UK Pursues Tax Evaders Using Stolen Bank Details 315
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."
Remember kids: When you steal something it's wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
If the government somehow steals something, it's alright!
Re:Remember kids, UK stole nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
"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.
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Re:Remember kids, UK stole nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
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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.
Re:Remember kids, UK stole nothing (Score:5, Informative)
criminal evidence is not considered legitimate property and can be seized by the government at any time.
Re:Remember kids, UK stole nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Remember kids, UK stole nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remember kids, UK stole nothing (Score:5, Funny)
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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.
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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.
Pot, Kettle... (Score:2)
It's hard to hide legally earned money from the government so the money in the accounts is probably less then clean itself.
What goes around comes around.
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The most significant benefit of UK being part of EU but not Euro is that its bank can act independently of the European Central Bank (ECB) and it can devalue its currency when it so needs. So yes, UK did print extra money, which was used to buy Gilts, thus pumping extra money in the economy, but since UK is not part of Euro zone, there is nothing in the Maastricht treaty that prevents UK from doing so (similarly for Switzerland, Sweden etc.)
Of course in the long run, the government has to buy back the gilts
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The government doesn't steal, it expropriates.
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The stolen information was confiscated by the authorities.
It's just that they uncovered evidence of other crimes while they were busting for data theft.
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The information may have been merely copied, but it is being used to facilitate actual theft in the form of taxes.
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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. Gro
Spies steal data all the time (Score:3, Insightful)
Two Wrongs. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'll take a shot at it... at least based on how the US legal and tax system work. (sort of inherited from the British, at least loosely)
There would likely be protections from criminal prosecution (inadmissible evidence or such) at least until they found enough evidence OTHER than the list itself.
BUT---The tax man doesn't really care much to prosecute you. ...You give him the money, or he takes it forcibly.
He wants his money.
You aren't likely to make much if convicted/in prison, so it's sort of a twisted win
Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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But the person who stole the data was paid by the government. That makes him an agent of a foreign government in Switzerland. He was paid by the government ( French government ) for his work.
If he was in the US, stealing data from Bank of American for France and being paid millions of dollars for the theft, he would be an agent of the French government. As such, he could be arrested in the US for failing to register as an agent of a foreign government.
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Technically, I think the person who stole the list could argue that it's not actually a real list, that they forged it in an
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Read the thing you should read before posting. The list was stolen in Switzerland. The Swiss want to arrest him. But he's in France and it's not possible to extradite him.
Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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That seems far more fair than the cloak and dagger technicalities employed by the UK (where I live) and the US..
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Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Does this ever actually happen? In the US, there have been serious arguments against the exclusionary rule, on the grounds that the police should and will be punished separately for their acts. In practice, they never are, and those advocating against the rule on those grounds are either extremely naive or are simply being disingenuous.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Germany went one farther... (Score:2)
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Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Creating a false definition doesn't make a point. If I say that air is essentially dry water, that doesn't mean it's going to quench your thirst.
If the government send me a bill which covers all the goods and services I receive from the government - roads, education, keeping of law & order, defence etc. ANd I choose to pay it, then clearly there is no theft. Just a bill which has been paid.
If you choose not to pay it, and the debt is forcibly extracted from you, then the word for that is distraint, not theft.
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You're right, twisting words doesn't change the underlying point. Your argument, for example, is fundamentally flawed because you assume the "bill" from government is justified. As it happens, I do not support a lot of government spending that has been done in my country until recently, and I do support the strong moves by the new administration to dramatically reduce that spending. Sending me a bill for the spending before, which I did not ask for and which I do not believe was ever beneficial (neither to
Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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The problem is that under an excessively punitive tax regime, those with the most wealth (businesses and rich people) may very well do exactly that. The consequence is that instead of getting some tax revenue from those people, the nation gets none, and to continue the metaphor, it goes out of business because there are no longer enough patrons willing to pay the excessively high prices it charges.
Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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/ [adamsmith.org]
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.
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Make no mistake, I never imagined you were a high earner. Nor did the other poster that answered you. You
Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Obviously a gov't needs taxes to function.
The question is this: what is the proper function of a government and how much should it be allowed to spend on that function?
An income tax allows a government to grow beyond its proper function and thus to increase in size all the time.
Suffices it to say that current US federal gov't budget has increased by a factor of more than 2 since the year 2000. So the amount of gov't function has increased, or more correctly stated: US gov't is spending more than twice as m
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1.7 T appears to be the Federal spending from 1999. (1.702 T)
The equivalent figure from 2009 is 3.518 T.
Why round 0.5 up, but not 0.7? Laziness, ignorance or attempt at wilful deception?
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And despite losing a larger percentage of your income, you're still richer than everyone else. Yawn. Call me when the top marginal tax rate again hits 90% as it did in the 1930s. Maybe then I'll worry about your plight.
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If the GP is anything like most of the people who spout this philosophy, then chances are, he's not actually in a high tax bracket. For some reason, the bulk of defenders of the upper class rich (in the US at least) are not particularly well to do working class. For some reason, they want to defend their money from taxes when, inevitably their genius leads them to join the ranks of the rich.
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If the GP is anything like most of the people who spout this philosophy, then chances are, he's not actually in a high tax bracket. For some reason, the bulk of defenders of the upper class rich (in the US at least) are not particularly well to do working class. For some reason, they want to defend their money from taxes when, inevitably their genius leads them to join the ranks of the rich.
I suspect it's something to do with hope and aspiration. They like to think that the path to the wealthy and glamorous life they see on TV is open to them and unobstructed, even though for most of them personality and/or circumstances and/or luck mean that it isn't really.
Not true (Score:3, Interesting)
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 taxi
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Define "right".
Define "earn".
Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Now any income they derive from the UK is a different story, but shouldn't officials in the UK have access to someones salary information or income if derived in the UK without having to resort to bank statements?
This won't be as simple as salary paid by an employer. This will be money that is shuffled all over the world through a tangled web of holding companies in order to hide it from the taxman. If the accountants are doing it right then the taxman won't be able to see it, but would be very interested to check whether all of those shuffles are legal.
Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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Secondly, if it wasn't for the biased tax system, there wouldn't be a demand for finding tax loopholes, lobbying for tax changes, or shipping your money out of the country.
Do you really believe that if tax were a fixed percentage of income, or even a fixed sum, that nobody would try to get out of paying it or try to get the amount reduced?
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This is the UK we're talking about, so we're also taking about useless socialism programs.
It's up to the citizens of a given state to decide whether the "socialist" programs in that state are useless or not. And, last I checked, UK was still a democracy, so that's precisely what they do.
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It's up to the citizens of a given state to decide whether the "socialist" programs in that state are useless or not.
That would be a more compelling argument if the citizens of the state were fully informed about the consequences of their actions, and collectively making rational choices accordingly.
Unfortunately, this will never happen, because people can't simultaneously be legal experts, economic experts, public health experts, criminologists, etc. If they could, we wouldn't need to appoint so many representatives who could explore these issues full time on our behalf.
To see how little the average person really underst
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Righties waffling about socialism are as tedious and wrong as lefties calling everybody a fascist.
Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
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It's not about whether it can be provided - it's about whether it will be.
Fear the Libertarians! If they get their way, the government will leave you alone! Oh, the Horror!
No matter what. So if you've been mugged or your house is on fire, the Libertarian Government will do nothing about it because your freedom is too important to be messed with.
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This hard earned money is not your to begin with. It's not even real! It only has value because of the government. How much would one dollar be worth if the government didn't exist? If there was no one watching the boarder, and anyone can come from any shitty country and steal it from you. If there was no police protection your beautiful house would only be worth as much as the window a gang of criminals smashed to get inside, and loot it; proceeding thereafter you kill you and rape your family. Or how much
Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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This hard earned money is not your to begin with.
So I "hard earned" for somebody else? Perhaps you ought to look up the meaning of the word "incentive".
It's not even real! It only has value because of the government.
Money has value only because the society not government chooses to recognize the value of that money. As long as that situation holds, money has real value.
Not everything government does is great, or even good. But they do enough good to make it worth it. That's why all first world countries with high standards of living have large governments that collect taxes, and not Somalian-style fiefdoms. So no they are not trying to keep their hard earned money, they are stealing from everyone else.
Nonsense. Somalian-style fiefdoms are government too. Look I recognize that governments are an integral part of the modern infrastructure of laws, physical infrastructure, education, etc that makes up a modern society. But they aren't the sole part. And
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You do NOT have the right to someone else's money.
And yet you have no problem using infrastructure and all manner of stuff that you didn't pay for. I have never seen anyone say the above, and actually practice what they preach.
Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Ah, I see. Necessary taxes and programs are those that benefit you directly. Unnecessary welfare taxes and programs are those that you do not benefit from. Nice.
I hope you die from some really rare and painful disease after your medical coverage is terminated because it hit its lifetime maximum.
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I hope you die from some really rare and painful disease after your medical coverage is terminated because it hit its lifetime maximum.
You do realise that in places with socialised medical care, you are typically still not covered for treatment of rarer/more expensive conditions, right? Here in the UK, we have the infamous "postcode lottery" for NHS treatment, where even in some parts of the same country, the same nationalised healthcare system, funded from the same central taxation pot, will not provide treatments that you could get if you lived in a different part of the country. And of course, if you do have something rare and unfortuna
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It's pretty straightforward. The US healthcare system costs 2.5 times more per capita than the NHS, and yet unlike the NHS leaves a large proportion of the population without any health care. The reason? 2 main things. There is a vast amount of administration in handling insurance - the NHS avoids all that by treating everyone
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Already got said horrible disease. I was born with it and there's no cure. 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.
You know, time and again I'm surprised at how most more fanatical libertarians would be worse off than they are today if a party representing their platform ever came to power. Students with no job, and a loan they'll be paying off for years to come? Check. People who are seriously ill themselves, or have seriously ill relatives? Check.
It's not even funny. It's just sad.
Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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?
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Bizarre. Government intervention in transportation started long before the automobile was invented. I doubt the Romans built their road network thinking about how useful it would be to GM.
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Actually, if you had any knowledge of how an economy functions, you'd understand that any money you earn is because around you is a stable society with stable laws and stable government. In other words, the money you earn is at least partially due to other people working to provide you with the environment in which you can earn that money. Which in turn means that they are entitled to a share of your money, because without them, that money could not be earned in the first place.
It's amazing how people think
Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a great deal fewer successful people in those countries for exactly that reason. Move there and see how easily all (not just a fraction) of your hard-earned money gets taken from you.
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*sigh* You're one of those people who don't understand property rights.
No, he's just one of those people who don't understand them your way. Imagine that, there are many takes on what property even is! Like, some people think it's just as imaginary as copyright, and the very concept of "property right" only exists insofar as there is some entity to enforce it universally - we happen to call it a "state".
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If they can print it, they, in-fact, have practically unlimited control over the currency. No magic will prevent the printing of extra currency from causing inflation. And if they stop printing more, you get deflation.
Indeed. And it's pretty much always been because that the government was abusing their (above) control over that currency. And what do
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If you want that dangerous pothole down the road fixed, you can pay for it, and on that note no we will not be building a second bridge just because the traffic is bad because you guys haven't paid for it yet.
Public schools? Yeah we got those, $10000 per year please.
Wh
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If you want that dangerous pothole down the road fixed, you can pay for it, and on that note no we will not be building a second bridge just because the traffic is bad because you guys haven't paid for it yet.
I live in Cambridge, UK. We had potholes for months after the winter freeze last year, because our local council didn't have the ability to get them fixed fast enough and in many cases cheap, low quality road maintenance in the past had led to increased damage during the chill. I don't know how much damage was caused to vehicles, not to mention the various injuries, during those months, but I imagine it was significant. Did I mention that many places in this country also ran out of material to grit the road
Re:Two Wrongs. . . (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Why are governments so dependent on tax revenue? (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [washingtonpost.com] (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 [wordpress.com] (pdf [richardccook.com]) has a really nice overview of an economic system that would work for the benefit of everyone...
Some other sites:
http://www.monetary.org/ [monetary.org]
http://www.webofdebt.com/ [webofdebt.com]
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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:
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One interesting form of money supply control i read about involved the government basically spending the money into existence, and then taxing it out of existence. So when there is not enough money in circulation the government would put it into existence by building roads and such. And when there is too much, they would raise taxes.
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It has been done recently (it's called quantative easing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing [wikipedia.org]). You have to be careful about it though and do it with the support of the market or every currency trader on the planet will short the hell out of your currency pushing the value of it down to sod all whilst making an absolute killing for themselves.
That's Why... (Score:2, Interesting)
...When it comes to a national government's size, scope, and powers, smaller & weaker is good. Yes, it makes it harder to get "free government stuff" (that you end up paying for over and over, but I digress). But, it's hard for anyone to be or use a jack-booted thug/enforcer if there is no government department to create a jack-booted-thug/enforcer division or pay the jack-booted thugs/enforcers, or give them lists of targets...err, "citizens" to do the whole "boot crushing a human face...forever" thing
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Considering government bloat is the fastest way to hemorrhage money I agree. In Canada it take 4 people to pay for the job of 1 civil servant. It's probably around 6:1 in the US, government makes no money, it creates no money, all it does it take and spend another persons.
Re:That's Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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The trouble is of course that while you are right about government thuggery, if absent it is quickly replaced by wealth-based thuggery. There is no escape.
All you get is to chose who the thugs will be: hereditary dynasties descended from wealthiest people (a.k.a. nobility) or somewhat-controllable (at least in theory) by the citizenry government pencil-pushers. Or a combination of these.
There appears to be no other choices. All the libertarian utopias so far proposed have the common characteristics of bei
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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.
Wrong (Score:2)
It's wrong to start buying stolen data even for tax evasion, because this
kind of business can easily extend to other domains. For the "good" cause
governments justify now to finance data stealing in other countries, but
the day these same governments are themselves victims of such practices
they will for sure find it illegal..
Cool! (Score:2, Insightful)
This means that evidence gathered illegally is admissible!
Get a confession by torture. No problem.
Illegal wire tap? This never was much of a problem in the US.
Taking pictures of police engaging in illegal activity where photography is banned. The judge won't throw out the evidence.
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This means that evidence gathered illegally is admissible!
Get a confession by torture. No problem.
Illegal wire tap? This never was much of a problem in the US.
Taking pictures of police engaging in illegal activity where photography is banned. The judge won't throw out the evidence.
Imagine the police apprehend a burglar climbing out of the window of Dr Evil.
He has in his swag bag the Koh-i-Noor diamond, recently stolen from the British Crown Jewels.
Are you suggesting that the police shouldn't investigate the possibility that Dr Evil stole the diamond in the first place?
Should they just say:
"Damn. There's nothing we can do. The evidence was gathered by illegal means."
I think not.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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 a
Re: (Score:2)
This means that evidence gathered illegally is admissible!
[...]
Taking pictures of police engaging in illegal activity where photography is banned. The judge won't throw out the evidence.
I am in doubt. Would the correct moderation of your posting be "-1 Obviously naive" or "+1 Apparently naive"?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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...
Re: (Score:2)
This should be obvious. There is a general principal that evidence must be gathered according to a long list of rules. The rules are there to protect the people from their government. There are a lot of criminals who walk free in the US every year because the police and/or the district attorney made a mistake. That is why you pay a lot of money for a good lawyer when you are in trouble. Any mistakes that the lawyer finds will ALWAYS work to the defendant's favor. By allowing an exception for this situ
Re: (Score:2)
In all cases its down to whether the government directly violated your rights to obtain the information. If they paid for these accounts to be stolen, then they're inadmissible. If they sent Bond to get them, inadmissible.
If someone steals them anyway, then offers them to the government - either for free, or for cash - then that's fine. You might want to prosecute the burglar, but that's not part of this discussion.
Quite often the government does advertise for information - they pay rewards for information
Re: (Score:2)
but I understand that supression of evidence is only available if the illegal evidence is directly obtained by the government. ie. if a cop breaks into your house and finds your stash, its not admissible (as the cop did something wrong - personally, I think prosecute the cop and let the evidence stand, but that's a different matter).
If a private individual breaks into your house, finds your stash and tells the cops - its no problem to use that evidence in court.
You can get in on the action, turn someone in!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
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/ [gswlaw.com]
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 [wikipedia.org]
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.
Work at a bank in HK, want to get rich? (Score:2)
Western governments will pay you millions to steal your employer's data!!!
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Not quite. Since the information in question is not any kind of creative work (apart from possibly creative bookkeeping) but merely a collection of facts, it is not copyrightable in most countries, and definitely not in the EU.
Now, is it bad that a banker is copying what is expected to be confidential information and selling it to outside parties? Certainly. But that does not make it copyright infringement.
Re: (Score:2)
Back to the list. What crosses the line?
So the authorities should disregard information from whistleblowers?
Not a first (Score:2, Interesting)