German Social Democrat leader Sigmar Gabriel has said that tax evasion using havens such as Switzerland constitutes "organized crime in Swiss banks in Germany." He said the banks should be threatened with prosecution.
The translation looks a little odd, but the sentiment is very clear.
Tax evasion is organised crime.
Lawyers, accountants and bankers organise that crime on behalf of the world's wealthiest people.
Some states, like Switzerland and the UK's tax havens, facilitate that crime, deliberately.
And prosecutions should follow.
The logic is correct, and unassailable.
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“LONDON’S DIRTY LANDRY” — Richard Brooks
Excellent 7 page “Special Report” in Private Eye No 1320 — 10th to 23rd Aug 2012.
This reveals how “the trade in dirty money is as vibrant as ever. Criminal prosecutions tracked by the EYE show how, via City banks and offshore tax havens, London is at the centre of a web of embezzlement that steals from the world’s poorest while our banks, regulators and government look the other way.” The report goes on to reveal how a Nigerian president looted £1 billion by laundering it through British banks. This in a country that receives around £60 billion a year in oil revenue whilst 100 million of its citizens live on less than a dollar a day and half of them have no access to clean water.
The report features and echoes all that Richard Murphy has published for the last five years, and demonstrates that once the euphoria of the Olympics has expired tax evasion, tax havens and money laundering should become the most important issue facing British government.
So next time you read some of the ludicrous propaganda, issued by the county councils on Guernsey, the Isle of Man and other such fraudulent places, claiming honesty, transparency and decency do not believe one word of them: They are all rotten lies.
Fact.
Fair play to Richard B, but how do we get this into the public arena ?
Whenever you hear about avoidance/evasion in the media, it is treated with a certain levity, like drink driving was in the 70s – “gosh isn’t it awful & against the law, we’d never do something like that (wink)”
Drink driving is now genuinely seen as totally morally unacceptable. What can we do to place avoidance/evasion on that plateau ? After all, by allowing the laundering of a Nigerian official’s billions, I’m sure the Isles of Guernsey have killed far more people than ever died on the roads of this country at the wheels of drunk drivers.
Tax havens are a resource waiting to be mined could even yield more than north sea oil .Carry on digging Richard you are opening up a rich seam
[…] loved this comment on the blog from Mark Pearse this morning: Tax havens are a resource waiting to be mined could even yield more […]