Earlier quoted context omitted.
*Without burning coals in every corner of the planet when a simple trusted db suffices at 0.01% of the cost
But how can you trust the truth if it hasn't been NFT'd?
[deleted]
Wealthy Americans Targeted by U.S. in Panama Tax-Fraud Probe
51–60 of 67 posts
Re: Wealthy Americans Targeted by U.S. in Panama Tax-Fraud Probe
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’d expect the larger the fraud, the more likely for them to be wealthy. It likely tapers off as I don’t expect Bezos to risk jail time to save a few bucks, but I’d bet you’ll have more at the single and double digit millionaire than say the sub $100K net worth.
Rumor has it a low 7-figure business is most likely to get audited. Big enough to be worth it, small enough to be shady.
It's easier to hide when you only have 3 or 4 employees, can do all the books yourself and deal in cash. A bit harder (but still possible) when you have 200 employees and a CFO, more people need to be on board with the fraud.
Re: Wealthy Americans Targeted by U.S. in Panama Tax-Fraud Probe
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've noticed that HN has a bizarre preference for really strange news outlets and blogs over more credible and reputable outlets. Like..there will be some major news even in tech or science and HN is like "link to a major site? Naaaaah, Joenews.com!"
Major news outlets carry a small ranking penalty on HN (it's in the software), since loads of uninteresting articles from major news outlets are constantly submitted. The URL can always be changed if there's a better source. Just email them.
Major outlets get skipped for pay wall shenanigans. Known sources essentially aren’t worth clicking on, since you can’t read them anyways.
Re: Wealthy Americans Targeted by U.S. in Panama Tax-Fraud Probe
#54We all assume they're avoiding taxes but the funny thing about this is that you can treat this stuff like Roth IRAs, just pay your taxes one year and then just use the post-tax money to create entities offshore and hold assets indefinitely. The IRS doesn't care what you do with post-tax money! There is no prohibition on doing stuff outside the country, there are no capital controls for US citizens. The main differenc…
As we move more and more towards collectivism... it was never your money... its the governments money.... they just let you use some of it for a time... if you have the right politics and you don't piss off the wrong people. The China model.
So how did these people use economies of scale AND also have a legal and physical protection against other people stealing it?
In the old days, the rich would have to hire their own small defense/army just to protect their riches from being stolen. And we're not even talking about the public road/education/health/communications system that allows their products to be made and delivered to customers that pay the money that becomes their profits.
From the above you can see that the these people want to "ride free" off the backs of people that pay their share back into the system.
It should be treason.
Re: Wealthy Americans Targeted by U.S. in Panama Tax-Fraud Probe
#55These people use economies of scale AND also have a legal and physical protection against other people stealing their riches.
In the old days, the rich would have to hire their own small defense/army just to protect their riches from being stolen. And we're not even talking about the public road/education/health/communications system that allows their products to be made and delivered to customers that pay the money that becomes their profits.
From the above you can see that the these people want to "ride free" off the backs of people that pay their share back into the system.
It should be treason.
Re: Wealthy Americans Targeted by U.S. in Panama Tax-Fraud Probe
#56Mapped: The World’s Biggest Private Tax Havens https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-biggest-private-tax-... Panama is the 15th.
Why is Switzerland so high on the list? We might have low taxes for companys, but since many years now, other countrys get all information about the customers. So if an us person open an account, they send all information about it to the us. I think this is at least since 15 .. 20 years now.
>but since many years now, other countrys get all information about the customers
Or, do they?
>So if an us person open an account, they send all information about it to the us. I think this is at least since 15 .. 20 years now.
And what if a person opens an account under this and that scheme, that ends up sending only irrelevant information about some mediator?
Re: Wealthy Americans Targeted by U.S. in Panama Tax-Fraud Probe
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is Switzerland so high on the list? We might have low taxes for companys, but since many years now, other countrys get all information about the customers. So if an us person open an account, they send all information about it to the us. I think this is at least since 15 .. 20 years now.
The score is a combination of the amount of wealth stored and the degree to which wealth is able to be hidden in that jurisdiction. Notice that the US is number 2 on the list. It may be a heavily scrutinized jurisdiction and thus not a great tax haven in the traditional sense, but there are still huge amounts of capital moved there. They can still be useful, especially to move funds away from your country of residenc…
>It may be a heavily scrutinized jurisdiction and thus not a great tax haven in the traditional sense
Well, between Delaware and Nevada there are lots of unscrutinized jurisdictions...
Re: Wealthy Americans Targeted by U.S. in Panama Tax-Fraud Probe
#58These people use economies of scale AND also have a legal and physical protection against other people stealing their riches. In the old days, the rich would have to hire their own small defense/army just to protect their riches from being stolen. And we're not even talking about the public road/education/health/communications system that allows their products to be made and delivered to customers that pay the money…
Not sure I agree with the notion of this being treason, but it’s a pretty serious crime, considering that most wage-based workers (W-2, 1099 in the US) are absolutely lambasted with taxes (especially in certain states), and there is pretty much no way around it aside from hiring an accountant to come up with legal ways to help you reduce your tax liability. But for the most part, you’ll still have to pay a pretty ridiculous rate, especially as you earn higher levels of income (when things like AMT kick in). It burns me that I, a wage-based employee, am bearing a completely unfair proportion of the burden of the infrastructure costs of my country. My effective tax rate can be around 40%, yet the “rich” (whatever that actually means) can, in many cases, avoid taxes altogether by hiding assets and obfuscating their true net worth. So yeah, maybe it should be treason.
Re: Wealthy Americans Targeted by U.S. in Panama Tax-Fraud Probe
#59I really believe that tax dodging and evasion are the biggest source of social inequality. Less budget for the state or government means less redistribution and less public services, meaning the poor becomes poorer. What's crazy is that as a european, would I talk about taxes on hacker news or reddit, I will always encounter libertarians who are arguing that taxes are bad.
I think it is a problem but it's not the biggest. A wealth tax on bank deposits would do a lot of good.
Before you say they will spend the USD. That's the point. It's like dodging CO2 taxes by not emitting CO2. You haven't cheated the system.
Re: Wealthy Americans Targeted by U.S. in Panama Tax-Fraud Probe
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
US FATCA treaty to almost all countries in the world only applies to US citizens trying to open accounts in other countries. That is a one-to-many relationship. The worldwide reality is a many-to-many relationship. Switzerland doesn't snitch on other country's citizens for two reasons: 1) Other countries don't have the resources to enforce a global tax regime. And if they tried, their diplomatic leverage was so weak…
> The worldwide reality is a many-to-many relationship. Switzerland doesn't snitch on other country's citizens for two reasons That is wrong, see AEOI/CRS as mentioned above. Switzerland exchanges information with dozens of countries and has been doing so since 2017. And strictly speaking, it's not about citizship, but tax residency. A Danish national living in France will have their Swiss bank account reported to Fr…
> and has been doing so since 2017
oh that's new to me!
didn't know OECD had actually gotten anywhere beyond blacklists.
I've seen CRS in a variety of countries, many of those are still implemented in interesting ways, and also don't mean there is liability or tax liability for the ultimate owners.