Appleby lawyers hatched plan to set up Australian office but avoid tax there

Secret proposal to set up stealth office in Sydney or Melbourne was named ‘Project Painkiller’

Lawyers at the firm at the centre of the Paradise Papers hatched a secret plan to set up an office in Australia but avoid paying tax in the country, leaked documents reveal.

Appleby staff named their 2009 Australian expansion plan “Project Painkiller”, a reference to the signature cocktail of the British Virgin Islands, a Caribbean tax haven.

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