Iceland's opposition has called on the prime minister and government to resign and planned a no-confidence vote after a leak of documents showed his wife owns a tax haven-based company with large claims on the country's collapsed banks.
The allegations in the so-called Panama Papers that were released globally over the weekend surfaced in Iceland last month, but the renewed spotlight and a planned protest later will increase pressure on Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson.
Gunnlaugsson told privately held Channel 2 he did not plan to resign.
"The government has had good results. Progress has been strong and it is important that the government can finish their work," he said. "I will listen to the peoples' stand in the next elections."
He said in a blog post last month his wife's overseas assets were taxed in Iceland and added in a radio interview he had put the interest of the public before his own in dealing with the financial claims.
However, opponents and local media have alleged a conflict of interest, and said that Gunnlaugsson should have been open about the overseas assets and the company.
The centre-right government coalition of Gunnlaugsson, in power since 2013, is involved in striking deals with claimants of the bankrupt banks.
A spokesman in the prime minister's office has said the claims of the firm owned by the prime minister's wife totalled more than 500 million Icelandic crowns ($A5.35 million).
"What would be the most natural and the right thing to do is that (he) resign as prime minister," Birgitta Jonsdottir, the head of the Pirate Party, one of Iceland's biggest opposition parties, told Reuters.
"There is a great and strong demand for that in society and he has totally lost all his trust and believability."
The coalition holds 38 of 63 seats in parliament, meaning a no-confidence motion that the opposition may bring this week is unlikely to pass.
What the Panama leak has exposed:
- 2.6 terabytes of data exposing 11.5 million documents leaked by an insider in 2015 from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca
- Papers disclose the activities of 214,000 shell companies
- Implicates at least 12 current and former heads of state and 128 other politicians to illicit financial transactions
- Russian President Vladimir Putin, former Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad among those implicated
- Data include the names of spies, drug dealers and other criminals
- Numerous celebrities and sports stars, including Argentinian soccer great Lionel Messi also shown to have taken advantage of the services of the offshore companies
World figures deny Panama tax dodge
Governments across the world have begun investigating possible financial wrongdoing by the rich and powerful after a leak of four decades of documents from a Panamanian law firm that specialised in setting up offshore companies.
The "Panama papers" revealed financial arrangements of global politicians and public figures including friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin, relatives of the prime ministers of Britain, Iceland and Pakistan, and the president of Ukraine.
While holding money in offshore companies is not illegal, journalists who received the leaked documents said they could provide evidence of funds hidden for tax evasion, money laundering, sanctions busting, drug deals or other crimes.
The law firm, Mossack Fonseca said it had set up more than 240,000 offshore companies for clients around the globe.
The firm's head, Ramon Fonseca, denied any wrongdoing but said his firm had suffered a "limited" hack on its database which was part of "an international campaign against privacy".
The United States, Australia, Austria, France, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands were among countries which said they had begun investigating the allegations, based on more than 11.5 million documents from Mossack Fonseca.
The Australian Taxation Office said it was investigating more than 800 wealthy Mossack Fonseca clients and had linked more than 120 of them to an associate offshore service provider located in Hong Kong, which it did not name.
The Kremlin said the documents contained "nothing concrete and nothing new" while a spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said his late father's reported links to an offshore company were a "private matter".
The documents were leaked to more than 100 news organisations around the world, cooperating with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a Washington-based network.
"I think the leak will prove to be probably the biggest blow the offshore world has ever taken because of the extent of the documents," ICIJ director Gerard Ryle said.
Britain's Guardian newspaper said the documents showed a network of secret offshore deals and loans worth $US2 billion ($A2.6 billion) led to associates of Putin, including concert cellist Sergei Roldugin, a childhood friend of the president.
Putin's spokesman dismissed the reports, saying they aimed to discredit him ahead of upcoming elections.
Cameron says family finances a 'private matter'
The leaks could be embarrassing for British Prime Minister Cameron, who has spoken out against tax evasion and tax avoidance.
His late father, Ian Cameron, a wealthy stockbroker, is mentioned in the files, alongside members of his Conservative Party, former Conservative lawmakers and party donors.
A spokeswoman for HM Revenue and Customs, said the government would examine the information "and act on it swiftly and appropriately."
In Ukraine, lawmakers said parliament should investigate allegations President Petro Poroshenko moved his confectionery business, Roshen, to the British Virgin Islands in August 2014 as fighting between Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists peaked.
A senior official from the General Prosecutor's office said there was no evidence the president had committed a crime.
The papers also showed the use of offshore companies by Pakistini Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's family, including his daughter Mariam and son Hussain. Pakistani Information Minister Pervez Rasheed denied any wrongdoing on their part.
German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel questioned the morals of the financial world.
"The greed of the super-rich is connected to the lack of conscience in the banking and financial sector. Both damage the trust in the rule of law. We should not tolerate the fact that one section of society works hard and sticks to the rules while another section cheats society," he said.
WATCH: Panama Papers - Aussies caught up in offshore tax probe
