Sunday, March 10, 2019

Robert J. Burrowes - How Secretive Tax Havens are Used to Steal Your Money

If I could have my way I would turn the City of London into a housing association. That would make some nice apartments for poor Londoners.

There's so much in this article, it's hard to choose what to take out. I might have to do it in instalments.

 Tax havens are locations around the world where wealthy individuals, criminals and terrorists, as well as governments and government agencies (such as the CIA), banks, corporations, hedge funds, international organizations (such as the Vatican) and crime syndicates (such as the Mafia), can stash their money so that they can avoid regulation and oversight and, very often, evade tax. According to Nicholas Shaxson: ‘Tax havens are now at the heart of the global economy.’

So don’t forget: laws are designed to control and punish you, no matter how trivial your infringement: a parking fine, a littering offence, a petty theft. But if you have enough money, the law simply does not exist. And you can evade taxes legally and in the full knowledge that your vast profits (even from immorally-acquired wealth such as sex trafficking, gun-running, endangered species trafficking, conflict diamonds and drug trafficking) are ‘lawful’ and will escape regulation and oversight of any kind. See ‘The Rule of Law: Unjust and Violent’.
Let me give a personal example. I have been a war tax resister since 1983: I have a conscientious objection to paying taxes to the Australian government to deploy military forces in other countries to kill people in my name. So, instead of paying taxes to kill, for many years I donated the equivalent amount to organizations engaged in peace, development, environment and human rights work, and to ‘pay the rent’ for my use of indigenous land. As some of many outcomes to this conscientious and highly public resistance (garnering national media attention at times), in 1991 I was bankrupted, in 1992 I was convicted of contempt of court (for my conscientious refusal to cooperate with the bankruptcy trustee) and in 1993 my passport was seized. In 1999, I was advised that I will be ‘bankrupt forever’ because of my ongoing conscientious refusal to finance the killing.
In the same period, since 1983, trillions and trillions of dollars of tax have been illegally and secretly evaded as wealthy individuals and corporations, criminals and crime syndicates, international organizations and governments channel their incomes and profits through tax havens. Laws and legal systems throughout the world make this possible and, provided it is done correctly, it is quite straightforward to avoid any penalties for secretly evading payment of taxes or hiding money acquired through criminal activity. But the point, as you can see, is that tax evasion by wealthy individuals and corporations meant that many of these individuals and corporations didn’t pay taxes to kill people either. They just didn’t pay taxes at all.
Of course, their motive was personal gain, their way was legal, they incurred no penalty and, of course, they didn’t pay an equivalent amount to support peace and justice causes. More fundamentally, however, the trillions of dollars they took from the global economy were made by killing and exploiting people and the planet in a significant variety of other ways, ranging from sex trafficking, gun-running, conflict diamonds and trafficking in drugs and endangered species, to simply starving people to death at the rate of 100,000 people each day by managing the global economy, using tax havens as a primary tool, to extract maximum profit.



16 comments:

Konrad said...

"I have been a war tax resister since 1983: I have a conscientious objection to paying taxes to the Australian government to deploy military forces in other countries to kill people in my name. So, instead of paying taxes to kill, for many years I donated the equivalent amount to organizations engaged in peace, development, environment and human rights work, and to ‘pay the rent’ for my use of indigenous land.”

Good for him. Since taxes are mandatory, we might as well give our tax money to a useful interest and declare a tax deduction.

Besides, tax revenue does not pay for war. When you write a tax check to the Australian government, the government debits your checking account. Your money goes back into the thin air whence it came from. Therefore tax revenue paid to the Australian government is effectively destroyed upon receipt.

“Tax evasion by wealthy individuals and corporations meant that many of these individuals and corporations didn’t pay taxes to kill people either. They just didn’t pay taxes at all.”

Not that it matters, since the Australian government has no need or use for tax revenue.

The real crime is that the rich don’t pay LOCAL taxes. When Amazon proposes to build a new operations center, Amazon demands billions in subsidies and tax breaks from local governments. As a result, all local services are sacrificed to Amazon. (Police, fire, schools, road maintenance, etc)

But at least we don’t have ebil soshializm.

Andrew Anderson said...

We should remember that fiat only exists in two forms:

1) As physical fiat, aka "currency", aka "cash".
2) As account balances at the Central Bank.

So unless the tax dodgers resorted to currency smuggling, that fiat has gone nowhere but still resides at the Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve System, the ECB, BoJ, etc. WHERE IT CAN BE TAXED VIA NEGATIVE INTEREST on non-citizen accounts or citizen accounts that exceed a reasonable limit.

I've mentioned the ethical reasons for negative interest, as well as how it would help trade deficits and now how it could preclude tax evasion.

Anyone starting to see that ethical principles are very practical indeed?

Konrad said...

Average citizens already enjoy negative interest in the form of fees.

At Bank of America, for example, you are charged a monthly fee if your checking account goes below $25.00.

Andrew Anderson said...

Remember those checking accounts at the Central Bank you scoffed at?

That's how individual citizens would be spared negative interest and other fees up to a reasonable limit on account size and transactions (check or debit) per month.

Konrad said...

I never scoffed at checking accounts at the central bank. I scoffed at the blood-soaked Jewish Old Testament, which is fit only for sadistic psychopaths, just like everything else connected with those people.

Andrew Anderson said...

Suit yourself, but the OT is much more nuanced than you give it credit for.

Your loss since the OT promises wisdom to those who seek it there and I've not been disappointed:

Heed instruction and be wise
and do not neglect it.
Blessed is the man who listens to me,
watching daily at my gates,
waiting at my door posts.

For he who finds me finds life
and obtains favor from the Lord.
But he who sins against me injures himself;
all those who hate me love death
Proverbs 8:33-36

Konrad said...

Excellent. I proved with specific citations that the OT is packed with countless episodes of exterminating men, women, children, and animals. Therefore we call the OT "nuanced," and we continue to worship it.

All wars, genocides, and atrocities are now "nuanced." All memorials to the holocaust™ will now be called memorials to "nuance." I love it!

In case someone protests "But this other holy book is also full of violence," save your breath. For me (and this is just my opinion, nothing more) all organized religions are products of mental illness.

THAT SAID, I get the impression that we both agree that MMT is useless without bank reform.

Andrew Anderson said...

Men, women and children and animals die all the time and many in more pain and more slowly than the edge of the sword might cause.

And don't forget the Hebrews themselves fell under God's wrath too.

So I'm not impressed by your virtue signaling; it's too facile.

But like I said, my Bible quotes are for those who SHOULD heed them and thus does not include you so just ignore them in the future, please.

Andrew Anderson said...

THAT SAID, I get the impression that we both agree that MMT is useless without bank reform. Konrad

Even MMT advocates call for "bank reform"; nearly every one does. But their (Warren Mosler's) reform is essentially this:

1) Increase privileges for the banks to impunity or near impunity.

2) Regulate them.

To which I respond, "How does one regulate systematic theft from the poor, the least so-called credit worthy to the rich, the most so-called credit worthy?"

Banks need to be completely de-privileged; nothing less is ethical. And I'm astonished that anyone can disagree.

Konrad said...

"Men, women and children and animals die all the time and many in more pain and more slowly than the edge of the sword might cause."

I'd like to see you say that to Jews about their holocaust. "Hey, it happens all the time."

So I'm not impressed with your idiocy, your hypocrisy, and your reverence for utter filth.

Thank you for the exchange.
You may go now.

Andrew Anderson said...

Well, just remember that the Bible holds the cure for fools.

Start at Proverbs when life has made you desperate enough; it won't be easy; it took me about 8 years after a personal tragedy that wrecked me.

Noah Way said...

The bible is a book for fools.

Kaivey said...

They say some parts of Old Testament are beautiful, but I only read the horrible bits. How the Old Testament can inspire religion beats me.

Stoning to death, women as propert, along with the goats and animals, child sacrifice.

And God is always telling the Israelites to start wars and to kill everyone, including women, children, and the animals of the people they have conquered.

I've

Kaivey said...

I accidently pressed the send button.

Part 2

When the Israelites didn't obey God on one occasion and they spared the women, because they were useful (and beautiful) and the children too, because they can be used as slaves, and they spared the animals too - for bounty, God punished them with a famine. Lamentations - where they ate their dead babies.

I was in a Christian church when I read that and it killed my faith. I never believed in any of the nonsense of God the father, the angels, or the Devil, anyway. I had a mystical view of God - if there was one.

I left the church to become a Quaker. They are lovely. There I was able to explore Buddhism and Jungian mysticism. The Quakers are post Christianity.

My family weren't religious, but my whole childhood had a lot of Christian teaching to it - from school, from society at large, and the programmes and films I watched. As a result my mild faith has the essence of Christianity to it, but not the Bible, which I don't like all that much.

My mind is too rational for Christianity. But I have some lovely, conservative Christian neighbours who are our best friends in the street. I often pop in to have tea with them, and we go out to places to together too. We've become very good friends.

I'm hoping that MMT can help bridge the gap between the left and right. Well, the moderate ones anyway. MMT gets the under-employed back into work and it is their effort that pays for the public services - not taxes, although there has to be some tax, but people will get low cost public services. I can't see moderate conservatives having any problem with that.

Andrew Anderson said...

MMT gets the under-employed back into work and it is their effort that pays for the public services kv

Wasting peoples's time should increase price inflation, e.g. imagine the cost of daycare as even more mothers with young children are forced by unjust poverty into a JG where they'll do less important work than raising their own children.

And make no mistake, the major purpose of a JG, similar to milk dumping in the 1930's, is to increase the price of labor by destroying 40 or so hours a week of it; so the meaningfulness of the "work" performed under a JG is secondary at most.

Calgacus said...

Andrew Anderson: Why do you continually assert that a JG is wasting people's time? You never give any reason for this illogical and groundless falsehood.

And make no mistake, the major purpose of a JG, similar to milk dumping in the 1930's, is to increase the price of labor by destroying 40 or so hours a week of it

Reverses things: Your proposals without a JG destroy labor. The JG uses labor to do good things. Of course the JG raises the price of labor - from zero, for the unemployed. What is wrong with that? Why should some people be prevented from contributing to the common good and thus having access to the fruits of others' labor? I think that not listening to other people, imagining you have unique access to truth, ignoring the clear statements of a book and person you pretend to follow - the Bible and Jesus- is a mistake.

Having money and not having a job guarantee is insane. Jesus explained it fine. Why not listen to him?

Why do you want to persecute poor people so much by preventing them from access to money when they want it?

And you still haven't answered my question. If the price for all your proposals would be instituting a JG, would you pay it?