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HSBC Banking Leak Shows Tax Avoidance, Dealings With Criminals
An anonymous reader writes: Data in a massive cache of leaked secret bank account files lift the lid on questionable practices at a subsidiary of one of the world's biggest financial institutions. HSBC's Swiss banking arm did the following: Routinely allowed clients to withdraw bricks of cash, often in foreign currencies of little use in Switzerland; Aggressively marketed schemes likely to enable wealthy clients to avoid European taxes; Colluded with some clients to conceal undeclared "black" accounts from their domestic tax authorities; and provided accounts to international criminals, corrupt businessmen and other high-risk individuals. For its part, HSBC admits that it is liable for past transgressions but claims its practices have changed.
So shady characters were using Swiss bank accounts? Really?
In other news some of the users of the pirate bay were found to be distributing copyrighted material. Also the sun found to be yellow.
It never turns out well when the staff starts helping themselves to the product.
Nefarious!
Water is wet. Dirt makes you dirty. Cows go "moo" and Dogs go "woof".
Meanwhile Apple stores massive reserves of cash offshore. Simultaneously taking out a loan to pay its taxes... And why you ask per say? Because when you lend money to pay the IRS you get tax breaks.
They all do it. We all let them do it and only get off our collective asses to protest when the Govt hits us with a 50c surcharge on "whateverthefark".
HSBC Banking Leak Shows Tax Avoidance, Dealings With Criminals
In other words, just another day of business as usual...
In the US decade or so ago. They are a blatant and repeat offender. Their main profits come from servicing organized crime and criminals, and should have been shut down years ago.
A fine, no more.
Avoiding is not illegal. Evading is illegal. Avoiding paying road tolls is when you take surface streets so you don't have to pay tolls on the highway. Evading paying tolls is when you take the highway put don't put any money in the till when you get to the toll booth.
If the bank is helping clients to avoid paying taxes, then the bank is to be congratulated for providing good sound business advice to their clients and enabling them to take advantage of tax situations set up on purpose by various taxing districts in order to lure business to their jurisdiction. If they are helping clients to evade taxes, then they need to be thrown in jail along with their clients.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Why I'm SHOCKED! That's un heard of! Why positively scandalous!
Bank of America, Citi and Deutsche Bank have all been implicated in laundering funds.
http://www.ibtimes.com/citi-de...
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Not to defend Ross Ulbricht, but given what's coming to light, does anybody really doubt that HSBC enabled more drug trafficking than a dozen Silk Roads? And that's not even counting things like the arms trade and tax evasion.
Steal ten thousand dollars and you go to jail for decades. Steal ten billion and you get a slap on the wrist and an engraved invitation to the next campaign fundraising dinner.
I thought they said that the last time they were caught doing this.
It's only illegal if you get caught. Even if you DO get caught, remember that rich people don't go to jail.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
I bet not one of these bankers does any non-neglible prison time.
Lessee, what might they mean by this? I'm guessing that they set up a committee to review their data-security methods, and have modified them to make it more difficult for the "authorities" to get at the information.
As with political campaigns, when a business uses the word "change" without being specific, you should generally assume that the change will not be to your advantage.
I wonder if any journalist has good information on just what the supposed changes have been. But I wouldn't bet on anything, since it's routine for the PR folks to just make up things that they'd like the journalists to publish.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
can take care of the the entire homeless problem. Let's start with seizing that.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
People should always be trying to avoid taxes. Blindly paying whatever taxes are assessed is foolish and will always lead to the levying of more and more taxes because due to greed and human nature. Governments are incapable of ever lowering taxes in any real or meaningful way. The only way to avoid runaway taxation is perpetual tax avoidance. Many people go so far as to consider taxation theft, and avoidance patriotic.
Phil Collins held money in a swiss bank account. What a crook! Where does Phil Collins live? Oh right. Launsanne SWITZERLAND.And OMG, David Bowie had a bank account in Switzerland.... where he lives. So did anyone actually stop to think that this guy stole bank details and sold them? And we're not enforcing our treaties with Switzerland, letting this man get off free, for a bit of extra tax?
Now consider the situation with SWIFT, US stole the data, EU found out, Barosso (possible US operative) promises a tough response and instead signs away the SWIFT data on condition its only used within strict supervision on a supervised air-gapped computer. US of course ignores that, NSA gets a copy of all data and do the air-gapped computer thing for the EU supervisor to see as a floor show.
Snowden blows the lid off that, tells the world the NSA had operators inside the treasury to give itself free access to that data, and EU Parliament demands the program be ended. EU national government politicians all dance around, like the US has them by the balls and don't act. All of their bank details are in the CIAs bag of tricks now.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/23/us-eu-pact-terrorism-funds-nsa
So EU violated its treaty with Switzerland and refuses to prosecute this man, and US violates its treaty with EU and its the same thing.
They reap what they sow.
If you don't like what HSBC is doing, you should get an account with a Swiss bank because Swiss Bank Accounts are not subject to... wait a second.
The Sarbanes-Oxley act has been on the books since 2002. Dodd-Frank bill since 2010. So are they working to keep companies in check and increase transparency? Or just costing both the government and the companies it affects a bunch of time and money? On one side you can say this activity was finally caught. On the other hand you have to ask when large banks are subject to regular audits how do they get away with it from year to year?
From my own limited personal experience, the only thing I can say for sure is that those audits are usually pretty terrible. In theory they're looking for the right stuff, but the auditors themselves are usually green accountants who often lack the hybrid blend of accounting, technical, and IT skills needed to any proper analysis. They don't understand what they're looking at and don't know what to ask for. They usually just follow a sheet of instructions line by line and check those boxes to indicate their work is done. I don't think that quite captures the spirit of those laws.
...I'll go get my wrist slapper and this will all be taken care of right now.
In the USA the bank would pay a huge bribe, er, fine, to the Department of Justice and admit to no wrongdoing. Let's see what happens here.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Having capital abroad is not a crime, its only _evasion_ if they didn't pay tax on the generated income that made that money.
If they could simply classify someone as 'guilty', then they would have classified the people on the list as 'guilty' and thus avoided the messy thing of going to court. It's noticeable that only a few have paid extra tax as a result, and many only on the tiny interest on the bank account, because the money was earned and tax, and sticking it in a bank account is not a crime.... yet.
HSBC cannot be the enforcer who checks everyone's tax returns, and do you really want every bank in the world handing over its data to the US?
Several well-placed explosions at Davos...
The leakier will go to a FPMIA prison the higher up's will get off or go a nice club fed.
The article title is bunk. HSBC did both tax avoidance and tax evasion scheme4s.
The data comes from the Swiss subsidiary, but HSBC is actually a British bank. And you have to love this bit from TFA:
"The man in charge of HSBC at the time, Stephen Green, was made a Conservative peer and appointed to the government. Lord Green was made a minister eight months after HMRC had been given the leaked documents from his bank. He served as a minister of trade and investment until 2013."
The little fish will be prosecuted, while the big fish are made peers of the realm. Business as usual for all of the big banks.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Just ingore Dutch article, or translate with browser.
Click movie, starts of in german, english from 0m30s.
http://newsmonkey.be/article/3...
Enjoy.
Many people go so far as to consider taxation theft, and avoidance patriotic.
IOW, many people are self-centred twats.
BTW, I live in a country with one of the highest rates of taxation on the planet (Sweden), and my taxes actually *decreased* a couple of years ago--in the same year that I received a bonus that should otherwise have resulted in me paying about 10% *more*.
So much for your entertaining little theory Which is, as I said, entertaining, but not even worthy of modding down.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
That's good to know, because while I admit that I'm liable for killing all those people, I can assure you that my practices have now changed.
People should always be trying to avoid taxes. Blindly paying whatever taxes are assessed is foolish and will always lead to the levying of more and more taxes because due to greed and human nature. Governments are incapable of ever lowering taxes in any real or meaningful way. The only way to avoid runaway taxation is perpetual tax avoidance. Many people go so far as to consider taxation theft, and avoidance patriotic.
As I get older, it becomes easier to understand why most revolutions start with hanging a bunch of the rich and powerful from lampposts.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No - as an HSBC customer it makes me quite annoyed since I have problems just cashing a check online.
I mean this was suppose to be the #1 bank for money laundering- they could at least make is a smoother process.
Is that why you were knocked offline all day? C'mon, admit it.
neo-cons and tea*.
The corruption is strong in that party. Oddly, they still come up wtih good ideas on how to accomplish such illegal actions.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yah, jealousy. They hate us 'cuz they ain't us, amirite?
No, people realize they really do have first claim on what they earn and they rightfully want to keep what they earn.
Any of you wealthy or upper middle class Americans who want to tax everyone to death, feel free to lead by example rather than government gunpoint. There is a form for you to rid yourself of all that nasty, nasty money here http://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/moretopics_gifts.html This is called the 'Gifts to the United States Government' account and I am sure it will alleviate all that liberal white guilt from which you suffer so magnificently.
Also, in terms of being a twat, tax avoidance is perfectly legal and legitimate. No one is obligated to pay any tax from which they can escape. It is EVASION that is a crime and no, they are not synonyms under the law.
Synonym = two words that mean the same for you American Progressive public school victims.
Yes, my dear Sage, it is also why after such revolutions the dumbasses starve to death because everyone who knows how to generate jobs and build and conserve capital is dead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... should fix it
Casteism
http://www.positivemoney.org/
When is Slashdot going to address this fact? Why are governments all over the world, borrowing money from private banks, instead of creating their own money? Why are they allowing said banks to issue the money used for these loans, out of thin air?
Did you know that 97% of the money in the U.K. is 'debt money', issued by banks, out of thin air, and is OWED to banks? So the banks 'own' 97% of the country. Did the people vote for this? Were we asked?
This article is just another attempt at smoke and mirrors - avoiding the REAL problem - which is that banks are allowed to print money out of nothing, every time they make a loan, and our governments work for the banks, not us.
Didn't you notice that he parent poster said he lived in Sweden?
Anyway, I agree with you that undertaking all legal means to avoid taxes is good. You might, however, not agree with me if I explain why: I advocate taxes high enough to make charities redundant because there are so many problems with charities that can be avoided if the same function is managed by government instead. The three things I do to advance my goal are thust that (1) I vote according to which candidate will close most loopholes and increase taxes the most and (2) I do what I legally can to pay as little in taxes as possible and (3) I don't give anything to charity. Thereby I consistently vote for the solution, don't pay extra until forced to because when the force is finally implemented (i.e. the loophole closed) it applies to everyone and finally I reject the bad temporary solution that charities are. Gifts to the government seem really stupid to me - it would lessen the need for others to pay their fair share.
^^^ coming soon to a lamp-post near you.
Yeah because people feed themselves with jobs and capital.
Kill yourself.
This doesn't seem to be HSBC particularly - rather just the way banking is (and has been) done in Switzerland.
So long as the world has corrupt wealthy people, there will be countries who will be willing to help them hide their wealth...for a fee of course.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Let's not be hasty now...
It's smart to minimise one's tax obligations. Portraying it as some sort of sacred duty is a bit over the top, though.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.