“Luxleaks” is a collaboration between 80 journalists from 26 countries under the auspices of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The Irish Times, along with 40 other news organisations including the the Guardian, Le Monde, Politiken, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Le Soir have sifted through 28,000 pages of Luxembourg tax documents over the past six months. The documents outline schemes through which over 340 multinational companies avoided or potentially avoided millions of euros in tax.
The findings are being published simultaneously by participants. Irish companies and companies with strong links to Ireland feature prominently and are the focus of The Irish Times coverage.
The investigation will shed a fresh and unflattering light on Luxembourg's corporate tax regime just as its former prime minster and finance minister of almost 20 years, Jean-Claude Juncker, takes over as the head of the new European Commission.
The backdrop to the investigation also includes the European Commission's probe into corporate tax regimes in Ireland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg as well as the wider efforts, under the auspices of the OECD, to create a level playing field for corporate taxation.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is a global network of 185 investigative journalists in more than 65 countries who collaborate on in-depth investigative stories.
It was founded in 1997 as a project of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organisation founded by Charles Lewis. Its remit is to focus on issues that do not stop at national frontiers: cross-border crime, corruption, and the accountability of power.
It is based in Washington DC and works with leading international news organisations including The Irish Times, the Guardian, the BBC, Le Monde, the New York Times, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Washington Post.
The ICIJ relies on charitable foundations and financial support from the public. Recent ICIJ funders include: Adessium Foundation, Open Society Foundations, The Sigrid Rausing Trust, The Ford Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts and Waterloo Foundation.
