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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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
What is a brick of cash, anyway?
Something you needn't concern yourself with. (If you were rich, you'd know.)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
I'm not going to defend the rich musicians claiming to reside in tax advantageous locations (cough*Isle of Man*cough). Nor am I going to defend those who advocate revolution (wait till you see what the regime is trying to repress) and failed to study history (hint: France had three revolutions, technically 5) - and I'm definitely not going to defend those that complain from the comfort of their armchairs:-
Anarchy is not destruction - it's the opposite of outsourcing responsibility to others.
Enlightened self-interest is not shitting upstream, unenlightened self-interest is. Enlightened self-interest is creating a business that doesn't dump sewage upstream and marketing the non-polluting aspect to advantage. Unenlightened self-interest is demanding a bigger government (composed of people who claim/believe levying taxes = production) that will regulate sewage dumping - which is like hiring someone to train a cat not kill things.
Sheep is a good analogy, they are stupid, but they feed themselves (and they don't go around saying other species can't be bred to be stupid). So just keep bitching, I won't call you sheep.
Don't take that the wrong way.
So did anyone actually stop to think that this guy stole bank details and sold them?
Yes, and no. Some of us thought "Maybe that's bullshit - let's check, before we believe the bank who makes it's money helping themselves to the profits from helping their clients break the law - 'cause, ya know, what if.... one crime gets lonely?"
So maybe the question you ask should have been four questions:-
And yeah - Phil Collins should go straight to jail for crimes against music (as should the rest of Genesis).
Of course, if I thought he was a musician, like David Bowie, then spending the requisite amount of time in countries that charge him less tax on his complicated corporate tax structure than I would have to pay using obfscurated family trusts in my country, would be OK.