A global super-rich elite has exploited gaps in cross-border tax rules to hide an extraordinary $21 trillion of wealth offshore – as much as the American and Japanese GDPs put together – according to research commissioned by the campaign group Tax Justice Network.
James Henry, former chief economist at consultancy McKinsey and an expert on tax havens, has compiled the most detailed estimates yet of the size of the offshore economy in a new report, The Price of Offshore Revisited, released exclusively to the Observer.
He shows that at least $21 trillion – perhaps up to $32 trillion – has leaked out of scores of countries into secretive jurisdictions such as Switzerland and the Cayman Islands with the help of private banks, which vie to attract the assets of so-called high net-worth individuals. Their wealth is, as Henry puts it, “protected by a highly paid, industrious bevy of professional enablers in the private banking, legal, accounting and investment industries taking advantage of the increasingly borderless, frictionless global economy”. According to Henry’s research, the top 10 private banks, which include UBS and Credit Suisse in Switzerland, as well as the US investment bank Goldman Sachs, managed more than $6.5 trillion in 2010, a sharp rise from $2.5 trillion five years earlier.
The detailed analysis in the report, compiled using data from a range of sources, including the Bank of International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund, suggests that for many developing countries the cumulative value of the capital that has flowed out of their economies since the 1970s would be more than enough to pay off their debts to the rest of the world…
The problem here is that “the assets of these countries are held by a small number of wealthy individuals while the debts are shouldered by the ordinary people of these countries through their governments,” the report says…
And here in the United States, we are told we should vote to elect a leading representative of the tax cheats this report is all about – to be president of the country.
My hats off to anyone who can dodge the tax Mafia.
Spoken like a true sheeple. You shall be rewarded with a Christmas turkey (in January) after you pay your taxes.
Reading fail dude.
>Conclusion: … BORING, nobody cares, you lost so STFU , Get a life, your whine is so 2008,….
>Republicans should focus on what Geithner has done with his penis. It’s worked pretty well with the Clinton’s.
In that way, you have much to talk about while the democrats tend to business. So, STFU or go find something about where Geithner’s penis has been.
Dallas on Treasury Secretary Geithner’s tax dodging.
Others on this site include Mr ConFusion and Mr Mustard saying everyone would not pay taxes if they don’t have to.
They’re the extremely rich, the 12,400 people who don’t care because they own the IRS and have accountants, thousandaires, to handle all those tax evasion details.
The millionaires, the 1%ers, care, but they’re politicians and corporate bosses so they’re just going to pass it on to the thousandaires.
Meanwhile the thousandaires are taking it in the shorts.
Love the article source. Another roll of Internet toilet paper.
You dont want to read this..
HERE is a problem..
Consider that an economy is based on MONEY…
Its a game of POKER, that never ends.
The money gets shifted back and forth, on and on..
BUT,
there is only so much money. GDP or SOMETHING should tell the corps how much money IS THERE..
YOU CAN BET, more then the amounts of money Available.
Heres the secret..
RAISe wages, but DONT pay in CASH.. You now have an IOU, in your bank account. You then transfer that IOU, out of country, and you can CLAIM IT..
Another point..IF you allow these folks to PLAY with EXTRA CASH…What value DOES your money have.. ITS ALL PLAY MONEY, but to keep its value, they PUT MORE MONEY/MAKE MORE…
They get the GOV, to back it, and make MONEY..
WHICH DEVALUES your pay check, and raises PRICES..
You really don’t understand the proper use of or the concept of capitalization for emphasis do you.
It’s all part of ECA’s charm.
Not like ME at all.
People with no ethical standards have no problem voting for people with no ethics.
Like Obama!
Maybe he is smart enough to know that the taxes collected is payed to the Fed for interest in that national debt.
Why pay extortion!
find something else to bitch about him about.
I’m sure you won’t have to look far
Survivingsurvivalism.com
If you were a super wealthy Republican elite insider capitalist corporate raider that wears magic underwear and owns a stable of tax attorneys and financial strategists you would do the same thing.
“Global elite hide…”
Yeah, yeah… and “poor” people ALSO dodge taxes by working for CASH under the table every day.
So, besides us, who are the honest citizens? LOL
I have paid every penny of tax that I have owed on every penny of net income that I have reported.
My honesty and integrity is legendary.
🙂
The rich do the same thing..
They take credit on wages, without taking wages.
Just for giggles, check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV-RqPtT2PU
Pay particular attention to #8 since it seems quite a few people here are results of it!
Here’s another one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ifpEROFT-U
This may be VERY interesting to you liberals out there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe9qE7GJSc4
If you do NOTHING at all today, please make an exception and WATCH THIS!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLUASI8baDw
Tax mafia sounds right. You are expected to pay whatever amount asked for, voluntarily, to the maximum, no matter how much it is. When you follow legal rules in the books to lower your taxes, there will be plenty of people lined up to call you “tax cheat” who is taking advantage of “tax loophole”. And no matter how much you already pay, you will continue to be accused of not paying your fair share. You will be compared with people who paid either less in dollar amount or less in percentage, whichever make it looks like you are paying less.
Actually, I think real mafia is more reasonable…
Gee, I wonder what agenda the Tax “Justice” Network might have ?
I have studied and struggled and worked hard and taken advantage of every social connection and tax advantage to climb to the top of the poor class and I intend to stay there.
I will never pay one penny of tax more than I am liable by law to pay.
I am ready to believe this. I am ready to believe that it is only a coincidence that it is published today. I am ready to believe that a parallel economy for the super rich has secretly existed without the knowledge and complicity of governments.
We should have burned our home to the ground instead of letting the banksters have it back, to see at full price again.
But my children will never forget the kindness the San Diego County Sheriffs showed during the eviction.
The way to fix this is to break-up the monster institutions that cause this heartache every 30 or 40 years and remove investing from banking.
Whadda bunch of goons: cheering your own demise under some misplaced notion of “freedom” from the state. Like it or not: the State is US, and tax cheats cheat US! Thats you and me. You may think that is Clever (Please Don’t) but its just venal and stupid.
What has Greece in and out of a total collapse is the rank and file citizen feeling it is ok to not pay taxes. You know—like living in Somalia. USA is only a few years behind.
Once again: every dollar invested in tax compliance results in $10 of increased tax compliance/revenue. The thing about $$$ is that it is mostly traceable. So–provide in order: notice, amnesty, then enforcement.
Crack these bastards a new a##hole so that at least they won’t run for President of the USA under some notion of devine right. With enough tax revenue, we can once again fund our general education so that the idiots posting here will stop shitting in the public water supply.
Silly Hoomans.
Why shouldn’t they run for President? Timothy Geithner became Treasury Secretary without much trouble.
They absolutely should run for presnedent. THE POINT IS===they should only get about 3% of the vote. Thats how skewed the voting public is against their own self interest.
In a rational society==NO RICH PERSON with off shore private banking accounts who refuses to show his tax returns WHILE providing no details at all as to what they will do in office that does not feather their own passive income retirement/inheritance nest would not run for office in fear of being tar and feathered.
In our great country==such creeps are making the contest “almost” a 50/50 proposition.
The thinking elite of the World stand by mouths agape. But what do you expect from a bunch of angel praying science denying high school drop outs?
“Global elite hide $21 trillion from tax collectors worldwide” /// I am disturbed by the common reference to “elite” when all we are talking about is that 1% of the population rich enough to take such advantage? Is everyone that is rich also elite? Its a debasement of the language if such is the case.
If I’ve ever heard it said, its not emphasized that all these tax dodges are NOT the rich simply following the tax code the same as you and me. NO–they buy governments to write the tax code just so that they can avoid taxes and then they lie and cheat for that extra 2-3 % anyway==or they run for Presnedent to change more laws in their favor. Quite a good trick that: get paid 400K as Pres–or Romney may pull the gig for free, so that you can change the tax laws to avoid another 30 Million a year on your passive investments.
Just how obvious does it need to be?
If you were a super wealthy Republican elite insider capitalist corporate raider that wears magic underwear and owns a stable of tax attorneys and financial strategists you would do the same thing.
It is the height of hypocrisy to suggest that you would be the one exception that would consider the tax code to be unfair to everyone but the elite class.
orchi–when in the heck did I suggest or infer I was any different? Of course I too am a silly hooman and would act consistently in my own self destructive short term Onanistic self pleasuring.
Why wouldn’t I act like everyone else?
……. and thats what jails are made for. I’m only sane when being insanely rich is not one of my options.
Unlike the LIEberTARDS and social Darwinist fantacists posting here—I recognize I will never be part of the top .01%==so why should I fund continued tax breaks for them out of my winter heating fund or summer food program????
How does that throat cutting behavior make any sense at all?
……. and it doesn’t.
This has been part of supply-side theory as well. It is not ‘trickle-down’ a term that precedes Reagan by decades. Part of it is lower tax rates boosts the incentive to produce, and also part of it is that lower tax rates reduce the amount of tax cheating. This is also in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.
I would agree with this, except that I have heard moderately rich people are more likely to pinch that last penny.
Hopefully JCD can provide his input.
My bottom line view is that people are greedy, and will keep as much as they can through methods they have established. Lowering taxes doesn’t change their behavior.
There is a cost benefit analysis. Cheating is not nearly as profitable with lower tax rates, so some people will move back onto the tax rolls rather than risk prosecution.
Also, there was a tax amnesty given under George W Bush, that brought lots of foreign money back to America at reduced rates.
Identical situation as with the content piracy, just most commenting here would be on the opposite side there. If countries would charge REASONABLE taxes – taxes free market situation can support, same as if content providers would provide what we want at the price market is willing to pay… we would have minimal tax evasion/piracy. It is free market live and well in both cases. In both cases solution is not in locking everyone up but in change of taxing/providing policies and business model (yes, taxation is a business model, failing when attempting to steal from rich [not stealing from rich – when rich are supposed by law to pay identical percentage of their income as any other person]).
Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.
No man’s life, liberty or fortune is safe while our legislature is in session.
Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part.
When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.
Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.
— Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) US Founding Father
Almost right…
No man’s life, liberty or fortune is safe while our legislature is in session.
Don’t you mean to say, “no man’s life, liberty or fortune is safe while legislators (mostly liberal’s) try to make things equal”? That’s COMMUNISM!
I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.
The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.
What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment … inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.
Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office, to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man.
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.
— Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President
OK,
for the Critics of Obama..
Why pick on him, its the OTHER 300 idiots you put into office, as WELL as the other 100,000 around them, that have had jobs for 40 years in government..
What are the educational basis for electing a president??
What knowledge, abilities, experience?? NONE!!
And they can only DO what the OTHERS around him tell him is the RIGHT THING..
LEts STATE this as a Decadent corporate Mentality..
WOW, you lower my taxes, COOL.
Do I lower the PRICES?? not as much as I GET..
WOW, I found a way to not pay as much taxes, should I give back to the CONSUMER..NOT happening.
WOW, I can have Products made over seas, SHIPPED, distributed(my own trucking company) for less then having a USA PERSON(with any benefits) just to make the product. BONUS, I get a pay raise.
WOW, we made extra profit this year, should I give it to the Stock holders? or lower prices and sell MORE of the CRAP that cost $5 and sold for $50…NEITHER..now I need to find a way to HIDE IT..
Ok, I got all this money, but HOW to hide it.. pay another group to Push congress to change CERTAIN regulations/laws about taxes..Lets put a small loophole THERE..(yes there is a group).. They suggest making my OWN PRIVATE bank…(money laundering) The bank shows money going in, but its based on the STOCK exchange the banks VALUE keeps going DOWN, so money is evaluated LOWER as it looks as if its failing..
Bank fails..I can show a LOSS, but the money was SHIPPED OVER SEAS…
PARTY..
I agree. If you do the reading and research you’ll find that it’s out government that bends to the will of the lobbyist and outsides influences. These are happening because our officials are incapable of integrity, of pride.
This isn’t going to be resolve anytime soon or easily for that matter. There are too many powerful players in the game. The rich will use their dollars to persuade others so that they in turn can keep more. It really is that simple.
If the government could put Al Capone in jail for tax evasion, why can’t they get the rich US citizens that do it as well? Oh that’s right, the ones that are in charge are the ones doing it. Romney is among those that are criminals of the worst kind. The uber rich that step on the throats of others and get richer doing it. A complete overhaul of the laws surrounding white collar crime is greatly needed. Do you think that these white collar clowns would break the law as often if they faced the same punishment as bank robbers and drug dealers? I don’t think that they would risk federal, pound me in the ass, prison for twenty years. Instead they get a fine and house arrest for stealing millions of dollars. They guy that sticks up a bank with a plastic gun gets 10 years in jail. The system is broken and we let it go on.
“System”? Broken?!
When was the last time you read any HISTORY?!
There’s nothing really all that new here. Just slightly new rules and different players is all. But make no mistake that the same game is still being played that has been going on ever since man (and woman) first realized how to steal from his fellow man.
Maybe you’ve heard the saying, “money is the root of all evil”? That’s good advice to keep in mind any time someone is asking for more of it, or demanding it.
I’d stay Anon too if I was this stupid says:
Watch this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=eLUASI8baDw which is the meat puppet Chuck Woolery chiding America for it competitive malaise. You know–we don’t work hard enough and therefore don’t deserve to be rich.
Ahem!…… the reason this recovery is likely headed to a double dip recession slide to depression is that the current situation is not part of a normal business cycle. No. Its a “reset” taking into account computerization and outsourcing. Millions of jobs have left the USA and they aren’t coming back until oil hits $200 a barrel and THAT assumes China doesn’t build even bigger cargo ships.
When a new factory employs 300 high skilled computer operators to replace the old factory that employed 1500 high school drop outs, “hard work” isn’t the issue.
Course—Chucky will read anything put in front of him. He’s hard working that way. Why are you?
So, all the effort last year by the IRS was worthless. The swiss banks giving the US regulators their client info so the IRS could get them and all the court cases the IRS won and all the people who came forward and declared their assets….
Hmmmmmmm.
Either the IRS is COMPLETELY incompetent, or this news item is really about stirring up the population to hate rich people, which seems to be Obama’s modus operandi.
My vote, it’s yet more democrat hate mongering. Typical. So typical.
s internet. Yes, you don’t have to toil all over your neighborhood to uncover the ideal computer exercising as well as Term 2007 schooling company.
Wow, I think we have one big sour grape here…
There are about 350 million Americans. There are probably only about a 100 who would be worse than the current POTUS.