It appears our international investigation of offshore tax havens may have prompted government tax authorities to go public with their own data digging operations in pursuit of international tax evasion. 

On Thursday, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, along with British and Australian tax authorities, jointly announced that the three nations “have each acquired a substantial amount of data revealing extensive use of such entities [tax havens] organized in a number of jurisdictions including Singapore, the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands and the Cook Islands.”  These are roughly the same jurisdictions being investigated using a similar amount of leaked data by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the international arm of The Center for Public Integrity.

As the Guardian reported in a page one story on Friday, more than 100 of Britain's richest people have been caught hiding billions of pounds in secretive offshore havens, sparking an unprecedented global tax evasion investigation. George Osborne, the British chancellor, warned the alleged tax evaders, and a further 200 accountants and advisers accused of helping them cheat the taxman: "The message is simple: if you evade tax, we're coming after you." The IRS said in a statement, "Our cooperative work with the United Kingdom and Australia reflects a bigger goal of leaving no safe haven for people trying to illegally evade taxes.”

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a project of the Center for Public Integrity, today acknowledged the announcement that U.S., British and Australian tax authorities are working with a gigantic cache of leaked data that may be the beginnings of one of the largest tax investigations in history.

The secret records are believed to include those obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that lay bare the individuals behind covert companies and private trusts in the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands, Singapore and other offshore hideaways.

The hoard of documents obtained by ICIJ represents the biggest stockpile of inside information about the offshore system ever gathered by a media organization.

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service said in a statement the three nations “have each acquired a substantial amount of data revealing extensive use of such entities organized in a number of jurisdictions including Singapore, the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands and the Cook Islands.”

It said the data “contains both the identities of the individual owners of these entities, as well as the advisors who assisted in establishing the entity structure.”

The statement said early analysis had uncovered information that may be relevant to tax administrations of other jurisdictions that they would be willing to share, at the request of other countries.

Throughout the past two weeks, the Center for Public Integrity encouraged our readers to support nonprofit journalism. We are happy to report that our campaign goal was exceeded! We want to thank our supporters for understanding the importance of the Center’s work.

We are staffed by a team of courageous journalists who work hard to bring you the truth-telling reporting that has made the Center an award-winning organization.

We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit journalism organization, so our investigations can’t happen without support from individuals like you. That’s why assistance from our readers is essential.

Through a nonpartisan and unbiased approach, the Center is fearless when reporting on issues such as, money and politics, health, workers rights, the environment, and social justice.

We want to thank everyone who supported our work during this campaign. We surpassed our goal of $15,000, and with the generous match from a Center board member, we will double this amount – making twice the impact.

Support from our readers is essential for continuing investigations that increase transparency and accountability. Again, we would like to thank everyone who supports our significant work.

Our brand of watchdog investigative journalism generates impact again and again, as demonstrated by the examples that come across my desk nearly every day at the Center for Public Integrity.  Each time, I am reminded that we don’t spend months investigating environmental crises or secret money laundering just to call attention to problems. We publish our detailed, fact-filled investigative reports in order to have an impact, to contribute to solutions, eventually fixing myriad problems.

Let me cite some of our impact from just this last week:

Center for Public Integrity reporters Jim Morris, Chris Hamby and Ronnie Greene will receive a prestigious White House Correspondents’ Association award Saturday night for a series of reports exposing workplace and environmental hazards afflicting blue collar workers nationwide.

Their series, Hard Labor, revealed how corporate irresponsibility and lax regulation contribute to thousands of worker deaths, injuries and illnesses in America each year. The series won the WHCA’s Edgar A. Poe Award for “excellence in news coverage of subjects and events of significant national or regional importance to the American people.”

The reporters will be honored at the black tie White House Correspondents' Association dinner Saturday evening. President Obama will be among the attendees.

Other winners in 2013 are Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker for “journalistic excellence in covering the presidency,” and Julie Pace of the Associated Press and Terry Moran of ABC for White House news coverage.

Our reporting on secret tax havens continues to ignite reaction from around the globe and appears to be having a major impact in Europe. The investigative series on offshore secrecy by The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the Center for Public Integrity’s international project, draws from a cache of 2.5 million secret records. The work has prompted governments to launch investigations, and politicians and journalists to debate the implications of the records and the reporting.

Among the latest developments:

Recently, the Center for Public Integrity reported about several young men who suffocated to death in an Illinois grain storage facility. Not only did the story highlight the lack of safety precautions at a job site, it revealed a terribly broken national system that repeatedly puts the lives of workers at risk.

Within weeks, the story prompted calls for action from concerned citizens, an announcement about potential criminal charges against the employer by the U.S. Department of Justice, and OSHA’s pledge to review the workplace conditions of America’s grain workers. This type of impact is the heart of the Center’s work. But, they can’t do this type of investigative reporting without your support. And right now, I am offering to match every dollar you give, doubling your impact.

As a nonprofit investigative journalism organization, the Center relies on supporters like you in order to do its job. Their approach involves no-stone-unturned journalism that goes deep into the details and the data to reveal the truth and spark change.

The Hard Labor project revealed young workers who put their lives at risk to keep corn flowing in a bin. These individuals — some as young as 14 — should not have had to worry about inadequate and unsafe working conditions and die from the failure of the systems meant to protect them.

The Center for Public Integrity won three 1^st Place honors in the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Awards, the Society of Professional Journalists announced Tuesday, with journalists recognized for investigations into a mysterious kidney disease, the shadowy trade in human body parts, and threats to blue collar workers.

The projects were among winners in an SPJ contest drawing nearly 1,700 submissions. This is the second straight year the Center has won three top honors for public service, investigative and non-deadline reporting.

The winning projects:

• Mystery in the Fields, by writer Sasha Chavkin, photojournalist Anna Barry-Jester and editor Ronnie Greene, won  Public Service in Online Journalism. The series explored how a rare kidney disease is afflicting laborers across continents – and how governments, including the U.S., have been slow to raise alarms.
• Skin & Bone, produced by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a project of the Center, won for Investigative Reporting Online. The series revealed how the business of recycling dead humans into medical implants has flourished.
• Hard Labor, by Jim Morris, Chris Hamby and Ronnie Greene, won the top prize for Non-deadline Reporting Online. The reports exposed the workplace and environmental perils U.S. workers encounter in the face of regulatory breakdowns.

I have always believed that if we are doing our job right at the Center for Public Integrity, then our investigations should anticipate the news. That was the case on Wednesday. The Center posted an important story early that morning about the U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s failure to complete its investigations into chemical accidents in a timely manner. Further, we reported that a former member of the board believed the agency was being “grossly mismanaged.”

Later that same day, an explosion tore through a fertilizer plant north of Waco in Central Texas, killing more than a dozen people and injuring more than 150, authorities say. The horrific accident was similar to other deadly industrial accidents described in our piece — accidents requiring Chemical Safety Board investigations that have dragged on, in some cases for years. Sluggish and incomplete investigations are important because finished reports often contain recommendations that can save lives going forward. Delay has a human cost.

Each year there are some 200 serious industrial accidents like the fertilizer plant explosion that are deemed to be of “high consequence.” Yet the Chemical Safety Board — modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board — is able to investigate only a handful, and then often takes years more to issue a report.

To be fair, the Board says it is stretched thin with a budget of only $10.5 million. And as the number of such serious accidents rise, the Board’s budget has remained flat. Congress has been unwilling to come up with more resources, the Board says.