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Wikileaks To Name Swiss Bank Tax Evaders
eldavojohn writes "The old cliche that the rich and corrupt hold all their money in Swiss bank accounts (to avoid taxation) may finally have a bit of transparency, as the news today is that Wikileaks has been handed a list of account holders tendered by Rudolf Elmer, former banker of Julius Baer. Julian Assange promises a 'full revelation' while Elmer cited his motivation as being: 'I want to let society know how this system works. It's damaging society.' This appears to be real, as Mr. Elmer is soon to appear before a Zurich regional court on charges of coercion as well as violations of Switzerland's strict banking secrecy laws. The public may soon find out that their favorite celebrity, politician or employer doesn't feel responsible to contribute financially to the commonwealth at the expense of privacy."
I guess Assange didn't like that the swiss bank PostFinance closed his account.
There are more details here.
Personally, I'm just gonna sit back and watch this unfold *grabs popcorn*
I do not understand why wikileaks is telling everyone what they will reveal later.
Can't they just post it immediately ?
Just how long has world known that the Swiss are the bankers of choice for criminals, dictators, and the idle rich that do not want to pay their taxes?
I mean really this is no shock to the world. I do have to wonder just how much blood money is in Swiss banks and how much of the wonderful Swiss lifestyle is paid for with the misery of the world.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Considering the love-fest for Google around these parts, but they've been effectively dodging taxes for a few years. Why would it be a shock if politicians, celebrities and sundry millionaires / billionaires do the same?
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_44/b4201043146825.htm
While I am all for businesses making a profit, I am NOT all for a multi-billion dollar company paying effectively 2.4% while I continue to pay nearly 30% of my income. The argument "Well, that gets turned into research and good pay for employees" still doesn't float IMO, when you have the higher executives of Google being paid millions. Reduce the salaries of those PHBs down to something reasonable, pay the rank and file programmers and researchers that money, and pay taxes like everyone else.
There are more details here.
It is indeed a better link and was one I found in my Google Reader this morning. However, I also have noticed continuously that New York Times links provide me headaches and disappointment when used in Slashdot's submission process. Here's a recent example, earlier this morning I submitted a story about video games and mental health problems. Now in that submission I referred to a well written New York Times article an used this URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/17/us/17gaming.html
Every time I previewed it or edited it, it came out like that. But when I hit submit, it magically changed to this URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/17/us/17gaming.html&OQ=_rQ3D4&OP=70b1f348Q2FQ5D-2yQ5DgoksPooZQ27Q5DQ27W33Q5DW3Q5D3VQ5DisQ5D3VdQ241Q26rdQ25OZ14
What is going on? I've written to CmdrTaco about this and I thought he said they'd look at it ... like their system prefetches URLs or something? Makes adjustments to avoid TinyURL in the submission? Avoids redirects that might go to goatse? I don't know. What I do know is that if you go to the firehose and type in 'nytimes' as your search term you will find submission after submission with login/paywalled URLs exactly like the one above. Here's one and another and another ad infinitum.
So when you do this, people get upset they can't read the article and I heavily sympathize with them and generally consider my submission a failed attempt when that happens. So the solution? Don't link to the New York Times in submissions! I'll find some other site to send a billion Slashdot eyes at if they don't want their page views. It really is a shame because I love the New York Times and think they have some great writers but from the above it's evident the affection is asymmetrical.
My work here is dung.
I don't care if he's a monkey and likes to play a recorder with his butt.
It's a Good Thing (tm) this information is being made public.
These negative responses are almost as juicy as the leaks themselves. You've left us wondering whether you're a tax evader, a Freedom Fry? Or maybe it's just jealousy or a secret crush... not trying hard enough to be an astroturfer.
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
They don't have to pay, they could move to another country. It's hardly theft for the government to make you pay for services you use. Why should I have to pay all my taxes when these jack asses are sending their money overseas to avoid having to pay taxes?
But then again, I bet you're one of those people who wants your taxes cut, but wants somebody elses services to be cut or diminished to finance it. I think the term for that is "fiscal conservative."
They don't report amounts, but they DO now report that you DO have an account with them now. /something/ elsewhere...
If you hold money abroad, and file a US tax return, you have to submit your holdings. You could get away with it (probably) before as the banks wouldn't say a word.
Now the government knows you've got
Waiting for an amusing sig.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.
Outing honest people whose only so-called "crime" is wanting to avoid the theft of their hard and presumably legitimately-earned dollars is completely and totally wrong
Tax is not theft. Someone evading tax is not honest.
Black is not white, whatever you libertarians might like to believe.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Despite their exotic reputation, the vast majority of accounts were held by fairly ordinary folk (there seemed to be an inordinate number of german dentists). So while this may sound like a blow at the rich and powerful, there's going to be a lot of very unextraordinary middle class folk whose financial details are laid bare by this. Having a Swiss bank account is not illegal in itself.
From the New York Times coverage:
A former Swiss bank executive said on Monday that he had given the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, details of more than 2,000 prominent individuals and companies that he contends engaged in tax evasion and other possible criminal activity.
Emphasis mine. Elmer is doing this because he feels the list he has compiled is a list of unjust individuals and right now Wikileaks is doing all in their power to verify that these individuals are, in fact, tax dodgers. He says the list has 40 politicians and “pillars of society” worldwide among those two thousand.
You might want consider whether you'd like your finances laid bare before you acclaim this as another win for david over goliath.
Precisely why I ended the summary with "at the expense of privacy." And it's not just tax evasion. You do realize that if Julius Baer is associated with heinous criminals worldwide that it could get ugly on an international level, right?
My work here is dung.
then so is the use or reliance on roads, public schools or universities, police, firemen, zoning codes, enforcement of contracts, national defense, and so forth. Which is to say, taxation is not theft, and a civilized society is not free of financial cost.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Outing honest people whose only so-called "crime" is wanting to avoid the theft of their hard and presumably legitimately-earned dollars is completely and totally wrong, and negates much if not all of the good Wikileaks has done in exposing actual government and corporate wrongdoing. It also makes Wikileaks, directly or indirectly, an accomplice to the very real crimes of the state that it has spent so much of its time trying to expose.
What sense does it make to out those crimes, but also at the same time sign what might as well be the death sentence for many, many honest people who were heroic and brave enough to, at great personal risk, try their best to avoid funding those crimes?
Should I Monty Python you? It's so overdone though.
Reg: They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers, and from our fathers' fathers.
Stan: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers!
Reg: Yeah.
Stan: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers!
Reg: All right Stan, don't belabour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?!
Man: The aqueduct?
Reg: What?
Man: The aqueduct.
Reg: Oh yeah, yeah, that they've given us, yeah, that's true, yeah.
Man: And the sanitation.
Stan: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like.
Reg: Yeah, all right, I grant you, the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things the Romans have done.
Mathias: And the roads!
Reg: Well, yeah, obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don't they! But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct and the roads...
Man: Irrigation.
Man: Medicine.
Man: Education!
Reg: Yeah, yeah, all right, fair enough.
Man: And the wine.
All: Yeah, yeah, the wine!
Francis: Yeah! yeah, that's something we'd really miss, Reg, if the Romans left.
Man: Public baths.
Stan: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.
Francis: Yeah, they certainly like to keep order. I suppose they're the only ones who could in a place like this!
Reg: Yeah, all right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us!?
Man: Brought peace.
Reg: Oh, peace. Shut up!
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
There's a whole Slashdot article with people ripping apart Google for "double Irish" and "dutch sandwich" styles of tax evasion.
The only reason that it should hurt your karma is that you confusingly singled out Google when your own article lists Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, etc. Why pick on Google when everybody plays the same screw-the-taxpayer game? They're all crooks avoiding taxes in ways that a single individual like myself that makes very small fractions can't enjoy.
You'll lose karma when you spin it like this: "Apple Hurts Schoolchildren by Avoiding Taxes" and "Google Welcomes World Peace by Denying War Machine Its Pound of Flesh." See what I did wrong there?
My work here is dung.
Switzerland has great banks. In fact, there's at least one whole country where everybody puts there money there. There's no reason in the world not to put money in them. Having money in a Swiss bank is not a crime and it doesn't imply you're a criminal or a tax cheat. For example, maybe people are spooked by the circus surrounding US banks or something.
The static from the US IRS got so bad that Swiss banks simply closed all accounts of "American persons". They completely kicked Americans out of their customer base. I find that pretty darn disappointing that my country is acting so obnoxiously that I personally can't do business on equal footing with the rest of the modern world.
Keep in mind, the U.S. taxes *income*, not *wealth*.
Most wealth generates income on its own. And shoveling income into a hidden pot of wealth is a way to evade taxes.
An individual that seeks to minimize his tax obligations, without question. I've never seen a poor person trying to lower his taxes, and I've never seen a healthy nation without a high tax rate. Little to no taxation for the rich is the recipe for a third world country, and nothing else. We don't need to become the next Mexico, thank you very much.
you have it somewhat backwards.
we are now seeing how out of control THE WORLD is.
people running things knew this. 'we' didn't.
this is what all the rukkus is about. exposure of the raw, uncut reality of how the world really world. no sugar coated disney movie view of things.
peoples' view of reality are being challenged and those who lived on the lie are being caught.
information revolution, to be sure. this is why its such a big deal. this IS a revolution; we're seeing it happen and unfold right now.
--
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How many times have we told you not to post Slashdot from work, Homer?
- Mr. Burns.
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What does having a bank account have to do with taxes? Taxes are supposed to be about the money you earn, not the money you have. Funny how this is turning out.
Did you earn a large amount of money that you don't want to pay taxes on? Hide that income in a Swiss account. US banks report that information to the IRS, Swiss banks do not. This allows you to hide income from the IRS and not pay taxes on it.
Interest is money that's taxed.
Income earned in other countries may not be adequately taxed (or declared as taxed in your home country) and then never actually get taxed because it doesn't enter that country. A bank account will tell you *exactly* how much that person earned worldwide and who needs to tax it. Most Swiss banks will NEVER tell the countries involved that they suspect untaxed money is sitting in their accounts - go abroad, earn £10m, stick it in a Swiss account, come home, claim benefits.
There are a million and one ways to launder money, and to avoid taxation, and most of them involve off-shore accounts like these.
However, I want to know who these people are who owed the IRS 1 million dollars but only had to pay three thousand! i hate the IRS as much as the next guy, but those ads make me kind of mad!
Switzerland's top tax bracket is 40%+, so I'm not really sure what it is you're trying to get at. That we need higher taxes on the wealthy in America? I agree.
If he has information on illegal dealings, corruption, etc., release it.. Why the threats, why the talk? His current behavior is more like someone trying to shake down folks, not someone trying to uncover the truth.
A while ago (last year I think) when some wikileak documents were released, they were criticized for not redacting sufficiently (I recall that some analysis into found that they were, and the criticism was mostly unfounded, of the informant names that were actually available, one was dead and one was a double agent or something like that). I suspect now the time between getting a leak and releasing it has increased a lot, due to an increase in checking and double checking, to avoid those sort of criticisms again.
I guess its kind of like a double edged sword; they'll either be criticised for not allowing sufficient time for redaction, or criticised for taking some time to release something.
Not one person here would voluntarily pay taxes if they didn't have to.
You're a bit dim concerning the larger scheme of things if you think you can cast the net that wide without catching a cactus. The short answer is that any person who has ever chosen a lottery or a casino over a mutual fund is not half as tax averse as you make out.
I was reading John Rawls "Justice as Fairness" not long ago. He has this concept of the "original position". The way I recall the idea, you get to choose how the world is constructed, but you don't know who you will be when you wake up in this world when it comes into creation. You could be anyone, with uniform probability.
With no foreknowledge of personal privilege, do you choose a world with no tax system? Or a world with kinds of institutions that have evolved in society as we know it? Some worlds will combine spectacular opportunity with spectacular inequity. The bottom of the pyramid is fat, so your odds of showing up as a burger flipper are relatively high; or with small probability, you could be the patriarch of Galt's Gulch.
I didn't think the concept of choosing before coming into being was all that philosophically brilliant, but some people can't get their minds around the difference between choosing a *system* you can live with, or choosing your place within it, and that needed to be addressed. So I give Rawls his due.
In a fictitious world where the no-tax fairy arrives and asks you if you would like a lifetime tax exemption, not many people would turn the offer down. But that's fantasy, not insight.
If the Libertarian-transporter fairy arrived, and offered to poof you into a society organized on Libertarian ideals, with nothing resembling a tax system, I'd be terrified about what kind of society I might get poofed into. It's hard to pay for each service required individually, that would be a treadmill from hell, so I guess there has to be some kind of group organization, I can only imagine many of the groups once formed resemble condo associations. Ugh. But it's voluntary, so the coffee tastes great.
There's a perception in world aid circles that when a country with a weak civic infrastructure discovers vast resource wealth (diamonds, oil, tantalum) that the country is just as likely to tip into civil war as to become an affluent society. And even if the society does become affluent in the short term, when the resource is exhausted, the country usually declines, and often ends up worse off than their neighbours, who didn't stub their toe on a giant diamond mine, and had to build their social capital the hard way. Countries with strong social institutions, like Canada, tend to benefit the most from resource wealth. Some countries with little resource wealth but cohesive institutions manage OK, because they don't have much choice, other than to work hard and row together.
We're still learning that human nature is not as intrinsically wealth maximizing as many economists would portray it. I always think of one of the original theories of fluid dynamics, which perfectly described the behaviour of water, neglecting surface tension. Great, someone remarked, we now have the complete theory of water that isn't wet.
It's the surface tension term in human nature that leads to cohesive social institutions. Sapolsky studied some non-human primates where self-interest is a lot more raw (the animals behave like impulsive two-year-olds). It was pretty clear they weren't able to stop bickering long enough to stack one stone on top of another, much less bake a mud brick. Libertarian to the last hairy armpit. What in economic theory distinguishes us from them? Our greed is more nuanced and restrained.
One thing you can say in favour of Libertarianism is that it serves as an intellectual flu shot against certain kinds of really terrible thinking about how society could be better ordered, by the same kinds of people who destroyed Africa (out of kindness).
Personally, there's no social structure I understa
It's not as if the rich are paying their fair share of taxes, and they haven't really since 1980. The United States has the same tax collection rate as Romania. So, you would expect it to have social services on par with Romania.
Once you get to the actual civilized world, like England and France and Germany, you see the rate in the high 30s or low 40s, because that's what it costs to build and maintain a civilization that takes care of the elderly, the disabled, and the mentally ill.
If you want to live in a place like Romania or Moldova, where the disabled and elderly are helped to die or filed away at the edge of town languishing until they are dead, that's fine. That's the road America has chosen right now. The wealthy have spent billions convincing the middle class that low taxes are great, but now we are seeing the results of that policy. They (the top 1%) have lowered their own tax rate from 34% to 23% between 1980 and now.
But they're not willing to budge on the military they use to forcefully open markets. They're not willing to allow the middle class to have a public option to lower the cost of health care. They're not willing to improve free access to education to make our economy stronger and our population more employable.
They want to keep depriving the US government of money until it breaks down, and then accept a much lower standard of government service so they can go for the 10 million dollar yacht instead of settling on the 7 million dollar model.
They are worthless fucks who don't care about their countrymen, and I'd rather them emigrate to Romania before they rob America of the rest of it's wealth. Not after.
You're wrong on two counts:
1) It distorts the calculations on what is actually needed for the common good. That has everything to do with what we really need.
2) It undermines the sense of duty people have to obey the law and contribute.
The government is supposed to obey the law and serve the common good. When it doesn't and gets away with it, people feel like chumps for going along with it in the best of cases. In the worst cases, they feel like the rule of law is meaningless.
They don't have to pay, they could move to another country.
Not true - the US taxes all income earned by people born in the US, regardless of where they live / have citizenship. To avoid this, you have to:
1) Renounce your US citizenship
AND
2) Convince the IRS that you did not renounce your citizenship to avoid paying taxes
I am not kidding. If the IRS thinks it is possible that you renounced your citizenship to avoid paying taxes, they will annul your renunciation. And remember, the IRS does not require any proof, and your have no appeal outside of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax court. After which they will probably win anyway, because in tax court you are considered guilty until proven innocent. Please see the relevant legal part of the tax code.
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
I know this one. The ability and legality of the US Government to levy and collect taxes is directly codified in the Constitution.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain