Swiss Bank Confidentiality - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

genuinegirly · 02-19-2009, 10:14 AM

It's over, folks. No more hiding American money in Swiss banks.

Quote:

Swiss bank secrecy under threat after UBS tax deal
By Lisa Jucca and Jonathan Lynn Lisa Jucca And Jonathan Lynn

ZURICH/BERNE (Reuters) – Switzerland fought on Thursday to defend a landmark decision allowing bank giant UBS to transfer client data to the United States in a tax settlement that experts say will dilute bank secrecy laws.

UBS, the world's biggest bank to the rich, agreed late on Wednesday to pay a hefty $780 million fine and disclose the identity of some clients after U.S. investigators accused it of helping wealthy Americans to dodge taxes. The deal had the blessing of the government and the financial regulator.

Some experts say the settlement, a new step in the growing global fight against tax evasion, opens cracks in the country's tough bank secrecy laws and could potentially undermine $7-trillion global offshore banking industry.

Swiss newspapers said the U.S. authorities had cracked Swiss bank secrecy, accusing the government of "capitulating."

"For Switzerland, (the settlement) is a true catastrophe for the country's first industry, that is to say the banking sector," Geneva lawyer Charles Poncet, a former member of the Swiss parliament, told Radio Suisse Romande.

Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz, also Swiss president under a system which rotates the position each year, said the government had no choice but to let UBS settle the case to avoid criminal charges which could have threatened its existence and undermined Switzerland's economy. UBS and its rival Credit Suisse's combined liabilities are equivalent to about seven times Switzerland's gross domestic product.

"It became evident that if the American authorities would bring UBS to an indictment ... the whole threat would have been falling also on our economy," Merz told journalists, but added that Swiss bank secrecy remained in place.

The probe had added to uncertainties hanging over UBS, which has written down more toxic assets than any other European bank during the credit crisis and suffered billions of dollars in client withdrawals. Shares in UBS rose after news of the deal.

Switzerland does not consider tax evasion a crime, and Swiss law prohibits disclosure of client data or names unless the country's authorities believe the client has committed a serious crime such as money laundering or tax fraud.

Both Merz and UBS Chairman Peter Kurer said on Thursday the data exchange concerned solely cases of tax fraud.

"We tolerated a company culture which did not respect foreign laws," Kurer admitted on television on Thursday.

But the unprecedented step in this case was that the data was handed over before a Swiss administrative court had the chance to say whether any fraud had been committed.

"The agreement between UBS and the U.S. department of justice raises serious questions about the rule of law," Swiss business group Economiesuisse said. "It is irritating that among friendly states the legal ways are bypassed by the U.S."

MOVE Toward TRANSPARENCY

The financial crisis is adding pressure on offshore centers like Switzerland, which alone manages one third of the world's undeclared wealth, to stop helping clients hide their money from the taxman as governments seek funds to pay for more spending.

Thousands of wealthy westerners avoid taxes by hiding assets in Switzerland and other offshore centers, and U.S. lawmakers say tax havens deprive Washington of $100 billion a year.

The UBS tax settlement could set a precedent for similar deals with other banks or by other jurisdictions.

"We highlight that any success by the US tax authority could encourage tax authorities in other jurisdictions to pursue a similar strategy," Merrill Lynch analysts said in a note.

Germany has said it wants Switzerland put on a tax haven blacklist and launched a probe last year into its nationals stashing assets in Liechtenstein. The German Finance Ministry said it had taken note of the UBS deal but had no more comment.

U.S. President Barak Obama also wants to get tough on tax havens and helped introduce a Senate bill in 2007 to this end.

Former UBS banker Bradley Birkenfeld, who once smuggled a client's diamonds into the United States in toothpaste, said he and other UBS bankers helped the bank earn $200 million a year managing $20 billion in assets held in offshore tax havens.

POSITIVE FOR UBS

UBS's $780 million fine was lower than some media reports had predicted and its shares rose 4.7 percent to 12.79 francs by 9:55 a.m. EST, outperforming the DJ index of European bank stocks, which was up 1.2 percent.

Vontobel analysts said in a note: "It is very positive for UBS to have closed off the case now as it will enable them to move forwards again and to start build up its reputation."

UBS said it will book the settlement charge in its 2008 accounts, which will be published in an audited form in March.

Officials described the agreement as one of the biggest tax settlements ever, although smaller than media reports suggesting the fine could be up to 2 billion Swiss francs ($1.7 billion).

The settlement was the most prominent for UBS since it and domestic rival Credit Suisse paid $1.25 billion after failing to return wealth to relatives of Holocaust victims.

Swiss financial regulator FINMA, which played a key role in the settlement, said UBS had to hand over a limited quantity of client data to avert criminal charges.

"Such charges could have had drastic consequences for UBS and its liquidity situation and ultimately put its existence at risk," the authority said.

Swiss media say UBS turned over 250 client names out of an estimated 17,000 U.S. clients who concealed their identities and the existence of their accounts and hold $20 billion in assets.

The agreement settles the criminal investigations against the bank but not a civil case by IRS, the U.S. tax collector. The IRS is seeking the names of thousands of UBS clients.

What did you think when you heard about this?
What do you think it means for the world economy?

When I heard about this last night, I was exceptionally confused. The first article that I read on the matter didn't give any indication of why they would release client information. When I read this article, I learned it was the result of a lawsuit. I was pretty happy that this article has a bit more information on the matter.

I'm curious to see who has been evading taxes and how this will affect the banking world.

braisler · 02-19-2009, 12:36 PM

I didn't hear this particular story, but I had heard that the 'Swiss bank account' wasn't what it used to be in terms of secrecy and security. My perspective on it was that Swiss bank account were all the rage in 80's spy novels and not much else. Most of the people you hear of hiding money nowadays are offshore in the Cayman Islands or some other country or prefecture with tighter security.

If this move caused other banks to follow suit, then it might have an impact on bank regulation, tax evasion, money laundering, etc. But for now, no I don't think it will make any difference.

tisonlyi · 02-19-2009, 12:41 PM

What did I think? Another red herring hung out to the media and the public.
What does it mean? Nothing. There are plenty of other ways of hiding assets.

The British PM has been chastising the Swiss on this front as well, while at the same time the UK has more than a small offshore industry in crown possessions and dependencies, etc. The Nordic nations, as another example, have very secretive banking laws and industries, some of which are reputed to be stuffed full of Russian mob and hyper-rich-folk money, etc.

This, versus the Swiss alone, is pure theatre... and $700m against UBS? Didn't UBS receive a few billion from the US recently?

I wonder if that's related. *rolls eye*

Enjoy the circus and the show trials.

blktour · 02-19-2009, 12:41 PM

This man might be one of them.

BBC NEWS | Business | Madoff millions vanish into thin air

Cynthetiq · 02-19-2009, 01:25 PM

I don't seem much of anything coming out of this. America is one of the only countries that taxes monies no matter where the money is made by Americans. This means that you get taxed on monies you make in any other country from labor to investments, thus any interest you make on any accounts, you are supposed to pay taxes on.

Only other country that does this same thing is the Philippines.

Personally, I don't think that anything will really come of this. We'll see some items, but then after awhile it will be either back to normal, or rich people will find another location to store their monies.

guyy · 02-19-2009, 03:13 PM

The implication is that once they're done with the Swiss, they'll move on the Channel Islands, the Caimans, the Bahamas, etc. So, eventually, the rich would run out of places to hide.

About time, i say.

Bill O'Rights · 02-19-2009, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guyy

So, eventually, the rich would run out of places to hide.

About time, i say.

Well...

I have a Swiss bank account, and I'm not anywhere close to "rich". My wife's father was Swiss, and as a result she maintains dual citizenship. So, yeah, we have a Swiss bank account. I really don't think that this will affect us very much. I wish it did.

tisonlyi · 02-20-2009, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guyy

The implication is that once they're done with the Swiss, they'll move on the Channel Islands, the Caimans, the Bahamas, etc. So, eventually, the rich would run out of places to hide.

About time, i say.

That's your assumption. I wouldn't bet on this being anything but token. If it were anything other than token, then why not ask for ALL the records instead of just 20?

guyy · 02-20-2009, 04:49 PM

well, tis, in that case, why even bother going after the swiss & ubs?

The context of the article is a tightening of banking regulation, and there are indications, noted in the article, that states are no longer so cool with tax havens. How far they want to go, and how far they will get is another issue.

Cynthetiq · 02-20-2009, 08:27 PM

after reading more about the UBS thing it's not about the tax havens, it's about fraud. UBS sent representatives to the US to assist with their customers in defrauding the US from tax revenue.

I don't think that if you went there on your own and opened an account, went there and deposited funds on your own would make a world of difference.

tisonlyi · 02-21-2009, 09:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guyy

well, tis, in that case, why even bother going after the swiss & ubs?

The context of the article is a tightening of banking regulation, and there are indications, noted in the article, that states are no longer so cool with tax havens. How far they want to go, and how far they will get is another issue.

If there were a genuine will to deal with 'offshoring', 'non-doms' and tax havenry in general then the US would be simultaneously going after ALL the accounts in EVERY offshore haven... Otherwise the rich folks get plenty of time to dream up new schemes, in new countries and shuffle their assets around.

Aside from this, the real problem with offshoring is in the area of trade. Vast swathes of trade, by some account much more than half, washes through these same sorts of tax haven places (half of which have HRH QE2 on their stamps) and vastly reduces the tax burden on the corporations and companies engaged in the trades.

Sometimes, the webs of offshored companies and special vehicles that trade (technically, but not physically) flows through are staggering... cayman islands to british virgin islands, biv to dublin, dublin to isle of man, iom to guernsey, guernsey to jersey, jersey to the uk.

Sounds insane and paranoid?

Take the Banana industry as an example:

(originally in the guardian)
Bananas to Uk Via the Channel Islands? It Pays for Tax Reasons

Quote:

Think of Jersey and you think prosperous tax haven, or perhaps offshore financial center as it prefers to be called. But exporter of bananas to the UK? Surely not. Banana boats from the Windward Islands have never actually jostled with luxury yachts in its immaculate marinas, of course, but on paper a substantial volume of banana trade from the Caribbean has passed in the last 15 years through Channel Island-based offshore subsidiaries and joint ventures owned at various times by Fyffes and Geest.

Fyffes accounts for about 8% of the global banana market. Geest is no longer a banana trading company. Today three other transnational corporations dominate the rest of the banana trade. Dole, Chiquita and Fresh Del Monte account for more than two-thirds of the global market between them and source mainly from large industrial plantations in Latin America and West Africa.

Fresh Del Monte is registered in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands, and has more than 30 subsidiaries based on the islands, where the rate of corporation tax is zero. It also has subsidiaries in other tax havens and low tax jurisdictions that include Gibraltar, Bermuda, the Dutch Antilles and the British Virgin Islands.

Dole and Chiquita only identify their largest subsidiaries in their accounts but those listed include 11 subsidiaries of Chiquita in Bermuda at the end of 2006 and subsidiaries of Dole in Bermuda, Liberia and Puerto Rico. This routing of commodity trade and its associated activities through tax havens is typical of a growing trend among transnational corporations to shift their transactions between different countries to minimize their tax bills. The phenomenon, dubbed the flight of capital, is not illegal but is increasingly depriving countries in which the profits were actually earned of the ability to raise money for development or for services.

Highly profitable

Bananas are highly profitable - they are the largest single item by volume sold in British supermarkets and the third largest in value. Dole, the US-based company with a 26% global market share, supplies bananas to Tesco in the UK. Chiquita, another US-based corporation with a further quarter of the global market, also supplies Tesco. Fresh Del Monte controls 16% of world bananas, and supplies the vast majority of Asda's bananas and some of Morrison's. But governments at either end of the chain are seeing less and less of the money this banana trade generates.

A Guardian investigation of the financial accounts of the three big banana companies has revealed that Dole, Chiquita and Fresh Del Monte had combined global sales of over $50bn (£24bn) in the last five years, and made $1.4bn of profits. They paid just $200m (or 14.3% of profits) in taxes between them in that period. In some years the banana companies have paid an effective tax rate as low as 8%, yet the standard rate of corporation tax in the US where they have their headquarters and file their accounts is 35%.

Although tax havens have existed for decades, the flight of capital took off with the removal of exchange controls and the development of information technology in the late 1990s. And it is still gathering pace. Large corporations have been able to shift profits around between complex networks of subsidiaries in different countries, choosing where to incur costs, where to allocate overheads or locate assets, where to borrow money and where to make taxable profit. They tend to weight their costs towards countries with high rates of tax thereby reducing their taxable profits in those, and weight their profits instead towards those with minimal or no tax.

Over 60% of international trade now takes place between subsidiaries within transnational groups, according to the OECD. This gives the corporations unprecedented ability to engineer their finances for the greatest tax advantage.

John Christensen, a former economic adviser to the Jersey government who runs the Tax Justice Network, says the effect has been to turn the idea of free trade on its head. "In a world of globalised companies, money can be routed offshore to ensure they don't pay tax. World trade theory depends on the idea that production will flow to the place that is most efficient, but tax competition is completely distorting it."

When transnational corporations trade internationally with their own subsidiaries they use a mechanism called transfer pricing. Sales between parts of the same company are meant to take place at the open market price, at an "arm's length price". A whole accountancy industry has grown up around determining transfer prices and justifying them to tax authorities. In practice it can be very difficult to determine an open market price, particularly when trade in a particular sector is highly concentrated in a few companies.

Transnationals have developed ways of bundling up parts of their business such as intellectual property, brands, logos, marketing, insurance and finance expertise and owning them offshore. They can then charge for the use of these to other parts of their group onshore. In this way a banana may be sold by one subsidiary of a group in the country where it was grown to another group subsidiary offshore at little more than the cost of production in the originating country. The banana ends up being sold back onshore to a further subsidiary of the same company in the consuming country at a price that is close to the final retail price.

In between, royalties for the use of brands, distribution networks, insurance, finance and marketing charged to the subsidiary in the final destination country can be made to accrue to subsidiaries based offshore in low tax areas. Through transfer pricing, the taxable profit on transactions at either end of the chain, in Latin America or in the EU or US say, is kept low. At Fresh Del Monte, the company had 48% of its sales in the US in 2005 but lost $35.2m in that country. Overseas it made a profit of $133.5m. It paid no US tax but was instead given a tax credit of $8.3m that year.

The big three banana companies openly admit they use low tax areas and tax avoidance schemes. Dole said in its 2007 first half results statement: "Income tax benefit for the half year ended June 16 2007 totaled approximately $6.6m. The company expects to generate a tax benefit on pre-tax income for the full fiscal year, given it expects to incur losses in the US for which benefit will be provided and earn pre-tax income in foreign jurisdictions taxed at a lower rate than in the US. For the periods presented, the company's effective income tax rate differs from the US federal statutory rate primarily due to earnings from operations being taxed in foreign jurisdictions at a net effective rate lower than the US rate."

Chiquita says the same. "The company's taxable earnings are substantially from foreign operations being taxed in jurisdictions at a net effective rate lower that the US statutory rate," its accounts state. While Fresh Del Monte concedes in its 2006 annual report that "many of the countries in which we operate have favorable tax rates".

The big three banana producers have a long history of confrontation with the regulatory and tax authorities. When the US tax authorities investigated Dole's income tax returns for 1995-2001, they decided the company had paid $175m too little and imposed interest and penalties. In 2005 Dole received a tax assessment from Honduras, a producing country, of $137m, including claimed unpaid tax, penalties and interest. Fresh Del Monte's 2007 accounts record that it has "uncertain tax positions" to the tune of $12m, including interest and penalties of $3.7m primarily relating to tax audits in the European region that it expects to be completed this year. Its tax payments for 1988-2006 remain subject to examination by tax authorities throughout the world, including in producing countries such as Brazil, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and consuming countries such as the UK, the US, Italy, Japan, South Africa, and South Korea.

Blew the whistle

Chiquita, Dole and Fresh Del Monte are being investigated by the European Commission after Chiquita blew the whistle on an alleged price-fixing cartel among them. Chiquita is paying a $25m fine in the US for illegally funding a Colombian armed terrorist organization.

The fair trade campaign group Banana Link has also tracked how supermarket banana price wars in the UK have corresponded with moves by the big three suppliers to drive down wages and conditions on plantations in Latin America.

Fyffes, which supplies part of Asda, Morrison and Co-op demand, has its headquarters in Ireland, one of the lowest taxing regimes in Europe, where corporation tax is 12.5% compared with the UK's 30%. It lists six Jersey-based subsidiaries.

Its 2001 accounts record €17m (£11.8m) of banana sales between its subsidiaries and joint ventures with Geest through a Jersey-based holding company. It said, however, that its banana purchasing, marketing and shipping are now located in Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, and Germany and not in the Channel Islands. These particular activities ceased going through the Channel Islands in 2001, when Geest ended any banana trading.

It paid less than €1m on its profit before tax of €15.7m in the first half of this year (ie a tax rate of just over 6%).

Last year it paid no tax on its continuing operations, but its underlying tax position is difficult to assess because it broke up parts of the business in that period, hiving off its property holdings to a separate company with subsidiaries in tax havens. It said that its tax payments in the five years 2002 to 2006 were €71m on profits of €361m, ie 19.7%.

Dole declined to comment on the detailed allegations, saying that they involved confidential and proprietary information. Chiquita said it complied with all tax laws in the jurisdictions where it did business. It added that "a significant portion of our earnings occur outside the US where they are subject to taxation at the local tax rate". Both companies said they were working with Latin American unions to address workers' rights.

Fresh Del Monte said it too operated in many countries and complied with all local tax law and international tax treaties. It added that it also complied with all local labour laws, was a strong proponent of freedom of association, and that the average wage of its agricultural employees in the countries where it operated exceeded the mandated minimum agricultural wage.

The companies: Subsidiaries and savings

Dole

A US-based company with approximately 26% share of the global banana market. It supplies bananas to Tesco in the UK. It has subsidiaries in low tax regimes of Bermuda, Liberia and Puerto Rico. Our investigation of its financial accounts over the last five years has found that it paid $20m a year less in actual tax than the standard US corporation tax rate.

Fresh Del Monte

US-based corporation owned by Jordanian-Palestinian Abu-Ghazalleh family. It controls about 16% of world bananas and supplies the majority of Asda's bananas and some of Morrisons'. It has over 30 subsidiaries in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands, as well as in other low tax areas including Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands. Over the last five years its actual tax paid has been as much as $69m a year less than tax calculated at US corporation tax rates.

Chiquita

A US-based corporation with approximately a quarter of the global banana market. It supplies Tesco in the UK. It lists 11 subsidiaries in Bermuda in its 2006 accounts. Our analysis of its finances over the last five years shows that actual tax paid was as much as $44m a year below US standard corporation tax rates.

Fyffes

Irish-based corporation supplies Asda, Morrisons and Co-op in UK. It lists six Jersey-based subsidiaries. Irish corporation tax is 12.5%, compared with UK rates of 30%. It told us that its tax payments in the years 2002 to 2006 were €71m on profits of €361m, a rate of 19.7%.

© Guardian News & Media 2008
Published: 11/6/2007

So yes, this is pure theatre.

Bankers and the financial industry shaft the nation's economy on a scale of trillions (with the sums still piling up, folks... the US govt is in for a total of over $10.5 trillion at the minute) and lo... Madoff, couple of other tiny implosions and a solitary, ineffectual action versus UBS... which had already been bailed out by the US govt.

Something for the plebs to feel better about while the main event is still firmly in place.

genuinegirly · 02-21-2009, 09:38 AM

Fascinating, tisonlyi. (an aside: Thank you for linking this to the banana industry. I love it when plants come up in any disucssion.)

roachboy · 03-04-2009, 11:09 AM

Quote:

Obama bid to stamp out tax havens

Barack Obama's new administration has endorsed far-reaching legislation to crack down on offshore tax havens in a move that could end centuries of banking secrecy.

The landmark decision to prise open "secrecy jurisdictions" came last night from US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner at a congressional hearing.

It will be seen as a severe blow to places such as Jersey, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, which store an estimated $13 trillion (£9.2tn) of privately held, untaxed wealth.

"We fully support the legislation... on offshore tax centres, and we look forward to working with you as part of the broader effort to address international tax evasion," Geithner told the house ways and means committee.

Obama's decision to stamp down on tax haven abuse, estimated to deprive the US government of more than $100bn a year, could put him on a collision course with Gordon Brown.

Brown will come under intense pressure to resist the move from the City and the many tax havens which are UK dependencies or overseas territories.

Britain has recently come under international criticism for failing to join European measures to reveal the identities of those who deposit huge wealth in tax havens.

Key measures in the new legislation, likely now to be in force by the end of the year, include revealing the beneficiaries of secretive trusts and identifying "offshore secrecy jurisdictions" that "unreasonably restrict US tax authorities from obtaining needed information".

Senator Carl Levin, who along with Obama tried to introduce similar legislation in recent years, only for it to be thwarted by George Bush, said: "President Obama's support for the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, as announced by treasury secretary Geithner, is very welcome news and greatly improves the chances of an offshore tax bill becoming law this year. It also sends a strong signal to tax havens that this administration is not going to tolerate the kind of offshore tax abuses that have been draining $100bn a year from the US treasury and that, as a result, offload the tax burden onto the backs of honest taxpayers."

The US underlined its intent to crack down on tax evasion last month when it demanded that Swiss bank UBS surrender the names of 52,000 American account holders.

Obama bid to stamp out tax havens | Business | guardian.co.uk

so it appears that the move regarding swiss account holder names was prelude.
it didn't make sense otherwise.
i think it's about time, too. it should not be permissible for holders of large amounts of capital to shift it around in order to avoid paying taxes.
the entire neoliberal ideology of taxation was a joke, and this is a pretty good step toward demolishing it's expressions materially.

genuinegirly · 03-27-2009, 07:51 AM

Interesting consequence for swiss bankers:

Quote:

Swiss Banks Ban Travel, Fear Detention: Report
Reuters | 27 Mar 2009 | 10:18 AM ET
Swiss private banks are banning their top executives from travelling abroad, even to France and Germany, because of fears they will be detained as part of a global crackdown on bank secrecy, the Financial Times reported.

The newspaper quoted an unnamed head of a leading private bank in Geneva as saying steps by countries like the United States and Germany to fight tax evasion meant banks felt they had to limit travel to protect employees.

It cited four unnamed sources in the Geneva private banking industry as saying some banks were introducing total travel bans for staff, even for neighbouring European countries.

"Private bankers aren't even travelling to France. The partners are not leaving Geneva at all," the FT quoted one senior industry figure as saying.

The paper said the travel bans come ahead of next week's meeting of leaders from the G20 group of the world's biggest economies which will discuss the fight against tax evasion in offshore centres among other issues.

However, the Swiss Banking Association is not recommending its members refrain from foreign travel abroad because of fear they may be detailed as part of a global crackdown on bank secrecy, its chairman, Pierre Mirabaud, said.

"The Swiss Banking Association made no such recommendations to its members," Mirabaud told reporters. "It may be individual banks. They are free to do whatever they want," added Mirabaud, a senior partner at Geneva-based private bank Mirabaud.

Fearing that the G20 might blacklist them, Switzerland and other offshore financial centres agreed earlier this month to sign up to tax cooperation standards set up by the Organisation for the Economic Cooperation and Development.

Last year, U.S. authorities briefly detained a senior UBS employee as part of a probe into whether the bank helped U.S. clients evade tax through Swiss bank accounts.

After the probe was launched, UBS said it would discontinue offshore banking and securities services to U.S. residents and stopped client advisers based in Switzerland from travelling to the United States to meet clients.

In January, the former head of UBS's wealth management business, Raoul Weil, was formally declared a fugitive after failing to surrender to U.S. authorities on charges of conspiring to help wealthy Americans hide assets.

Since then, the world's largest wealth manager agreed to a $780 million fine to avert U.S. criminal charges, but it is still fighting a U.S. civil case that is seeking to force it to reveal the names of 52,000 clients suspected of dodging taxes.

I wonder if these bankers worry about their families' security.

02-19-2009, 12:36 PM	#2 (permalink)
braisler Addict Location: Midway, KY	I didn't hear this particular story, but I had heard that the 'Swiss bank account' wasn't what it used to be in terms of secrecy and security. My perspective on it was that Swiss bank account were all the rage in 80's spy novels and not much else. Most of the people you hear of hiding money nowadays are offshore in the Cayman Islands or some other country or prefecture with tighter security. If this move caused other banks to follow suit, then it might have an impact on bank regulation, tax evasion, money laundering, etc. But for now, no I don't think it will make any difference. __________________ --- You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. - Albert Einstein ---

02-19-2009, 12:41 PM	#3 (permalink)
tisonlyi Nothing	What did I think? Another red herring hung out to the media and the public. What does it mean? Nothing. There are plenty of other ways of hiding assets. The British PM has been chastising the Swiss on this front as well, while at the same time the UK has more than a small offshore industry in crown possessions and dependencies, etc. The Nordic nations, as another example, have very secretive banking laws and industries, some of which are reputed to be stuffed full of Russian mob and hyper-rich-folk money, etc. This, versus the Swiss alone, is pure theatre... and $700m against UBS? Didn't UBS receive a few billion from the US recently? I wonder if that's related. rolls eye Enjoy the circus and the show trials. __________________ "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}--

02-19-2009, 01:25 PM	#5 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	I don't seem much of anything coming out of this. America is one of the only countries that taxes monies no matter where the money is made by Americans. This means that you get taxed on monies you make in any other country from labor to investments, thus any interest you make on any accounts, you are supposed to pay taxes on. Only other country that does this same thing is the Philippines. Personally, I don't think that anything will really come of this. We'll see some items, but then after awhile it will be either back to normal, or rich people will find another location to store their monies. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

02-20-2009, 08:27 PM	#10 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	after reading more about the UBS thing it's not about the tax havens, it's about fraud. UBS sent representatives to the US to assist with their customers in defrauding the US from tax revenue. I don't think that if you went there on your own and opened an account, went there and deposited funds on your own would make a world of difference. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

02-21-2009, 09:38 AM	#12 (permalink)
genuinegirly Eat your vegetables Super Moderator Location: Arabidopsis-ville	Fascinating, tisonlyi. (an aside: Thank you for linking this to the banana industry. I love it when plants come up in any disucssion.) __________________ "Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq "violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

02-19-2009, 12:41 PM	#4 (permalink)
blktour Psycho Location: Anchorage, AK	This man might be one of them. BBC NEWS \| Business \| Madoff millions vanish into thin air

02-19-2009, 03:13 PM	#6 (permalink)
guyy Addict Location: Cottage Grove, Wisconsin	The implication is that once they're done with the Swiss, they'll move on the Channel Islands, the Caimans, the Bahamas, etc. So, eventually, the rich would run out of places to hide. About time, i say.

02-20-2009, 04:49 PM	#9 (permalink)
guyy Addict Location: Cottage Grove, Wisconsin	well, tis, in that case, why even bother going after the swiss & ubs? The context of the article is a tightening of banking regulation, and there are indications, noted in the article, that states are no longer so cool with tax havens. How far they want to go, and how far they will get is another issue.