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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."
If the government somehow steals something, it's alright!
The government spies steal data all the time - it is what they do. The author of this article must be very young...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
often do not make right, as the old saying points out. It's an interesting legal question, though: Does a country have a right to use information illegally obtained by a third party to enforce laws against those implicated by that tainted information? In the US evidence that is obtained without legal authority to obtain it can often be thrown out of court through the "exclusionary rule," a legal doctrine often mentioned in connection with a concept of some evidenced being obtained as the "fruit of a poisonous tree." I wonder if the UK has any similar sorts of protections - note that I'm not implying that such protections in the US legal system would necessarily protect anyone if this story had occurred in the US instead of the UK. Governments are clearly zealous about protecting the tax revenue they take from their citizens.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
"In the HMRC case, a former staff member at HSBC's Swiss division stole highly sensitive data belonging to 15,000 high net-worth account holders earlier this year and fled to France.
The list was passed to the French authorities, who in turn handed the relevant details to HMRC."
Not to use the information would be a disservice to all UK taxpayers.
The article also mistakenly treats tax avoidance and tax evasion as being synonymous.
It seems to me that Governments should wield the power to make money, and politicians should debate about where to spend the newly created money.
But as it is, in the UK, the United States, and elsewhere, banks create money, and decide who to loan it to. Governments have no other choice but to levy taxes on the economy.
Like Colbert said in his testimony about migrant farm workers (8:54), the political game is all about power, and the biggest economic power of all is "who gets to create money first." Whatever happened to that bill to 'Audit the Federal Reserve" (which is owned by private member banks)? I haven't kept up... Whatever you think about the Fed, at least its profits are returned to the U.S. Treasury now.
Richard C. Cook's Bailout for the People (pdf) has a really nice overview of an economic system that would work for the benefit of everyone...
Some other sites:
http://www.monetary.org/
http://www.webofdebt.com/
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
...When it comes to a national government's size, scope, and powers, smaller & weaker is good. Yes, it makes it harder to get "free government stuff" (that you end up paying for over and over, but I digress). But, it's hard for anyone to be or use a jack-booted thug/enforcer if there is no government department to create a jack-booted-thug/enforcer division or pay the jack-booted thugs/enforcers, or give them lists of targets...err, "citizens" to do the whole "boot crushing a human face...forever" thing on.
Just sayin'
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Yes of course I know this. But knowingly receiving stolen property is also a crime. At least where I reside :)
But, information wants to be free!
and by 'passed' they mean 'sold'...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
criminal evidence is not considered legitimate property and can be seized by the government at any time.
New Economic Perspectives
It's not "stolen" according to the definition in the Theft Act, so it's not receiving stolen property.
It's wrong to start buying stolen data even for tax evasion, because this
kind of business can easily extend to other domains. For the "good" cause
governments justify now to finance data stealing in other countries, but
the day these same governments are themselves victims of such practices
they will for sure find it illegal..
This means that evidence gathered illegally is admissible!
Get a confession by torture. No problem.
Illegal wire tap? This never was much of a problem in the US.
Taking pictures of police engaging in illegal activity where photography is banned. The judge won't throw out the evidence.
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?
Western governments will pay you millions to steal your employer's data!!!
Holy shit you're a rim job.
Shut the fuck up unless you actually want to argue against what he said. Seriously, slashdot, stay classy.
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.
It's hard to hide legally earned money from the government so the money in the accounts is probably less then clean itself.
What goes around comes around.
No sig today...
It's not stolen, it's worse, it's an illegal copy. Swiss bank should sue french and english governments for "pirating" their data and ask for 10 times more the amount of taxes and fines collected from the taxes + a ridiculos amount for lost sales/customers.
The government doesn't steal, it expropriates.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
But as it is, in the UK, the United States, and elsewhere, banks create money, and decide who to loan it to. Governments have no other choice but to levy taxes on the economy.
Governments have "no other choice" than taxes? Governments control fiscal and monetary policy. They directly control how much banks can lend, and manage the effects of that lending. Some examples:
Notice how none of the above involve taxation.
Whatever happened to that bill to 'Audit the Federal Reserve" (which is owned by private member banks)?
The Federal Reserve is not "owned" by member banks. Its board of governors is appointed by the President. Seven of them sit on the FOMC with five representatives of private banks. The bill to "audit" the Fed died because it was a bad idea.
Whatever you think about the Fed, at least its profits are returned to the U.S. Treasury now.
The Federal Reserve controls the amount of money in circulation by buying and selling government debt. By selling treasury bonds, the Fed takes money from their purchasers in exchange. The Fed sits on that money, effectively taking it out of circulation, and increasing interest rates.
The opposite action is buying government debt. Money the Fed was sitting on is now in circulation, increasing the money supply and lowering interest rates. The money swapped back and forth isn't "profit", and any in excess of what's needed to control interest rates has always been remitted to the treasury.
As for any calls to "reform" the financial system, I prefer my crackpots more in the vein of Dr. Ron Paul, as opposed to some guy with a Wordpress blog. YMMV.
DATABASE WOW WOW
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.
One interesting form of money supply control i read about involved the government basically spending the money into existence, and then taxing it out of existence. So when there is not enough money in circulation the government would put it into existence by building roads and such. And when there is too much, they would raise taxes.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
It's not an illegal copy, as all copyright laws and treaties allow making copies for court purposes without needing permission from the author.
And in any case, it would be perfectly possible for these governments to pass a special law about usage of such data, stating whatever usage rules they like.
The stolen information was confiscated by the authorities.
It's just that they uncovered evidence of other crimes while they were busting for data theft.
Basically, look at these photos: http://moneytipcentral.com/inflation-in-america-what-will-hyperinflation-look-like
Taxes are never popular. If there was a way to do without them, governments would be using that already.
Not sure your statement about the BoE buying Gilts is true, given the UK is outwith the Eurozone.
Could you please cite your information, given the whole Quantative Easing scenario is based on using new money to buy Gilts.
It has been done recently (it's called quantative easing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing). You have to be careful about it though and do it with the support of the market or every currency trader on the planet will short the hell out of your currency pushing the value of it down to sod all whilst making an absolute killing for themselves.
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
A year or two ago, they actually purchased stolen bank data, and then helped the thief go into hiding. As far as I can see, there is every reason to charge the officials involved with trafficking in stolen goods.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
This has happend before with bank data from Germans at a foreign bank that were stolen by an employe and then sold to the German authorities. There was a lot of discussion but in the end the German gouvermant DID use the data. Again, the same thing is about to happen in the Netherlands, with data from banks in other parts of Europe. The Dutch tax department offers offenders a 'inkeerregeling': If you turn in the illegal foreign savings, you get a much lower fine than if you take your chances and wait for them to find them. If they ever will because it's not sure if this evidence will hold in Dutch court. This inkeerregeling has turned out to be very successful so far
Do the Swiss have a state security service? Because this is the type of thing I could see getting "taken care of" with a bullet or two!
Yes it does. But to carry the analogy further, information is our servant and not our master. There is no need to honour the wish of a personified concept.
The most significant benefit of UK being part of EU but not Euro is that its bank can act independently of the European Central Bank (ECB) and it can devalue its currency when it so needs. So yes, UK did print extra money, which was used to buy Gilts, thus pumping extra money in the economy, but since UK is not part of Euro zone, there is nothing in the Maastricht treaty that prevents UK from doing so (similarly for Switzerland, Sweden etc.)
Of course in the long run, the government has to buy back the gilts from the BOE so it is a zero sum game. However, I think the biggest blunder of the EU was Euro, thereby depriving states like Greece any control on their currency and thus landing in situations where they need to be bailed out by other countries.
What's under yellowstone?
a really nice overview of an economic system that would work for the benefit of everyone...
Like some other economic systems that would work for the benefit of everyone, I bet that one has the same fatal flaw: it fails to account for basic human nature. Persons are smart, except those persons that are not, but people are always stupid.
Also, a warning sign of all kinds of crack-pottery is claiming that something untested would work and solve some hard, perhaps even impossible problem in a simple manner. They all fail from the same reason: replacing harsh reality with wishful thinking of some kind.
These tax breaks are not only available to the rich. Anyone can take advantage of them. I'm just a working stiff, yet the income I make on my savings is either tax advantaged via 401K or Roth accounts or is in the form of dividends or capital gains that are taxed at 15%. This is going to make a huge difference to me in about 5 years when I retire.
Now I do agree with you that the current tax policy is broken and it really should be more progressive. Among other things it has allowed for an excessive concentration of wealth in the top most affluent percentage of society at the expense of ridiculous levels of government debt.
10 times? The going rate for copyright infringement is a few thousand times the value of the information. The British government isn't some college student you know, they actually might have that kind of money.
Perhaps than it is time to offer a reward for information leading to the prosecution of major tax cheats, perhaps a 10% commission on tax and penalties recovered upon succesful prosecution.
The ideal retirement package for tax haven executives. Sick of counting other peoples crooked millions when your only getting thousands, have various tax agencies around the world got an offer for you. Hand over the evidence to roast a thousand multi-millionaire tax cheats and you could become a multi-millionaire yourself. Now what typical bean counting corporate executive wouldn't leap at that.
It might be a crime to create a copy of the data but it is also a crime to facilitate tax evasion, launder the proceeds of crime, manage illegal arms deals, make possible the theft of a countries capital assets by corrupt political leaders and generally run a countries finances by supporting the financial management of crimes in other countries.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
if one person's work and effort (result is riches) then no one's work or effort is worth defending.
Besides, all those big names we see (soros, gates, jobs, murdoch) and such are not affected by income taxes. Yet people love to soak the evil rich and instead his the working rich, those who go to very good paying jobs they got through investment in school and work. It also soaks many multi employee small businessmen.
Purchasing should be taxed, not income. The evil rich can very much pay for society by taxing the spending of all. Taxing income is simply the best way to hide the burden the state puts on people as a whole. With the subtle deceit of having the taxes paid before the employee sees his check he does not have the same connection as the small businessman when it comes to just how much tax is out there.
So, yeah I will defend the working rich, the small businessman, the doctor, the broker, and such. Those in the range of 150 to 500k should not bear the brunt of a society which is more and more turning into lazy gimme children.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Obama struck down that "Audit the Fed Reserve" bill. He did this because he KNOWS if the Fed Reserve was ever audited some really damning information would get out and there would be a revolution. You would find out who the wealthy collaborators are that pretty much control the worlds money (and hence the world). I don't believe in the "illuminati", but I know that the super rich of the world are working more or less together to keep their money and make more.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
It's not an illegal copy, as all copyright laws and treaties allow making copies for court purposes
It could be an illegal copy. In Switzerland, bank secrecy is protected by law, and such information can't be just copied like this without going through a complex procedure, and first doing an internal audit.
Luckily for the thief, the theft happened in HSBC and not in Switzerland.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Thieves working with thieves. What a surprise there.
Liberty in your lifetime
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.
Six figures? What is this, the 1970s? Of course, the bulk of income earned by people making six figures is taxed at ordinary income tax rates: wages, self-employment income, etc. Intuitively, you have far, far more people with six figure incomes from employment than retired and drawing six figures from investments, or young people drawing six figures from trust funds; and also six figures is way below point of things like hedge fund managers arranging things such that most of their income is in the form of capital gains.
Here is data from the IRS on sources of income classified by AGI. I selected 2006 so you can't say that capital gains are low due to the recession, which started in 2007. As you can see, for the 12 million returns with AGI from $100K to $200K, 3.6% of the income was from qualified dividends and net long-term capital gains. For the 3 million returns from $200K to $500K, it was 8.1%, for the 600 thousand from $500K to $1M, it was 12.0%. A large majority of "six figure income" people hardly have any income taxed at the special 15% rate. Obviously you are correct that someone making a large portion of their income in capital gains and dividends will pay a lower tax rate than many people making their money from wages, but overall it is not until well into the seven figures that the average effective tax rate starts going down.
Nothing was stolen here. Some information was copied without authorization. And it was done by a private person.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Question: Does British Law have a "Fruit of the poisoned tree." concept like US law? If so then this list cannot be legally used to prosecute tax avoidance or evasion.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
fruits of the poisoned tree does not apply here. the original illegality was not committed by police. its any evidenc stemming from illegal action by police and any benefit gained from that illegal action is in itself illegal and therefore inadmissable. As the information was freely turned over by another country and the uk is not required to comply with swiss or french law its not illegal.. if anything only HSBC can be held responsible for failing to adequalty secure confidential banking information or the individual who stole it.. the cops are in the clear in this one. which is probably why HSBC has nothing to say..
The information may have been merely copied, but it is being used to facilitate actual theft in the form of taxes.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
What you're talking about is what an economist would call "fiscal policy" - how much the government spends or taxes. In the short run, the government can increase the money supply by spending a ton of money; this in turn increases the demand for goods and services, and we see a nice little economic bubble. Each dollar spent in this way tends to have more than $1 economic effect; this is called the Keynesian Multiplier. Taxation has the opposite effect.
Of course, that's all in the short-run. But, governments are best at short-run thinking. In the long run, governments tend to rely on monetary policy, which means having their central banks (the Fed) keep interest rates at a certain level. Low interest rates means easy credit and economic expansion (at risk of inflation), and high interest rates mean tight credit and less expansion.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Most of the time members of the government treat tax avoidance and tax evasion as being synonymous. It seems to be a deliberate campaign to scare people into paying more tax than they are required to pay.
Switzerland is not a member of the EU at all.
Switzerland is party to the EFTA (European Free Trade Agreement) together with Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein.
EFTA has an agreement with the EU on trade that makes EFTA part of the EU's inner market. However Switzerland is not part of that agreement either.
It's not tax evasion, it's tax avoision :)
Taxes aren't theft. They are a perfectly legal and justified redirection of some of society's economic activity to its maintenance. I, for one, am quite happy if some rich assholes who are trying to weasel out of paying their share get caught and forced to pay what they owe the rest of us.
Libertarianism is pathetic in general and this particular argument is the amongst its most stupid ones. Grow up.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Taxes are not theft.
Right. Taxes are worse, because the money taken from you will be used to fund such things as the local corrupt police department, the transportation security agency, the war in Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan, or something else you don't like. At best, the funds are pocketed by some corrupt official along the way. In the mean time, all the good things they say they are using the taxes for -- roads, schools, fire stations, hospitals, air traffic control, etc -- are allowed to deteriorate so they have an excuse to raise taxes some more.
Actually the German government has already used it for their own tax auditing. The guy fled with a couple of DVDs worth of data and exchanged it with the German authorities in exchange for immunity and asylum.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
What about the people who have money in there stemming from previous deposits, such as inheritance etc....we are talking about wealthy families, not rich, but wealthy ...(like kellog's or disney family)...what then, they would have to start proving everything to everyone about where the money cam from years ago, maybe even hundreds years ago, to account for all the money sitting there...the only people that should be allowed this list is the swiss bank it came from , as this is a swiss banking list not a uk banking list, and is their legal property...i do not understand even how the UK authorities were involved???
Any taking of property without permission is theft. The only differences between taxes and government-recognized theft is the perpetrator. Legal, yes—they would hardly choose outlaw their own actions—but absolutely not justified.
Statism is pathetic in general and this particular form of double-standard is among its most stupid ones. Grow up.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat