LUXEMBURG: The EU’s most powerful official is under mounting pressure as dozens more multinational corporate names are draged into the Luxembourg tax scandal following a new leak of confidential documents.
Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European commission, has been battling to distance himself from the growing furore over the Grand Duchy’s role in facilitating “industrial scale” tax avoidance. Among the new companies exposed in the secret tax documents are Disney, FTSE 100 firm Reckitt Benckiser, the Skype internet-phone arm of Microsoft and the Koch brothers. The Koch empire is the second largest privately-owned business in the US and is controlled by siblings who fund rightwing political campaigns.