Now this from: The Progressive Press
And all of you
thought I was talking out of another orifice than my mouth!?
Secret Global Offshore Banking Scheme Exposed!
Former
chief economist, and a board member of the Tax Justice Network, James S. Henry’s research reveals
that an estimated $21 trillion to $32 trillion in private financial wealth is
tucked away in offshore havens, roughly equivalent to the size of the U.S. and
Japanese economies combined.
These
offshore havens are managed by the world’s 50 largest “private banks”
–considered legal and legitimate-, and their coffers grew from $5.4 trillion in
2005 to more than $12 trillion in 2010.
Now,
twelve diligent and patient journalists of International Consortium of Investigative
Journalists (ICIJ) organization, and 86 journalists from 46
countries, sifting through millions of leaked files, emails and account
ledgers, uncovered who these people are and where do they hide their cash to
easily evade taxes or launder money.
ICIJ
released their findings in a report titled “Secret Files
Expose Offshore’s Global Impact”, discovering more than 120,000
offshore companies and trusts that conduct hidden dealings with politicians,
con men and the mega-rich. The scheme extends to more than 170 countries and territories.
ICIJ
reports that, during an interview with the CBC, Arthur Cockfield, a law
professor and tax expert at Queen’s University in Canada, who reviewed some of
the documents, said “I’ve never seen anything like this. This secret world has
finally been revealed.”
According
to the article, “Government officials and their families and associates in
Azerbaijan, Russia, Canada, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Mongolia and
other countries have embraced the use of covert companies and bank accounts.”
Moreover,
“They include American doctors and dentists and middle-class Greek villagers as
well as families and associates of long-time despots, Wall Street swindlers,
Eastern European and Indonesian billionaires, Russian corporate executives,
international arms dealers and a sham-director-fronted company that the
European Union has labeled as a cog in Iran’s nuclear-development program.”
Report’s
key findings explain how these tax advantages, the mega-rich use, are not
available to the average people, and how the complex offshore structures allow
them to purchase and own mansions, yachts, art masterpieces and other assets
without having to pay any tax on them.
However,
the scheme is not only about wealthy citizens trying to avoid paying taxes, it
also exposes that savvy swindlers and drug lords have been taking advantage of
this clandestine money hiding operation. Ponzi schemers, large-scale
fraudsters, mobsters and oligarchs routinely use offshore havens, to not only
hide their money, but in many cases also to launder it.
A
well-paid industry of bankers, accountants, middlemen and other operatives help
these customers to hide their identities and money, under the supposed legal
guise of international and national laws, through an elaborate financial web
that spans countries, continents and hemispheres.
Despite
the efforts of several tax justice groups, and few international economic
justice organizations, to reduce the secrecy and get tougher on money
laundering, the offshore havens remain as a “zone of impunity” for anyone
determined to hide their money, engaged in money laundering and tax fraud.
In the
USA, most states have minimum
mandatory sentencing of 1 to 5 years for robbery. Of course,
the fancy world of “offshore” banking is not considered petty theft when it
comes to international banking, because we all know bankers wear suits and
ties, and that makes them legitimate.
I rest my case.
Anyone care to redirect?
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