Winds of Change: Issue 40
In this week's issue, we take a look at the rich and the powerful evading taxes, and say goodbye to monsoon winds that have overstayed their welcome.
Welcome to Winds of Change, a weekly newsletter that collates my work as I chase the winds that bring us the monsoon and drive our turbines.
Week 3 of my notice period went by a lot quicker than I thought it would. I've told more colleagues about it, and goodbyes have started to pour in. It's bittersweet. Another 10ish days remain…
World's rich and elite try to evade the taxman
Tax havens. They're so cool. There's always an air of excitement with them, an air of mystery. But at the heart of it, they're just a way for the rich to save taxes.
Take for example this scene from my favourite TV show, The Wire. Marlo is a street gangster who sells drugs on the street of Baltimore, a very affable market. Soon enough, he amasses a small fortune, but can't utilise the money as it is restricted to dirty street dollars — both in appearance and the source of it. His lawyer helps him set up an offshore account in the Bahamas, but being a simpleton, he does not believe that his money is secure. So he takes a trip to Bahamas to check in on his account, and trust that his money is really there.
There have been multiple leaks in the past: namely, the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers. Now comes the third P: Pandora Papers. It showed that world leaders, sportsmen, and celebrities have used offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes.
Take for example the allegedly broke Anil Ambani. Despite filing for bankruptcy, The Indian Express's investigation shows that the younger Ambani brother actually parked $1.3 billion in offshore accounts.
In this episode of The Morning Brief, my friend and colleague Anjali Venugopalan explains how tax havens work, and why the rich continue to use them. Spoiler alert: using an offshore account isn't illegal, even if it's meant entirely to save yourself a lot of tax.
Anjali did a great job of breaking down a complicated topic and simplifying it so that a complete room-temperature IQ person like me can understand it. Have a listen!
Monsoon finally begins its retreat
After a three-week delay, the southwest monsoon finally began its withdrawal from India on October 6. This was the second-most delayed retreat in the last 50 years, after it began exiting on October 9 in 2019.
The withdrawal is likely to be completed in the next two weeks. Meteorological conditions can quickly change, and with the absence of favourable conditions in either the Bay of Bengal or Arabian Sea, the monsoon winds can rapidly leave the subcontinent over a matter of days. But since the country is so huge, it will still take some days.
There is a trend here to look out for: rainfall in the month of September was a third above normal, and it might be time to recalibrate our parameters for what's normal and what isn't. Climate change is here to stay, which might mean longer monsoons.
Of course, these trends need to be monitored for a few more years, but heavy October rainfall — a likelihood only along the Konkan Coast for now, might become the norm across central India, and eventually north India as well.
That's all for this week's issue. Thank you for reading! This issue was written by me, Shashwat Mohanty, and the artwork was produced by Devika Menon for Winds of Change.
I hope you learnt something new. Please feel free to reply to me about any errors or typos you spotted, any clarifications, and most importantly, any feedback. Till next Sunday!
Will miss reading 'your winds of change' every Sunday morning! All the best for the future endeavours but please keep writing your spontaneous thoughts...may be a book can be written by you soon. God bless