Marilyn Thipthorpe
How can offshore banking is explained in ways that even a kid can get it? Often times we get so mixed up with schematics and technical analogies that we forget that there’s an easy explanation to everything. So here’s a short story to explain the good and bad reasons behind having an offshore account.
What do you do when you have some change left over or want to save up for something, you put it in your piggy bank, right? You keep it on your shelf or in your wardrobe. Your mum knows about your bank and checks it sometimes to see if you’ve spent too much or put extra money in it. One day you up and think you don’t want your mum to see it any more, so what do you do? You take your bank with your name taped to it, to your best friend Samin’s house and ask if you can keep it there. Samin’s mum is always busy so she won’t notice your piggy bank in Samin’s room, and it will remain a secret. You tell your friends Amin and Kajol about this and then they go and tell some others as well. This becomes a whole community secret and all of you begin to keep your banks at Samin’s house.
One day Samin’s mum decides to stay at home and do some spring cleaning and guess what…she finds all your banks. She gets very angry and calls your mum as well as all the other parents. Now all of your parents are angry with you but all of you did not do it for bad reasons. Amin’s elder brother steals his money and he just wanted a better hiding spot, and Kajol is saving to buy her mother a birthday gift and doesn’t want her mum finding out. Hakim just thought it would be fun. Some kids did do it for the wrong reasons though like Joy, who is stealing other kid’s money and hiding it in his bank; others like Raisa are stealing from their parents.
Now, in real life, many adults have been caught hiding their money in places like Panama (imagine this is Samin’s house). The investigators have found out about the hidden stash and are really angry. It doesn’t matter if you did this for the right or wrong reasons, everyone’s in trouble now.