Rich people from these countries hide the most money offshore

A new study published this month sets out to determine which countries have the largest proportions of their GDP in offshore accounts.

The published study, “Who Owns the Wealth in Tax Havens? Macro Evidence and Implications for Global Inequality,” surmises that about 10 percent of the world’s GDP — $5.6 trillion — is held in offshore tax havens, which rises over 60 percent in some Gulf and Latin American countries.

Globally, offshore wealth increased by over 35 percent between 2007 and 2015, according to the study. An estimated 80 percent of offshore wealth belongs to the top 0.1 percent of the world’s richest families, and about 50 percent belongs to the top 0.01 percent.

The authors of the study, from economists in Scandinavia and Cal-Berkeley, also found that the level of offshore wealth in Russia — estimated at about 60 percent of GDP in 2015 — has “dramatic implications” for income inequality in the the nation.

The study’s authors found these were the following countries with the largest amount of wealth to GDP held abroad, all at over 40 percent of GDP:

Israel

Jerusalem (Flickr)

Kenya

Nairobi (Wikimedia Commons)

Kuwait

Kuwait City (Dalal Al Mudhaf/Flickr)

Russia

Moscow (Pixabay)

Saudi Arabia

Riyadh (Wikimedia Commons)

United Arab Emirates

Abu Dhabi (Wikimedia Commons)

Venezuela

Caracas (Beatrice Murch)

Zimbabwe

Harare (Wikimedia Commons)

[Bloomberg] — E.K. Hudson