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."

Comments

Two Wrongs. . .

[Apple Acolyte]

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.

Re:Two Wrongs. . .

[Valacosa]

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.

Re:Two Wrongs. . .

[mpoulton]

In the US evidence that is obtained without legal authority to obtain it can often be thrown out of court through the "exclusionary rule,"

The exclusionary rule does not apply to this type of instance. This information would be admissible in the US. The exclusionary rule only bars the admission of evidence which was obtained illegally BY THE GOVERNMENT or someone working on the government's behalf. When evidence is obtained due to a third party's criminal act (which was not induced by the government), it is not barred. For example, if I undertook my own independent investigation of a murder case and committed criminal acts to obtain evidence, then turned that over to the state, it would not be barred by the exclusionary rule unless it could be shown that I was cooperating with or induced by the state to violate the defendant's rights. IANAL, but I am a 3rd year law student.

Re:Two Wrongs. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Two Wrongs. . .

[arivanov]

In the UK income tax, social security, etc are all taken at source (so is most of EU). In order for money to enter a tax evasion channel it has to come from outside normal payroll. If it is outside normal payroll (let's say investment) there is plenty of ways to tax-avoid which is not a crime. You can register a company which "owns" all of your income sources which are outside payroll (shares, etc) and tax deduce to the point where you pay very little or nothing.

In order for money to be tax evaded in the EU (not tax avoided) it has to be both outside payroll and too "dirty" to allow one to put it into a company or another accounting vehicle. That does not sound like "hard earned" money to me. In fact tracing the source of the money may prove a very interesting exsercise. That happened in the German case. Quite a few VP and board level people found on the Lichtenstein list ended up with fraud and corruption proceedings against them.

Re:Two Wrongs. . .

[LordLucless]

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.

Re:Two Wrongs. . .

[redhog]

The US and UK are common law countries, and I think that this is something that might differ between common law and civil law (so France might be up to bad stuff here).

In Sweden (a civil law country), we have freedom of evidence - anything can be presented in court as evidence, regardless of how it was obtained. If the police somehow obtains evidence illegaly (e.g. through burglary), that will be prosecuted separately. Since this second case does not affect the original court case, nor is affected by it, the police man / upper chain of command ordering the illegal act will get punished regardless of if the original case is thrown out or the defendant found guilty.

Re:Two Wrongs. . .

[martin-boundary]

"Oh, Bill Gates makes more money, so we'll take some of his and give it to AC so that AC can buy the things he wants without working to earn the money for them"

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.

Re:Two Wrongs. . .

[poptones]

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.

Re:Two Wrongs. . .

[shutdown -p now]

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!

Re:Two Wrongs. . .

[rmstar]

No, if you had an IQ over 5, you'd notice that the necessary programs are ones that are best provided by government (such as roads, because it's too much of a hassle to have priviately owned roads) and ones that everyone equally has access to. Unnecessary ones are ones that serve no purpose but to take money from person A's wallet and put it in person B's wallet. However, you're a greedy bastard who thinks that you should be able to steal all you want from people just because they worked harder and have more money than you.

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.

However, unlike you, I understand that just because my life sucks it doesn't give me the right to steal money from other people to get treatment.

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?

Re:Two Wrongs. . .

[BasilBrush]

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.

Re:Two Wrongs. . .

[Lazareth]

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.

Re:Two Wrongs. . .

[BasilBrush]

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.

Re:Remember kids, UK stole nothing

[schwit1]

"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.

Why are governments so dependent on tax revenue?

[nido]

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/

Re:Remember kids, UK stole nothing

[johanatan]

But, information wants to be free!

Re:Remember kids, UK stole nothing

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

criminal evidence is not considered legitimate property and can be seized by the government at any time.

Re:Remember kids, UK stole nothing

[91degrees]

It's not "stolen" according to the definition in the Theft Act, so it's not receiving stolen property.

You can get in on the action, turn someone in!!!

[Required Snark]

The IRS has a blog about this, and you can report some one. http://irsmostwanted.blogspot.com/2010/07/hsbc-clients-with-asian-accounts-said.html

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.

Re:That's Why...

[evilviper]

In Canada it take 4 people to pay for the job of 1 civil servant. It's probably around 6:1 in the US

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 makes no money, it creates no money, all it does it take and spend another persons.

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.

Re:Remember kids, UK stole nothing

[a_claudiu]

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.