We’ve known it for a long time. Now, it is making headlines in US.
US Ranks Among Top Secret Tax Havens, tells how:
A Russian gangster used a tiny magnet firm in Southeastern Pennsylvania to defraud thousands of investors and launder hundreds of millions of dollars through bank accounts around the world.
It’s estimated $14.5 trillion is stashed in US by criminals and tax cheats. The article points out how agreements will “leave out wide swaths of people.”
Of course, Florida Bankers Association is saying banks have no obligation to know their customers’ tax obligations. Isn’t that just what banks around the world have been saying to United States of Arrogance?
But wait, there’s a reason for the US being different:
“I don’t think that makes the United States a tax haven. It’s free enterprise. You open it, and you have the responsibility.”
So, in US it’s “free enterprise” to help people defraud, launder money and avoid taxes. Yet those of us who have bank accounts, retirement savings and education savings for our children in the countries where we live and have been citizens for decades are “tax cheats” with obligations to a foreign government.
OK. Now I get it. Free enterprise. Arrogance. Hypocrisy.
Foreign Attack To Control All (FATCA). International Robbery Society (IRS).
On a general note, there is going to be a program in French on Swiss TV tonight about the death of bank secrecy in Switzerland. http://www.rts.ch/emissions/temps-present/economie/4391635-banques-etat-d-urgence-br-secret-bancaire-adieu.html
For those of you who understand French, it might be interesting.