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Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

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Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is a claim on future production, and you don't get to transfer that claim over other people's work without caveats, whether it's inheritance tax, limits on gifts, or wealth taxes.

That’s certainly a popular view, but it’s not a given by any means. You will find plenty of people that think giving their children $100 should be possible without any government intervention or taxation. Unless you’re against that as well, we’re talking about arbitrary lines for when the government gets to wet its beak.

There’s an arbitrary line between handshake and battery, yet most people and the law system can see the difference. Claiming there’s no qualitative difference between someone giving $100 dollar to their child as a birthday gift, and inheritance of billion dollars, seems like a weak argument.

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#292
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've gone to a movie they don't let everyone in and assume they had a ticket. Doesn't mean they think of you as a criminal.

I mostly have in mind the KYC strip-tease one must go through nowadays do open an account or purchase anything over $1000. There's no privacy these days.

That's the problem with making zero tolerance the ultimate goal of society.

Either we accept there will always be a few bad apples or everyone has to prove they aren't one of them.

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#293
So what? People with billions don't get in trouble, as evidenced by the 2008 financial scam, er, I mean "crisis".

The kind of people who get in trouble is a mom stealing a pair of socks from Walmart. That, they will throw the book at. Hiding or stealing billions? No prob.

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#294
post #21

After watching The laundromat, I think it's big news. Although I will always be curious why countries are letting those small, insignificant islands and countries manage all this wealth, and why they're trusted to do it. This can't be secure or safe. I'm curious about the diplomacy and the political implications of this. What if their office get robbed? What if the island gets attacked? What if one of those shady ban…

You’re curious about them from the perspective of a normal citizen

Politicians don’t know and have no desire to know, if you can’t tell by their willfully ignoring official political processes (regardless of whether one agrees with the motivation or not, to simply say you’re going to ignore it as folks like Sen. Graham have is nuts).

If they did they could be held accountable. Plausible deniability is a key legal position.

So politically zero fucks are given.

I mean we know more than one President was pals with a man the elite knew to be a statutory rapist. They don’t give a shit about human lives themselves.

You think they give a shit about ephemeral shit like money when they don’t worry about that?

The financial system has us mining bitcoin: ephemeral bullshit other people live big on.

How this forum can be so smart and so clueless is beyond me.

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#295
post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, why not? It has worked for many years before. The terms like "money laundering" are only recent and swept through without properly understanding the privacy implications (and probably didn't envisage the pervasiveness of modern electronic surveillance & data breaches in today's digital world). Anyhow, advancements in cryptographic Zero-knowledge proofs could hold the key in solving some of these problems (proof…

> Sure, why not? It has worked for many years before. Citation very much needed. It depends on what you mean by "working". There's references to tax evasion going back before the Roman Empire. For an example from the era of the Roman Empire, the topic of tax evasion is where the story of "give to Caesar what is his" (Mark 12:17) comes from. (I've found earlier Greek references going back to at least 300BC, but that's…

I don't think you need any citation or reference to know that even as early as 20 years ago there wasn't as much pervasive computerized record keeping and surveillance as there is now. By "worked well" I mean people paid their taxes and the overwhelming majority were law abiding.

Here's one example to ponder about: if we had this kind of surveillance earlier, would things like the Civil Rights Movement and generally the 60's counterculture come about? I.e. the era of "sex and drugs and rock'n'roll"? If only the authorities had the tools that they have today, oh boy! Don't like the liberation of sex? Is rock'n'roll the Devi's music? Fine. We'll close your PayPal account.

Privacy is very important for having a free society and freedom of expression. Financial privacy should be no exception.

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#296
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How else do you propose taxation is assured? Blind trust?

Design tax policy so that it doesn't force the government to be involved in every single transaction people engage in. Something like a land value tax, perhaps.

They have something similar in Aus called the Capital Gains Tax and it is something that is inherrently political, unfortunately you can't uncouple the government from as they provide the public service that maintain and collect taxes. Honestly the public service should be answerable to parliament, not government.

Not to mention CGT been tweaked to ineffectiveness by previous governments by excluding assets from its calculations, notably housing, which has skewed CGT away from its original purpose and it's now more of a stick to whack at industries that aren't cozy with the current government.

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#297
post #280
post #21

After watching The laundromat, I think it's big news. Although I will always be curious why countries are letting those small, insignificant islands and countries manage all this wealth, and why they're trusted to do it. This can't be secure or safe. I'm curious about the diplomacy and the political implications of this. What if their office get robbed? What if the island gets attacked? What if one of those shady ban…

> Although I will always be curious why countries are letting those small, insignificant islands and countries manage all this wealth Those small, insignificant islands and countries are current or former british or european colonies. And considering they are primarily located in the caribbean, the chances of them being successfully attacked is zero - good luck going up against the might of the US Navy. > How do you…

> the chances of them being successfully attacked is zero

Mother nature can successfully attack whole islands.

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#298
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That Guardian article is weird because it doesn't even mention federal taxes. How does a south dakota state trust help someone legally evade federal taxes?

No income, wealth or estate tax for trusts. And you don't even have to live in south dakota.

Beneficiaries of trusts pay income tax on distributions.

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#299
post #34
post #5

This is going to be swept under the rug faster than Epstein, assuming it even surfaces in the mainstream press at all. Lots of rich people run their stuff through the Cayman Islands, probably more than through Panama. So far, as far as I can tell, no mention in the US. The entire front pages of major national newspapers (WaPo and NYTimes) are dedicated to their single-minded mission of telling everyone that orange ma…

I'm not sure of the details, but the Caymans have a reciprocal reporting arrangement with US tax authorities and financial regulators. That is, if you're an American, you can't really hide money there. What you can do is operate a subsidiary there (and it must have resident employees) that generates reasonable revenues with minimal costs, thus shifting revenue and profits to the Caymans low tax jurisdiction. Which wi…

Yeah, because I'm sure the Cayman Islands take enforcing that seriously, and because the IRS has any budget to go after rich people...

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the social contract of most countries is that your legally gained cash is to be taxed in one form or another and thus has to be known by the tax authorities? You can argue that your assets are to be private to the general public but some countries do not have that assumption (Norway comes to mind).

By "legally gained cash" I mean that taxes have already been paid for it.

Some countries have a tax on wealth in addition to income tax. (Switzerland for instance, maybe US in a few years)
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