Never having been a financial journalist, I must confess that news like the “Paradise Papers” released Monday can be tough sledding. Wealthy people and corporations hide gobs of money offshore. Is that a news flash?

The answer is that maybe it should be. The Paradise Papers aren’t about brazenly illegal schemes. Instead, they offer mind-numbing detail on a core fact: If you have money, there’s a gigantic industry that exists to help you avoid paying taxes.

There are arguments in favor of this. Putting money offshore certainly helps business. What the Paradise Papers are all about, really, is transparency. When you see offshore practices up close, it’s hard not to at least consider the ethics.

Take the craft-selling website Etsy, which isn’t even in the Paradise Papers. A few years ago, it took steps to move its intellectual property to Ireland, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move is legal and makes sense to lower taxes. But Etsy prides itself on being transparent and socially responsible – and the move caused an uproar.

The stories detailed in the Paradise Papers are orders of magnitude more complex and murky. And in that way, they force a conversation over how we want transparent and socially responsible money management to look.

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