A secret cache of documents revealing the tax avoidance techniques used by some of the world s most elite politicians, leaders, and celebrities has been leaked to the press. Dubbed  the Panama Papers  the 11.5 million documents come from the servers of Mossack Fonseca, the fourth biggest offshore law firm in the world.The Panama Papers were leaked by an anonymous source to S ddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper. They were then shared with the UK Guardian and the BBC.Some revelations from the documents, according to The Guardian who describes them as  an unprecedented leak :While legal, storing money offshore to avoid taxes has been a loophole exploited by the rich and well-connected in a way that drives average citizens and taxpayers insane. In the 2012 election, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was pilloried for moving money offshore to the Cayman Islands, in what was condemned as a way to avoid paying taxes.Corporations, of course, hide their funds offshore at an even larger scale than individual millionaires and billionaires. Apple, for instance, has been exposed for this practice. Apple keeps enough money offshore to avoid paying $59.2 billion in U.S. taxes it would otherwise be liable for if it kept that money in American accounts. Google kept $47 billion offshore, while Microsoft found a way to skip out on paying $34.5 billion in American taxes by keeping its money on foreign soil.This leak won t end offshore tax avoidance, but it may put more pressure on governments to close some of the loopholes the 1 percent is exploiting as the rest of us pay our bills.Featured image via Flickr