Slashdot Mirror
Swiss Bank Secrecy Under Renewed Attack
Stanislav_J writes "All you wealthy Slashdotters better start making alternate arrangements for stashing your millions. Switzerland's storied role as discreet banker to the world's tax-avoiding wealthy is under threat like never before, and this time the country ultimately may not be able to stop the rest of the world from prying into those legendary 'secret' accounts, said to contain between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. A massive German tax-evasion scandal is putting pressure on the Swiss to cooperate, and the rest of Europe is also hardening their resolve to force change upon them. Per the article, 'The official Swiss reaction has been self-conscious detachment, which they hope will deflate the issue,' but even their own citizens are not too concerned about those outside their borders: 80% of Swiss support the banking confidentiality law, but that number drops into the 40s when it is applied to foreigners. Pressure is also coming from US pols — not the 'let's pry into everyone's business' Republicans, but the 'make the rich pay their fair share' Democrats, including Illinois Senator (and presidential candidate) Barack Obama."
But downright wrong when it enables someone to evade taxation like the rest of us. Striking a balance will be a difficult task.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I've stashed my millions in virtual banks and real estate in Second Life. There's no way that can turn out badly.
It's not so much about the banking laws n Switzerland proper, it's more about Lichtenstein and their completely anonymous foundations. Plus the fact that Lichtenstein (not Switzerland) does not consider tax evasion even a crime, so good luck to get them to tell you anything.
Worse or better, the scandal is already slowly declining. (Basically it has dropped from the news, or at least the front page of newspapers. E.g. the issue of getting rid of Mr. Beck, the party leader of the SPD seems to be way more interesting currently)
yacc
heh. you must be new here....
Get the regulations in their own nations properly attuned first.
Especially in the US, where businesses, media outlets, and telecoms have been increasingly 'freed' of regulations necessary for the maintenance of the public good since reagan took office back in the late 80's.
This includes but is not limited to finances.
(my first priority would be the media ownership regulations, the removal of which has resulted in the formation of the largest political propaganda machine since hitler's information ministry)
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You can't have it both ways. It's like trying to say "oh, secrecy is great, but not when it allows THE TERRORISTS to run amok!"--just find some reason to point out why secrecy allows some perceived ill to take place and then you can easily get rid of it for everything, because you can't have secrecy only for "good" things and "no secrecy" for "not-good" things. If you have secrecy, then yes, you're going to have people break the law to use that secrecy... and, being shielded by secrecy, people aren't going to know if you're being good or bad. Also, I see no problems people allowing people to evade taxation "like the rest of us". Why shoot yourself in the foot?!
The Swiss economy is basically subsidised by victims from the rest of world.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
In "Earth," by David Brin, there's actually a big campaign to uncover all those secret bank accounts, and the whole situation devolves into a war against Switzerland.
This statement actually surprised me:
During a meeting of his Rotary Club in Zurich, his fellow members were appalled that Swiss bankers might be managing the money of foreign tax evaders. "We had no idea," Mr. Hummler recalls them saying, "that you did things like that."
I don't pay a hell of a lot of attention to financial news, or banking laws.. but even _I_ know that the Swiss have built a long reputation on providing accounts to foreigners trying to avoid taxes in their home country. Isn't this just common knowledge? I'd think it'd be even more common knowledge in Switzerland.
AccountKiller
There is no question this is unethical. Switzerland is profiting from these investments and other countries are having to pay the bill (both monetary and socially). It is no surprise that criminals and criminal organizations have used this loophole to continue their practices. Switzerland's practice is hurting these other countries in a very real way. If they want to continue granting this right to their citizens, fine. But they do not have some privacy right to extend this practice unethically to foreigners.
You can't have it both ways.
Why not? I don't think the poster said individual privacy rights were inviable. Get a warrant issued by a judge for a valid reason and the government can look at mostly whatever it likes. The only exceptions (I think) are lawyer confidentiality, and doctor/patient confidentiality.
The only difference here is that Switzerland seems to have a banker/client confidentiality, which seems a bit strange to the rest of us to throw it in with doctors and lawyers. Even that may I believe is cracked open for criminal cases, just not for tax evasion in a foreign country (which I believe isn't illegal in Switzerland).
AccountKiller
Yes, Switzerland has a long tradition of bank secrecy. Here it is considered a natural part of one's right for privacy.
But among the many tax havens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_haven#Examples), Switzerland is among the best world-citizens: while it still offers secrecy, it has had for several years agreements with the US and the European Community to tax capital income from foreign citizens. The principle is: we preserve secrecy, but we will tax the funds for you.
For money laundering too, Switzerland offers one of the highest levels of scrutiny from the countries above.
Given the number of alternatives, it is not in the interest of the international community to shut down Switzerland.
In Europe alone, Luxembourg, Austria and Malta offer similar levels of secrecy. And it is not in Europe's interest to shut its internal secret- and law-abiding banks.
So the whole story is overblown. Is it just anti-marketing against Swiss banking?
This said, the current affair relates to Lichtenstein - an independent state attached to Switzerland like Monaco is attached to France. Like Monaco, this "small rock" of a state is known to have more lax practices. It would not hurt to take some balancing action there.
[Disclaimer: I'm a Swiss citizen, but have no vested interest in any Swiss bank - I'm a worker/small entrepreneur in the medical/software industry, not a capitalist nor an investor (I do not even play on the stock market). But like many citizens here, I see bank secrecy as just another facet of privacy, which is not incompatible with fair taxation and a fair social system.]
Wall streeters and corporate types who engage in tax evasion and other financial crimes of this level do their dirty work through corporate subsidiaries.
Corporations should not be entitled to "human" rights.
The myth of corporate personhood needs to be firmly put to rest. Either that, or limited liability should end when you have the power to make major unilateral decisions within that firm.
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I read an article that claimed that Singapore was trying to position itself as the new bank secrecy country.
Do we have the right to unethically extend freedom of speech to foreigners? The right to banking privacy is considered a defense against government tyranny, just as Free Speech.
While I personally think that the cost's of banking privacy do not justify the benefits, that is a discussion for the Swiss. But while they hold these values, they have just as much right to hold the rest of the world to their values as we do to ours.
Between the rambles, the cliches, the sudden topic changes, somewhat fractured grammar, the dubious attempts to apply American political stereotypes to Switzerland, this has got to be the worst summary I've ever seen on slashdot. Even Michael or Zonk on (hypothetically) quaaludes could have done better.
Remain calm! All is well!
Do you honestly think Switzerland is implementing these privacy provisions to protect oppressed foreigners? Or do you think that they are doing it for their own profit?
We have two ethical issues that need to be resolved here. The first is the right to privacy of your income and assets from your government. The second is the motivation of Switzerland's bank privacy provisions.
In the first case you will need to argue that a person has a right to protect income and assets from their government. In my opinion, it is ethical for the government to be able to examine income and assets for taxation purposes. I base this on an argument of comparable moral values. However immoral it is to tax the rich at a higher rate than the poor is balanced out by two factors: (1) the rich created their wealth through a society that has good health, education, and infrastructure, and (2) the overtaxing of the rich causes a lower personal burden for them than equal taxing of much larger numbers of the poor and middle class. I'm not arguing for a massive redistribution of wealth, only that the poor and middle class have a chance at a decent quality of living and that there is a decent chance for an individual to change his or her social class.
Even if you don't agree with my argument for the first case, you will still have to sustain the morality of the second case. I would argue that their inflated GDP per capita (about 30% higher than their neighbors) is not based on superior government or natural resources but on their financial institutions which have gained an incredible competitive advantage due to their laws. I would also note that Switzerland taxes its rich much higher than they tax their middle class or poor which would undermine a Swiss moral argument against the first case.
This is not really about the Swiss as much as it is about Privacy and Tax Evasion. The fact it occurs in Switzerland is incidental. If the ability for foreigners to maintain private bank accounts was eliminated in Switzerland tomorrow, it would just move some place else.
Everybody has always known that Switzerland is used for tax evasion. From the very very beginning, since we started doing income taxes in the US. I am not sure about cultures in other parts of the world, but in the US it became "public knowledge" a long time ago. Just recently I was watching an episode of MASH on TV, which was filmed in the 70's and set in the 50's where Switzerland and Tax Evasion was mentioned. So it is not new, and it is not shocking.
What I find strange is that anybody is trying to do something about it. I wholeheartedly believe that the political systems in most western countries are irreparably broken and absolutely corrupt. The only logical conclusion is that position of those in power have shifted their ideology and wish to trade the value of secrecy for the value of intelligence (data).
Privacy takes power away from governments. Tax Evasion does not always require privacy. It certainly helps, but it is not required. So I view this as mostly an attack on Privacy with the "cover" of going after Tax Evasion.
Taxes are a controversial subject, but I really see it as a choice between 2 systems.
An active system which grants authority to take away privacy through auditing and information policies and the legal foundation to seize property. This is what we have now. A system that grants a large amount of control to certain people that through a perverted legal authority can destroy lives with a guilty-first, innocence-proven-later approach. Additionally, the value of the data, and the ability to gain said data, is way to attractive to other governmental agencies that wish to use it as leverage or in some other "intelligence" related manner. What I have always found so despicable about this approach is that once you "kill" somebody and realize it was a mistake later, you cannot raise them from the dead. Also, a dead person cannot defend himself. Many Americans have been destroyed by the IRS only to prove themselves correct later. This was of course after all their property was confiscated and sold. I am not saying there are true tax evaders, but for every 10 of those I would speculate at least 1 person is truly innocent.
The other system would be a passive system. One in which Privacy can co-exist harmoniously. Instead of taxing personal income, just tax purchases. A consumption tax, which is not unheard of in the US, and did in fact exist in its past. There are alternatives to a consumption tax and the basic idea is to not tax income, but to tax expenses. The government would have no business in the private financial affairs of its citizens anymore. Banking data would become intensly private, as it should be. Why care if somebody has 100 million dollars in the bank? The moment they try to live their lives in a higher standard of living than the average person, they must start paying higher than average taxes. The taxes on those private jets and the gasoline alone would represent the yearly taxes for whole neighborhoods and communities of people. What happens when they die? They leave 100% of it to their children with none of going to the state in the form of death taxes. Same situation all over again. The kids would have to pay taxes on any "big ticket" items they purchase as well. Flat taxes, consumption taxes, etc. WORK. They just don't work for the real interests of the government.
In any case, the tax environment in the US and many countries was setup from the very beginning to favor the tax evader. It was meant to tax the poor and the middle class while providing methods for the rich and the elite to hide their wealth.
If you think I am too cynical... pick up any copy of "Millionaire" or "Billionaire" magazine or any similar publication and look at the full page advertisements for "Asset Protection", "Tax Deferment", or "Zero Tax Liability".
Britain turned down the chance to recoup £100m (133m) in unpaid taxes from UK residents with bank accounts in Liechtenstein at least two years ago because revenue officials refused to pay a whistleblower a tiny fraction of that sum. The informant turned instead to Germany's secret service, selling a list of at least 750 wealthy Germans with money stashed away in Liechtenstein. This has sparked Berlin's biggest crackdown on tax evaders and triggered a diplomatic row with the principality. . . Read more via the FT. http://search.ft.com/ftArticle?queryText=lichtenstine+secret+service+tax&y=0&aje=true&x=0&id=080225000064&ct=0&nclick_check=1
One myth that people keep repeating is that the wealthy don't pay tax.
And it would be a myth if it weren't true...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/business/03tax.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
"About one in every 436 high-income Americans paid no taxes in 2002, up from one in 531 in 2001 and one in 1,010 in 2000."
the fact is this is total bullshit, the top 1% in america pay almost 50% of the tax
Actually, its the two 2% paying 53% (which is also in the cite I provided). But close enough.
The trouble however, is that a middle class american pays 30-35% in taxes, while a high-income american pays, on average only 18%.
So sure, if you make 146M bucks, yeah, your paying $26M in taxes. But if you take 1460 families that each make $100,000, that's the same 146 million in aggregate, but they each pay ~33k in taxes on average,... or 48M in aggregate.
Why do they pay 48M when you only pay 26M?
The high-income earners have considerable income from 'investments' not just 'wage/salary' which is taxed differently and wage income has far fewer loopholes and options than investment income, and there are countless more ways to leverage your money too the more you've got to shuffle around to maximize tax savings.
They're more likely to be 'self employed' at least with respect to some investment or other and suddenly that trip to the bahamas is a tax deductible 'annual meeting' instead of a 'vacation', and the twice yearly jaunts to Mexico? Tax deductable trips to inspect their investment rental properties....
Their car? Tax deductible lease payments, maintenance, and fuel... Their mortgage? Bah, who are we kidding they don't have a mortgage, but they do have a HELOC to buy even more investments, and the interest on the HELOC? Because its being used to buy goverment approved investments...you guessed it... tax deductible. The tax savings more than offset the interest, meanwhile the investments themselves can make money too.
The wealthy pay more taxes than the middle in total, but its the ones in the middle who see the largest chunk of each dollar bitten off by the IRS never to be seen again.
>And I find it quite funny that some people think tax evasion is not a crime.
I'm not sure where you're from, but Tax Evasion is a founding principle of the USA
(cf Boston Tea Party, Stamp Act). It not only isn't really a crime, but it generally
respected as a virtue, at least until you get caught. Which is usually only when the
government gives up trying to catch at something that's really a crime (cf Al Capone).
<script>alert("I never liked JavaScript, really; it just seemed a bad idea.");</script>
Let me fix that for you:
sed -i s/scumbags/politically disadvantaged minorities/ $GP
There, that's better.
Either privacy of commerce is a right or it isn't. If you really want to give that right up, I'm sure there are plenty of governments that would appreciate it and might even give you a sticker or a stamp to replace that pesky liberty you relieved yourself of.
<script>alert("I never liked JavaScript, really; it just seemed a bad idea.");</script>
Tax evasion is not Liberty - it's criminal activity. Responsibility and accountability comes with this thing "Liberty" you toss around so haphazardly.
Horns are really just a broken halo.
"The only difference here is that Switzerland seems to have a banker/client confidentiality, which seems a bit strange to the rest of us to throw it in with doctors and lawyers. Even that may I believe is cracked open for criminal cases, just not for tax evasion in a foreign country (which I believe isn't illegal in Switzerland)."
I am swiss. Tax evasion is illegal in switzerland by law but the banking secret usually makes it impossible to track it down. Most swiss people have not much of a benefit about this banking secret. It's the foreigners with shitloads of money which profit (we won't see tax for their illegally stored money neither) but we get into loads of troubles in foreign affairs (politics).
It's still not understandable to me why a country has to protect a private industry by law to make breaking the law possible. the only ones which benefit from this are the banks. The ones which loose because of it are the people.
About damn time to get rid of this law.
kind regards,
-S
If you work very hard in Germany and earn say $150k a year, you pay 50% tax.
This is simply a lie. You pay 35%, which you can easily check at several online tax calculators, such as http://www.zinsen-berechnen.de/einkommensteuerrechner.php. And that's only if you are stupid enough to tax everything.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Libertarians whole heartedly do not care about the public good
That's a rather vicious smear, not to mention being a baldfaced lie. Libertarians care far more about the public good, particularly about our freedom, than those on the right or left who constantly seek to increase the power of the government. We've noticed that the freer we are, the better off we are.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Well, I'm not Swiss, but I worked at all the major banks in Switzerland (and work in one presently).
The bank secrecy has been a boon to the Swiss banking industry. Make no mistake, not only has this created jobs, but it also works as a "Sozialamt", because a bank will employ up to five people (mostly Swiss, of course) to do the job of one single person, all the while the five will whine how "overloaded" they are.
If the Swiss banks didn't have the banking secrecy laws, at miserable (and laughable) 1.85% interest, it wouldn't be interesting to siphon money into Switzerland, so about four in five of your countrymen wouldn't have a job, and couldn't take their expensive vacations two to three times a year!
As expensive and as inefficient and as bureaucratic as things are in Switzerland, what do you think, where did the money come to pay for this huge, inefficient system come? From foreigners siphoning money into Swiss banks because of the secrecy laws!
So if Confederatio Helvetica abolishes bank secrecy laws, Switzerland will be severely busted.
How then are you guys going to pay for those 2-5 expensive vacations per year? And where are the other four guys going to go? Let me remind you, your conuntrymen consider themselves above menial jobs, like the Baustelle, or Kellner...
Oh, won't someone PLEASE THINK OF THE TERRORISTS!
geeze. i can't believe how blind some people are. as has obviously been pointed out before, the Swiss provide a financial anonymization service. they have removed their own imperfect judgement of what constitutes right and wrong and simply act in good faith for their clients. yes, sometimes this system is abused (nazi gold and various tax evasion schemes, etc), but the principles of the system are no different than you wanting privacy for all users of the internet, for wanting secrecy in your instant messaging systems, deniability, the rights to use the Internet for whatever purpose you choose. the issues here are all the same. some people will use the system for the benefit of the public good while others will use it for their own selfish purposes at the expense of the public good.
if the "good guys" haven't caught on to the fact that they can exploit the system the same way as the "bad guys" then it's only their fault for missing the opportunity.
check out my comic: Essential Tremors
Well, I personally think the wealth in our country can be attributed to many things, one of them are banks which made some people super rich, this inflates the statistics. There are huge tax cuts for rich people, this is why some many foreigners officially live here, that's another reason statistics are inflated.
IMHO the wealth mainly comes from my parent's generation. the after WWII generation(s) has been working hard, this has changed.
I hear the argument "if we give up banking secret we will loose many jobs" for a long time. this is the main argument of the supporters. Problem is; although the banking industry is large (compared to other conuntries) it is still very small compared to other industries. Because they are multinational companies, only a (small?) part of their employees works in switzerland. There are companies which actually produce something, these companies employ the majority of people.
However, you are right. Abandoning the banking secret will have an impact, banks would move on and some people will loose their job or would move with the company.
The problem is, on the other hand, we get constantly in trouble about the banking secret, paying punishment tax which are not necessary. Instead of paying these tax to foreign countries, we could pay the unemployed instead.
After all, I believe it when I see it. Banking secret will not be given up so quickly (it is beeing debated in the media every 5 years or so since i am alive). It has been a "problem" for decades, banks make a lot of money, have a strong lobby. I highly doubt this will happen now.
Kind regards,
-S
Not to defend inequities in the financial class system in many countries (I'm near the bottom of it, these days) but...
One reason the rich get a lot of these tax breaks, is that they assume higher risks, and do more entrepreneurial things. Yes, if you got $100M in the bank, it's pretty easy to assume risk on new investments. Nonetheless, the risk is what is being rewarded. If you bought a condo in Mexico (not out of the question for many people who earn a reasonable salary), you too could justify a "business expense" to go visit it. If you are self-employed, and use your car ostensibly for work, you too can write it off. The tax breaks are there. If you take a 100% safe job earning a specific salary, it's true, there aren't many tax breaks; but you're not assuming much risk either (unless you rack up credit card bills and such; but that's more bad financial planning, than actual risk.)
I do agree there are some loopholes that need to be plugged; but overall, there are some good reasons for the way it is. If you have problems with specific tax-writeoffs, lobby your government representatives to change things.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Rich people don't have to evade taxes, they can afford to buy politicians to manipulate the tax code for their benefit.
The reason for the Byzantine complexity of the US tax code is that it is the result of nearly a century of politicians selling favors to contributors.
Well, not necessarily. There are some hair brained ideas for advancing "a better society". As much as Democrats stand in favor of supposedly progressive taxation, payroll taxes for social security where their idea, along with taxes on gasoline, alcohol and cigarettes in most northeastern states.
This is my sig.
I believe the Swiss bank secrecy laws were passed in 1934 in response to Nazi efforts to confiscate Jewish assets. Of course, situations morph over time. Ludwixx
There is a difference between such loopholes, which should be fixed by sane legislation, and the situation with certain countries' banking laws: In this case, we are talking about with a form of tax evasion that is illegal already in the tax evaders' home countries; the problem is that these criminals usually cannot get caught.
For example, the recent scandal about wealthy Germans evading taxes through anonymous foundations in Liechtenstein was uncovered only because a bank employee stole secret account data and sold it to German officials (and he actually got convicted for it earlier in Liechtenstein). That is, IMHO, the real trouble: Everyone knows what is going on, yet there is not even a legal way to find any sort of proof.
According to the Swiss Bankers Association, "200,000 employees work in the financial sector. That represents 5.3% of the total workforce. Broken down, 3.2% of the total workforce work for banks, 1.4% for insurance companies and 0.6% for other financial services providers."
Which is just a little bit short of "four in five" Swiss citizens.
IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The protection of Liberty makes prosecuting criminal activity more difficult. Some of us believe, with good historical evidence I think, that criminal activity is rarely as dangerous to the citizenry as an unchecked government.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Tax evasion is illegal in switzerland by law but the banking secret usually makes it impossible to track it down.
What I've been told, but don't have a hard source for, is that the Swiss court system will crack-open the privacy for cases where a crime is likely to have occurred (like say you're a Columbian drug lord, or a Terrorist). But it won't crack open the privacy where tax-evasion in a foreign country has occurred. The explanation in this difference (both being a crime in the foreign country) was that tax-evasion in Switzerland is a crime, but tax-evasion from foreign taxes is not a crime in Switzerland. As evidence to this, wikipedia has the following to say about tax evasion in Switzerland:
AccountKiller
As a matter of fact tax evasion is illegal in Switzerland. It is however, as opposed to tax fraud, which is a crime, treated as a misdemeanor. If you are caught to have "forgotten" those 7500 francs income on your tax declaration you will be taxed on those and you pay a fine. It's certainly not legal.
Switzerland does however (and that's where other countries yell foul, because they don't make this distinction) distinguish between tax evasion ("forgetting" to declare income) and tax fraud (which in any case involve fraudulent or fake documentation, or, for example, not booking income as a corporate entity).
What pisses other countries off is that bank secrecy is not punctured in the first case (theoretically), while it always is when fraud is involoved. This goes also for inquiries by foreign government entities. Since tax evasion is not treated as a criminal act, such inquiries usually go unanswered in tax evasion cases.
That's more or less the gist of it, slightly simplified.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
It should be remember that Switzerland is a direct democracy. If the swiss government were to change the laws, it is very likely that the SVP, a swiss right-wing party, would force a public vote on the issue. Personally, I think there's a good chance that the swiss people would vote against their own government and keep the law as-is, international treaties be damned. There is jack shit any other country can do to influence the outcome of this; in fact, pressure from governments like the US government would have the opposite effect and help keep the current law.
One reason the rich get a lot of these tax breaks, is that they assume higher risks
Yes, if you got $100M in the bank, it's pretty easy to assume risk on new investments. Nonetheless, the risk is what is being rewarded.
Uh-Huh. So the risk is really about going from SUPER-DUPER-DUPER rich, to just SUPER-DUPER rich for a few years. Somehow I don't see that as much of a "risk", especially one worth rewarding with lower tax rates.
If you take a 100% safe job earning a specific salary,
Where are these 100% safe jobs you're referring too? Because I'll take one of those, thanks. The truth is that economies bust, people get sick, and people screw up. No job is "100% safe". The only thing that's even close to "100% safe" is having 100 million dollars sitting in the bank.
but you're not assuming much risk either
Uh-huh. Tell that to the people who've just lost thousands of dollars in equity on their major investment, their home do to the credit crisis. Tell that to the people who've been laid off over the various recessions the country has experienced. If you think being middle class (and to a much larger extent lower class) isn't taking a lot more risks than some guy who's super-rich, then I guess you don't know the true meaning of the word risk.
AccountKiller
> but the principles of the system are no different than you wanting privacy for all users of the internet
That is the stupidest dumbest fucking analogy I have EVER heard.
A vastly more accurate analogy would be if there were laws in all other western countries GUARANTEEING anonymity of internet traffic above all other laws - such that even if the police had records that a certain IP Address was used for grossly criminal purposes they would NOT be allowed to obtain warrants for the people holding and using those IP Addresses.
The "privacy" you have in your internet communications currently matches your "privacy" in your banking in all western countries(*), EXCEPT Switzerland - where you can commit ANY crime you want using their financial system and ALL other countries have no legal recourse what so ever.
I have not heard ANYONE arguing that one should be able to commit crime via the internet WITHOUT LEGAL RECOURSE by the authorities. Only that by DEFAULT without court orders, your communications should be privileged and private. IE: Facebook and Google have no right to divulge your private data without your permission - same as your bank.
I hereby declare that "atomic brainslide" is OUTRIGHT STUPID, if we ever establish a meritocracy he should not be allowed to hold office or vote.
(*) Your data is private, unless someone who is involved determines that you've committed a crime and forwards the information to police - aka Facebook notes that your private data is kiddy porn, or your bank has reason to suspect that you are laundering money. They tell the police, the police get court warrants, etc etc.
I'd give everyone worth over a billion dollars lifetime tax amnesty, just out of spite!
</quote>
And they built those Mega empires on nothing? No infrastructure, no interstates, no railroads, no canals?
Many of which were paid for by government sponsorship, either federal, local or state.
All of whom would have nothing if not for ALL of those bloodsuckers.
It may come as a surprise to you that not everybody grows up in a blue-blood family, and that social mobility is not perfect in the US. Redistributive tax systems allow for the strengthening of social mobility by ensuring that the lower class isn't always subject to abject poverty- that even if they are searching for a job or lose a job they do not lose their home and their entire life in the process.
Your comparison to slavery is disgusting and horribly elitist. No rich person would be where they are without the society around them, the infrastructure created by the government, the military that defends them (made up disproportionally, of course, with the lower and middle class), and the people who work for them. The redistribution of wealth acknowledges that people owe society for what it has given them, and must support it so that future generations can benefit from it as well.
We're talking federal taxes here, and the services you list are paid for heavily by state and local taxes. Federal taxes go to things like defense (and the wealthy have more to defend than the middle class), welfare (which is not normally used by either the wealthy or the middle class), and Social Security (which is funded disproportionately by the poor and middle class - the wealthy often do not work at jobs that require that tax, and if they do it is a trivial part of their income). The Federal court and justice system works primarily for the wealthy; the state and local justice systems are the important ones for the little guy.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Socialism is about providing free (to the recipient, paid by tax money) education, healthcare, and economic safety nets for everyone. It has been a huge success everywhere it has been tried; as a specific example, it transformed Finland from an economically abused, agricultural society which had just gone trough a civil war into one of the most prosperous countries in the world in half a century.
Communism is about the state owning everything and centrally planning the whole economy, and has been a failure everywhere. However, it is impossible to conclude at this time whether these failures habe been caused by any inherent defect in the ideology itself or the personality flaws - such as psychopathy - of the people who implemented most communist economies, as well as continued interference from the United State in its effort to oppose communism.
Neither Libertarianism nor Laissez-Faire Capitalism are interested in efficiency. Libertarianism is an ideology that freedom takes priority over everything else, and usually also includes a strong anti-government theme. Laissez-Faire Capitalism is a believe that market forces will find the best solution to any problem, if there is no government intervention or regulation.
It should be noted that there are ideologies which combine personal freedom with socialistic economy; see Left-libertarianism and Libertarian Socialism. These ideologies generally consider private ownership of means of production and the resulting power structures no different than those of the state, and thus an anathema to freedom; there is no difference between coercing someone with threat of a bullet to the head and threat of starvation. I'm inclined to agree, altought I don't see how you could possibly keep the accumulation of wealth - and thus power - to a few individuals under control except through force, which in turn results in whoever wields that force to become the dictator instead.
It is a mistake to think that all libertarians only oppose oppression by the state; apparently some also oppose oppression by the plutocrats. It's simply that the anarcho-capitalists happen to be more vocal on Slashdot.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
In reality, the Swiss bank secrecy is neutral, pretty much like the rest of the country.
Yes, this can be abused to evade taxes. It can also be used to evade your fortune being confiscated by some tyrant which suppresses you. A lot of the arguments against Swiss banks we hear these days were already brought up by the Nazis. There was a reason why so many Jewish families were hiding their money in Switzerland.
In several areas, Swiss legislation is much more strict for example when it comes to preventing money laundry. And yes, the Swiss laws force banks to comply in criminal investigation, --- even from abroad when officially requested. Claiming that the Swiss profit from "victims from the rest of the world" sounds corny and is ridiculous.
To me, it looks more like trying to smear competition. We do banking and we are good at.
Disclaimer: I am Swiss and I work for a Swiss bank.
There are estimates that over $400 B of African wealth has been stashed away in Switzerland.
To do some crude calculations let us assume that this money is invested at the growth rate of the country. Swiss GDP grows at 2.85% while the interest rates paid on the deposit is 1.85%. This would indicate that Switzerland makes $400 Million in profit every year just on money from Africa. Thats about the GDP of Pakistan!
Africa is extremely corrupt, but also very poor. The rest of the world should contribute atleast thrice that (think Russia , South America, India and South East Asia)..
So I think you underestimate how much money swiss make by hiding the "corrupt money" and how important it is for the economy
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
- Tax Break Prompts Millionaires To Create Private Foundations: Many of these same "feel-good" workers, though, have their own opinion about private foundations. And it isn't pretty. In the best of all worlds, they say, private foundations, like their public counterparts, would help address problems like hunger or illiteracy; in truth, they charge, such charities tend to address the whims and agendas of their benefactors, whose motivations don't always fit the notion of "charity."
- The trustees' perk that keeps on giving: The foundation's accountant, Martin Logies of Sunnyvale, Calif., defended the benefits, saying they had been approved by the foundation's board of directors. But he acknowledged that Sara and Anders Kierulf are the board's only members, and that they approved the benefits for themselves. As to the work the Kierulfs perform for their pay, Logies demurred. "I couldn't give you that information," he said.
- Deduction Ad Absurdum: CEOs Donating Their Own Stock to Their Own Family Foundations: Consistent with their exemption from insider trading law, I find that CEOs' stock gifts occur just prior to significant drops in their firms' stock prices, a pattern that enables the donors to obtain increased personal income tax benefits. This timing is more pronounced when executives donate their own shares to their own family foundations
- Tax Me If You Can: FRONTLINE correspondent Hedrick Smith investigates the rampant abuse of tax shelters since the late 1990s. Through interviews with government officials, tax experts, and industry insiders, Smith uncovers an avalanche of bogus transactions -- created by some of America's biggest and most-respected accounting firms, law firms, and investment banks -- that were then aggressively marketed to big corporations and wealthy individuals.
- How Tax Shelters Brought Trouble to Billionaire Clan: The panel's senior Democrat, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, has been probing offshore tax evasion and money laundering for several years. The panel is also looking into how the elite New York law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP provided legal advice on offshore tax shelters to wealthy individuals, people familiar with the probe say.
What pray tell is the loophole your multi-millionaire employer used? Something to do with classifying personal property as a farm. Sorry, I don't know the exact details, but he was very clear that it was purely a loophole and that it saved him a lot of money. This wasn't some imaginary conversation or something I heard from somebody else. It was straight from the horse's mouth.No, libertarians support separation of people from everyone else.
Just repeating the same lie doesn't really make your case, sunshine. Insurance works very well when offered in a free market, where both parties are able to make their own decisions as to what kind of coverage they're willing to buy or sell, and under what terms. That's how Lloyds of London and other maritime underwriters made it possible to vastly expand shipping in the 1700's. Voluntary pooling of risk is a brilliant idea, one of the best ones since the invention of the joint-stock corporation.
When it comes to health insurance, the fact is that we have had a ridiculously over-regulated insurance market for health care, ever since the middle of the last century, when the federal government first decided to meddle in our financial arrangements for health care.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."