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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
But, information wants to be free!
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.
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?
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.
How? Information about where the stolen taxmoney is located isn't really evidence of tax evasion. Actual evidence of tax evasion would be the actual offshore account itself. At worst this should be viewed as a breach of privacy.
Not the same thing. Let's say you torture a guy to find the money, he'll say anything, but if he doesn't actually have the money, all you'll get is lots of useless information about where it isn't. Which won't help you find the actual money, since the guy doesn't know.
Depends whether the taped phone conversation itself is being offered as evidence of wrongdoing, or whether the information is used to find the actual money offshore, and then that offshore account is used directly as evidence of tax evasion.
Don't know what this has to do with tax evasion.
No one has been arrested or prosecuted based on this information, nor will they be. What this information does is separate those who are evading their taxes, versus those who are not. That makes large-scale investigation vastly easier by directing you at targets. I'm willing to bet the authorities can prove tax evasion by everyone involved without actually using the leaked HSBC information in court...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
You're right. Instead of an elected government creating the jack-booted thugs you have un-elected private corporations creating the jack-booted thugs. I can see how that is so much better.
What, you think companies never employed their own mafia-esque type practices? You think companies, who's only goal is to make money, would never rape the public for their own personal good? You're either really naive or you haven't read up on history.
~X~
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.
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.
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
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.
Luckily for the thief, the theft happened in HSBC and not in Switzerland.
The theft happened in HSBC-Geneva. And Geneva is still in Switzerland.
The thief, Hervé Falciani, openly escaped to France.
The french minister Eric Woerth who used the list is guilty of concealment according to swiss law and faces arrest if he travels there even on official business.