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UK Pursues Tax Evaders Using Stolen Bank Details
Andrew Smith writes "The UK taxman (HM Revenue & Customs) is reportedly using a stolen list of bank details to pursue wealthy individuals with off-shore accounts. The list was stolen by an employee of HSBC, and gave details of the bank's customers with money in Swiss accounts. The bank employee fled to France, and the authorities there passed the details on to the UK tax collection agency."
By keeping you mean not paying your fair share for the very society that you exploit for your own serf serving gains. Unless you are posting from a place with no government like Somalia, you are nothing but a spoiled four year old in a supposed adults body. why don't you go back to your room while the adults try to fix the mess your incompetence and greed have caused.
You're right. Taxes are evil and useless. Everyone knows that the infrastructure which enables modern civilization, like roads and plumbing, are paid for with leprechaun gold.
And the military to defend that civilization is created with pixie dust.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
This hard earned money is not your to begin with. It's not even real! It only has value because of the government. How much would one dollar be worth if the government didn't exist? If there was no one watching the boarder, and anyone can come from any shitty country and steal it from you. If there was no police protection your beautiful house would only be worth as much as the window a gang of criminals smashed to get inside, and loot it; proceeding thereafter you kill you and rape your family. Or how much would your stack of bills be worth if no one regulated inflation, and overnight it wouldn't buy you a loaf of bread? (See Zimbabwe)
Not everything government does is great, or even good. But they do enough good to make it worth it. That's why all first world countries with high standards of living have large governments that collect taxes, and not Somalian-style fiefdoms. So no they are not trying to keep their hard earned money, they are stealing from everyone else.
But, information wants to be free!
However, we lived in a fucked up world where the harder you work and the more successful you are, the more you're punished and you lose an ever increasing percentage of your income.
Are you referring to the Working Class who can't afford Creative Accountants, lawyers, political lobbyists, and secret "off-shore" bank accounts?
It's not "stolen" according to the definition in the Theft Act, so it's not receiving stolen property.
This is similar to the recent IRS action against USB, the big Swiss based bank. USB was actively involved in smuggling assets out of the US, including telling people how to get diamonds and then putting them in toothpaste tubes to get around customs. http://gswlaw.com/irsblog/2009/08/31/ubs-whistle-blower-gets-40-month-sentence/
These tax cheats are scum sucking pigs. The high end ones have huge amounts of money and they still cheat. Can you afford to buy diamonds to smuggle out of the country? Remember, people with six figure incomes pay less then the rest of us because they get taxed at capital gains rates, which can be as low as 15%. Real working people pay around %30 or more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gains_tax#United_States
When these greedheads duck out on taxes, the rest of us have to pay a lot more. This is on top of all the custom tax breaks that big corrupt corporate players have put in the law by buying legislation. The ballooning deficit in the US is due to tax cuts for the ultra rich, not because taxes are too high for the remaining 99% of the population. The right wingers who say otherwise are lying weasels, and if you believe them then you are weak minded and like having your pocket picked by the rich.
Why is Snark Required?
You do NOT have the right to someone else's money.
And yet you have no problem using infrastructure and all manner of stuff that you didn't pay for. I have never seen anyone say the above, and actually practice what they preach.
You do not that the police are reactive, not proactive don't you? That it has been determined (in the US anyway) that the police have no obligation to protect an individual? That the vast majority of burglaries go uninvestigated? That modern police forces have existed only since the middle of last millenia, and that the concept of private property extends far before that? You realise that the situation in Zimbabwe is caused by the government printing new notes, that fiat currencies depending on the stability of government are relatively new, and have been preceded by millenia of stable currency based on natural scarcity?
Some government services are necessary; taxes to support them are necessary. And a fraction of the taxes that are collected actually go towards paying for those necessities.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
If this was about any other data, like mp3, it would be called a copyright infringement.
If this would be data that the government was hiding, it would be called "Freedom of information".
Don't forget that the tax evaders willingly committed fraud.
I understand that people do not like paying taxes, but that does not mean it is OK to use illegal ways to go about it. These will be big accounts. And if they did everything honestly, there should be nothing to worry about as the tax men already have the information.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Well I would certainly hope the government doesn't have a tax-rate of 100%, which would be necessary (in most cases) for 1 person to pay the salary for 1 civil servant...
Government isn't supposed to "make money". It's supposed to provide the services we all need to survive, and aren't efficient to provide on an individual basis. I'd sure like safety, but I can't really afford my own private police force. International trade is nice, but I can't afford a navy. In so much as providing safety and stability CREATES MONEY, most governments do exactly that, with your taxes.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
That's an interesting bias you have. You do realize that Bill Gates doesn't actually earn his money either? He built a company, and it's the people in that company who earn his money for him today. He just owns shares. So in a specific sense, he's actually doing what you're accusing the AC of doing.
Maybe you'd find it easier to accept that you have to pay taxes if you think of them as shares that the government owns in your labour.
OK, let's take away the roads, the electric utility subsidies, the OIL THAT RUNS YOUR CAR and is subsidized by WAR, the police that keep the neighbors from stealing your shit when you leave the house, and see how many of those dollars you earn...
Moron.
Your snotty dismissal ignores the fact that government is not the only means for building roads or plumbing.
Which is why those government-less places around the world - like Somalia - are renowned for their vast networks of well-maintained roads and plumbing. I hear ya!
The problem with your view is the definition of "necessary". Is it necessary to keep people in hardship from drowning in their tragedy? Same thing for programs that are best provided by government. Healthcare seems to be one, for example, and a good argument can be made for education to be in the same category. One can even make an argument that giving enough money to poor people to guarantee a minimum of quality of life is a great way of mitigating public health and crime problems.
Your tone of discussion ("if you had an IQ over 5...", "you're a greedy bastard...") does not have the effect you may have intended.
Most people think paying taxes so the state can help people like you is a great idea, and do not consider it theft. Who is going to help you when the shit hits the fan if it is not us, your fellow humans?
Hmm, yes, 'stolen'. This kind of thing smells more of backroom dodgy dealing between HSBC and the UK government. It gives HSBC plausible deniability but the government gets them to comply with what they've been asking for all this time.
Creating a false definition doesn't make a point. If I say that air is essentially dry water, that doesn't mean it's going to quench your thirst.
If the government send me a bill which covers all the goods and services I receive from the government - roads, education, keeping of law & order, defence etc. ANd I choose to pay it, then clearly there is no theft. Just a bill which has been paid.
If you choose not to pay it, and the debt is forcibly extracted from you, then the word for that is distraint, not theft.
There are a great deal fewer successful people in those countries for exactly that reason. Move there and see how easily all (not just a fraction) of your hard-earned money gets taken from you.
I accept your analogy.
If you stay in the hotel, you pay the bill. If you don't stay in the hotel you don't pay the bill.
If you stay in the country, you pay the taxes. If you don't stay in the country you don't pay the taxes.
You are free to stay in a cheaper hotel, with less services, if one will take you.
You are free to stay in a cheaper country, with less services, if one will take you.
What you don't get to do is stay in a 5 star hotel/country and pay the bill of a one star hotel/country.
Society. Look it up. You're not your own kingdom and even if you were are we to be your slaves? Why should we talk to you, since you obviously want nothing to do with the rest of society? Or are you promoting a society where macho alphas constantly try to club each in fear of being clubbed back, because any resemblence of organized protection has gone down the drain because noone wants to pay for it?
Counter my argument with "but we'll pay for protection!" and I'll laugh, because from there we could go on to cover more and more until you got the modern society you despise and loathe so much. Taxation is paying for that society and the mutual goods. Since nobody likes a dictator serving himself we're trying to organize around a democracy to best judge what is needed. That may not work perfectly and in varying degrees fail somewhat, but thus far it is the best we fucking got. So until some better solution for governance shows itself we just got to stick with it instead of being crying 4-year olds who want everything and supply nothing.
In the UK the tax take isn't particularly high now either. In fact it's lower than at any time under Thatcher for example.
http://www.adamsmith.org/a-history-of-tax-freedom-day/
And the same empty threat of rich people leaving if overtaxed applies here too. It's rather reminiscent of the dire predictions that the National Minimum Wage would cause mass bankruptcies in some industries, and widespread unemployment. It did nothing of the kind. A decade later it was city bankers that fucked up the economy and caused those effects.
Does this ever actually happen? In the US, there have been serious arguments against the exclusionary rule, on the grounds that the police should and will be punished separately for their acts. In practice, they never are, and those advocating against the rule on those grounds are either extremely naive or are simply being disingenuous.