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Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

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Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#41

Post by unimportant »

saiya-jin wrote: post #28
jakobegger wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying taxes is not "donating money". You are required by law to pay them. You get certain things in exchange, like laws that protect your property. If you think that you shouldn't be forced to pay taxes, why do you think that other laws should be enforced? If rich people steal from the state, why shouldn't poor people just take what they want from the rich? If you avoid taxes, you are stealing from everybody.

Nice textbook phrases, now let's get back to the real world out there for a while. Do you even understand the simple truth, that most of the times no law is broken in tax optimalizations? Only when it does, it gets highly publitized. Usually, tax systems are full of loopholes and accountants just need to be creative enough (and yes, they are...). Without breaking any specific law, by logic "what is not explicitly for…

Switzerland is a tiny country with most companies being service companies that cater to foreign customers just like in Singapore. Larger countries cannot function on that kind of taxation. The cantons can individually negotiate taxes btw. so there is little need for intricate avoidance schemes.

I'd argue Japan is a good example of a larger well functioning country with fair taxation (up to 40% on income above 150k USD).

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#42

Post by chrisbennet »

hessenwolf wrote: post #17
tormeh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why so few prosecuted in Britain? Wouldn't this be a good opportunity to get some assholes who thought they could shift the tax burden to others? Six month prison sentences sounds reasonable. British prisons suck, but given that this is partly the dodgers fault that's just poetic.

What would be the value in it? Justice? What does that mean? Punishment? Or to send a warning? Would that really be effective? What would be the cost? Was there anybody in the pot that was expendable, economically?

What does "expendable, economically" mean?

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#43

Post by tormeh »

aidos wrote: post #29
swombat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I recall, to get prosecuted for tax evasion in the UK, you need to not only commit the tax evasion, but also to lie to the HMRC investigation of the tax evasion, at the point where they ask you to sign a form that explicitly says that if you lie now and they find out, they will put you in jail. So unless you lie at that point, you will not be prosecuted, only investigated. This may let some tax dodgers off the hoo…

Is that really true?! If so it seems that a winning strategy is to actively try to dodge the system but be prepared to pay it back when you know you'll get found out. That makes no sense. Why would that same rule not apply to other crime?

Because, you see, the rich are the pillars of decent society.

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#44

Post by neoeldex »

saiya-jin wrote: post #28
jakobegger wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying taxes is not "donating money". You are required by law to pay them. You get certain things in exchange, like laws that protect your property. If you think that you shouldn't be forced to pay taxes, why do you think that other laws should be enforced? If rich people steal from the state, why shouldn't poor people just take what they want from the rich? If you avoid taxes, you are stealing from everybody.

Nice textbook phrases, now let's get back to the real world out there for a while. Do you even understand the simple truth, that most of the times no law is broken in tax optimalizations? Only when it does, it gets highly publitized. Usually, tax systems are full of loopholes and accountants just need to be creative enough (and yes, they are...). Without breaking any specific law, by logic "what is not explicitly for…

There's a common misconception about progressive tax systems. I'm from the Netherlands, and we've got such a system like that.

But it's not true its quite common to pay over 50% taxes. For example, here we got 4 tax-discs, where you pay taxes in a disc until a certain amount of money earned(profits). Disc 1: until €19822,- : 36.50% Disc 2: until €33589,- : 42.00% Disc 3: until €57585,- : 42.00% Disc 4: more €57585,- : 52.00%

That means, you have to pay 52% taxes over the amount you've earned more than €57585.

So in order to pay 50% taxes, one has to make about €300.000,- a year, (either income or profit).

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#45

Post by tormeh »

vidarh wrote: post #31
tormeh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protecting people from their own mistakes is fine, but they lost that defence once they put the money in secret swiss bank accounts. Secret. Swiss. Bank. Accounts. Might as well accidentally ask the local mafia to white wash some money while they twirl their mustaches.

The problem is that there's nothing illegal about putting your money in secret swiss bank accounts per se. It first becomes tax evasion (in the UK anyway; details may vary) the moment you fail to report income or capital gains that are taxable, since the UK does not tax wealth.

Yeah, but you don't accidentally both place your money in secret Swiss bank accounts and fail to report it. You may want a secret account for privacy and you may forget to report all your money. Doing both at once, however, is highly unlikely. There's an end to plausible deniability and beyond that end should lie prison time.

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#46

Post by tormeh »

mercurial wrote: post #40
hessenwolf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be the value in it? Justice? What does that mean? Punishment? Or to send a warning? Would that really be effective? What would be the cost? Was there anybody in the pot that was expendable, economically?

> Was there anybody in the pot that was expendable, economically? What do you mean by "economically expendable"?

https://www.google.no/search?channel=fs&q=too+rich+for+priso...

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#47

Post by tormeh »

chrisbennet wrote: post #42
hessenwolf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be the value in it? Justice? What does that mean? Punishment? Or to send a warning? Would that really be effective? What would be the cost? Was there anybody in the pot that was expendable, economically?

What does "expendable, economically" mean?

https://www.google.no/search?channel=fs&q=too+rich+for+priso...

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#48

Post by xrjn »

linux_devil wrote: post #8
LunaSea wrote: post #5

Is there any raw data that can be downloaded ?

Raw data will be helpful , I tried to explore couldn't find it.

It would be interesting to see if they will release it, I guess there would be concerns with privacy for people who weren't in the alleged 70% [1] who's accounts got closed. I guess it's more of an ethical question.

[1] http://www.icij.org/project/swiss-leaks/banking-giant-hsbc-s...

Re: Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

#49

Post by raquo »

tormeh wrote: post #12
junto wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the Hervé Falciani leak. See the Guardian coverage: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/08/hsbc-files-e... The origin of the leak The HSBC files were obtained through an international collaboration of news outlets, including the Guardian, Le Monde, BBC Panorama and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists 1 In late 2007, Hervé Falciani, an IT expert at HSBC's Swiss bank, hacked into it…

Why so few prosecuted in Britain? Wouldn't this be a good opportunity to get some assholes who thought they could shift the tax burden to others? Six month prison sentences sounds reasonable. British prisons suck, but given that this is partly the dodgers fault that's just poetic.

I don't know the situation, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were too many important people on that list.

Prosecuting the whole elite is not something that the elite typically does.

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