321–330 of 491 posts
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How else do you propose taxation is assured? Blind trust?
Tax the corporation when an individual buys goods. Essentially a much bigger VAT.
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>why countries are letting those small, insignificant islands and countries manage all this wealth Enlightened self interest. Those "insignificant" islands are generally speaking countries. By showing respect for the rule of law even in situations where they could easily overwhelm with force or economic power smaller nations, the larger ones reinforce that the law matters. The larger countries use as a defense the id…
That's a pretty noble, if naive reason. "Rule of law" stops where economic interests begin and always has. Rule of law didn't stop the invasion of Iraq. Rule of law hasn't stopped the countless CIA backed coups in South America. Rule of law didn't stop funding/promoting the Arab spring. Larger countries constantly bully smaller ones and will continue to do so anytime it's economically convenient. The reason Grand Cay…
Details? By whom? What for? Is this claim based on anything?
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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.
And our society seems to have picked the latter because it sounds good when it comes out of the mouth of a politician. This is probably a weakness of democracy.
Most of the problems in democracies seem to exist, possibly magnified, in the alternatives.
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Their pronouns are they/them. https://twitter.com/DDoSecrets/status/1196397044644163585
Sorry where are you seeing that from that link?
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>why countries are letting those small, insignificant islands and countries manage all this wealth Enlightened self interest. Those "insignificant" islands are generally speaking countries. By showing respect for the rule of law even in situations where they could easily overwhelm with force or economic power smaller nations, the larger ones reinforce that the law matters. The larger countries use as a defense the id…
I think it is a mistake to think that relations between sovereign nations is based on "rule of law". Yes there are legal principles involved, but mostly, sovereign nations deal with other sovereign nations via realpolitik. On the other hand, I think that within a sovereign nation the adherence to "rule of law" has a more substantial meaning and relevance.
These things (laws, ability to peacefully cooperate, ethics) are like religion, if you believe in them, they, for all intent and purposes, exist.
But we are infused with an ideology of rational distrust, because a small amount of people can't mentally grasp any alternative to power. so we dig our own graves.
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By "legally gained cash" I mean that taxes have already been paid for it.
It's a trust but verify thing I believe. If the cash is anonymized, how can they know if the owner of this cash did in fact pay their taxes on it? Either they blindly trust everyone to properly declare all of their income, or they need to have some form of traceability.
If you find something fishy - you penalize business for different misconduct and signal them to be compliant in the future.
In general big businesses/taxpayers will be compliant anyway (but use all the loopholes that exist in your tax law)
While smaller businesses will have trouble to be compliant not because they don't want to, but because they can't have their accounting straight.
So there is no good justification for government to scan every transaction without prior justification, since most actors want to be compliant anyway.
I come from post USSR country and have a small fortune accumulated abroad. I don't have to pay taxes from this money, since I'm not a tax resident in my country at the moment. But since laws in my country work against regular people and some of them are prohibitive to work abroad/in modern digital way - the moment I transfer this money back home, our tax authority will pull some outdated law and the burden of proof will be on me (with my bank account frozen)
I DON'T NEED THIS.
So please, 1st world countries, don't send information on my hard earned money, to our 25 year strong socialist dictator.
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A recent piece in The Guardian argues that South Dakota and other US states are actually becoming the go-to place to store anonymously your illicit cash and make sure that your heirs can inherit it without taxes forever: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/14/the-great-amer... Partly because the US has compelled other countries to provide more transparency without joining that transparency organization itself.…
> forcing foreign financial institutions to tell the US government about any American-owned assets on their books This is another interesting part. How can the US "force" a sophisticated wealthy sovereign nation that culturally and morally values banking privacy (not only for the profits), like Switzerland? It cannot be understated how much power, control and ownership the US has of the world financial system. If Swi…
Also check the relationship between Mauritius and Africa/India for another example of such a relationship. It is funny though how even in today's world the corrupt from developing countries still manage to move the money around so easily, it happens only because you have the ability to grease the right palms.
Forget about the island countries, i do not think even developed countries like UK (Russian money) or Canada (Vancouver real estate) cooperate enough if the person gets citizenship and is accused in a different country. I know because there is at least one documented case where the proceeds of a large scam in India were funneled to Vancouver real estate, how something like this is possible is beyond my understanding.
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> forcing foreign financial institutions to tell the US government about any American-owned assets on their books This is another interesting part. How can the US "force" a sophisticated wealthy sovereign nation that culturally and morally values banking privacy (not only for the profits), like Switzerland? It cannot be understated how much power, control and ownership the US has of the world financial system. If Swi…
As a Swiss, in a way it was sobering to see one of our dominant industries brought to heel so quickly. On the other hand, it was very satisfying to see those banks, who for decades had hid behind their hand tailored secrecy laws to do business with Nazis, dictators, and drug dealers, and were domestically untouchable, finally clean up their acts. As for "culturally and morally values privacy", I would find that a lot…
Or is the Swiss view generally more like what it has been historically, that they are neutral and provide a service that others can't.