'd never hit this 2nd taxing at the US rate) the US is still going to be less competitive that being based in another country as soon as you're looking at going for multinational sales.

This isn't a new or unknown issue; but it's one we're for some reason unwilling to resolve. And Companies keep looking at the setup and realizing that being based NOT in the US is a benefit regardless of specific tax rates.

If your goal is to keep pushing businesses out of the US, keep this setup.
If your goal is anything else; then leveling the playing field seems something worth looking into."
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It's one thing to launder money through shell accounts/companies...which is illegal. However, it isn't illegal to bank offshore in order to legitimately save a individual/company from being over taxed. (As long as those individuals declare all assets offshore to any tax authority where they have an obligation to declare them, and they pay any taxes due, they are acting legally.) The US Treasury via the use of FACTA is making agreements with numerous countries in order to have them report offshore accounts held by Americans. There's countless loopholes for individuals and companies to utilize to avoid increase taxes or even paying taxes at all (which is definitely illegal). Also, the US government has their own regulation FBAR...that is rather redundant of the Treasury's FACTA - but with the Panama scandal, we might see those two condensed and passed into a single regulation.

Cliff-notes: Taxes....grrrrr!