cramerica1972
03-09-2008, 01:16 AM
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/worlds-tax-havens-targeted-cloak-and-briefcase/story.aspx?guid=%7B575470E0%2D2094%2D43EB%2D884B%2 D8C094B8C717C%7D&dist=TNMostRead A cloak-and-briefcase assault
Reclusive Alpine tax haven of Liechtenstein, others flash on government radar
By William L. Watts, MarketWatch
Last update: 7:06 p.m. EST March 7, 2008Print E-mail RSS Disable Live Quotes
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- It's a cloak-and-briefcase offensive sure to become legend in the annals of tax enforcement.
Agents from Germany's spy agency buy stolen information from a former insider at Liechtenstein's biggest private bank. Prosecutors then swoop in on suspected German tax evaders. Tax collectors in Britain and other nations are poised to follow suit.
Tax-dodgers, beware: The world's leading havens for secret stashes of money face an all-out assault, as governments wary of leaner times grow more eager to snare levies that would otherwise go missing.
"There appears to be a change in the political mood," said Richard Murphy, a U.K.-based adviser to the Tax Justice Network, a think tank that's backing efforts to stamp out tax havens.
Fear of an oncoming economic slowdown and the resulting pinch on public purse strings has left tax collectors around the world looking anew at tax evasion, including assets hidden in notoriously hard-to-crack offshore locations, experts say.
The potential haul is considerable. By some estimates, the use of offshore tax havens costs the U.S. Treasury each year as much as $100 billion in tax revenues. German authorities, for their part, say offshore havens contribute to around 30 billion euros ($45.8 billion) worth of tax evasion each year.
Given the secrecy surrounding many accounts, it's difficult to gauge total offshore holdings, much less determine the level of funds parked in individual tax havens, the experts say.
But officials at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have used their own figures and data from the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements to estimate that $5 trillion to $7 trillion in assets are held in offshore havens around the world, though not all are undeclared.
Undercover agents
Agents from Germany's BND spy agency paid a former employee of Liechtenstein's LGT Bank more than 4 million euros ($6.1 million) for computer disks that carried the names of hundreds of Germans with accounts at the institution, which is owned by Liechtenstein's royal family.
German prosecutors in Bochum then moved in on suspected evaders last month. Already, the dragnet has resulted in the resignation of Klaus Zumwinkel, the Deutsche Post (DE:555200: news, chart, profile) chief after allegations he used the bank to hide around 1 million euros from German tax authorities.
'If someone puts their money in a mattress to avoid paying taxes, I can't say, You have to stop making mattresses.'
— Klaus Tschuetscher, Liechtenstein justice minister
It also emerged that U.K. tax authorities -- having initially snubbed similar data in 2006 -- had followed suit. They paid their informant a reward of around 100,000 pounds ($198,000) for the names of some 100 account holders, collecting information that has reportedly pointed authorities to around 100 million pounds worth of uncollected taxes.
Since then more than a dozen other countries, including the United States, Sweden, Australia, Italy and France, are reportedly probing whether citizens have used the bank to evade taxes. Expanded global coverage.
Politicians who have viewed tax havens as a scourge have a new swagger in their step, and vow to carry on a global hunt for evaders.
New zero-tolerance stance?
"We are witnessing a worldwide rejection of tax haven abuses and a new level of international cooperation to stop tax havens from facilitating tax dodging by the wealthy and powerful," U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a sponsor of legislation designed to crack down on tax havens, said last week.
The Paris-based OECD, which attempts to coordinate economic policies among the world's 30 richest nations, sees the case putting a spotlight on its decade-long effort to thwart offshore tax evasion
Reclusive Alpine tax haven of Liechtenstein, others flash on government radar
By William L. Watts, MarketWatch
Last update: 7:06 p.m. EST March 7, 2008Print E-mail RSS Disable Live Quotes
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- It's a cloak-and-briefcase offensive sure to become legend in the annals of tax enforcement.
Agents from Germany's spy agency buy stolen information from a former insider at Liechtenstein's biggest private bank. Prosecutors then swoop in on suspected German tax evaders. Tax collectors in Britain and other nations are poised to follow suit.
Tax-dodgers, beware: The world's leading havens for secret stashes of money face an all-out assault, as governments wary of leaner times grow more eager to snare levies that would otherwise go missing.
"There appears to be a change in the political mood," said Richard Murphy, a U.K.-based adviser to the Tax Justice Network, a think tank that's backing efforts to stamp out tax havens.
Fear of an oncoming economic slowdown and the resulting pinch on public purse strings has left tax collectors around the world looking anew at tax evasion, including assets hidden in notoriously hard-to-crack offshore locations, experts say.
The potential haul is considerable. By some estimates, the use of offshore tax havens costs the U.S. Treasury each year as much as $100 billion in tax revenues. German authorities, for their part, say offshore havens contribute to around 30 billion euros ($45.8 billion) worth of tax evasion each year.
Given the secrecy surrounding many accounts, it's difficult to gauge total offshore holdings, much less determine the level of funds parked in individual tax havens, the experts say.
But officials at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have used their own figures and data from the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements to estimate that $5 trillion to $7 trillion in assets are held in offshore havens around the world, though not all are undeclared.
Undercover agents
Agents from Germany's BND spy agency paid a former employee of Liechtenstein's LGT Bank more than 4 million euros ($6.1 million) for computer disks that carried the names of hundreds of Germans with accounts at the institution, which is owned by Liechtenstein's royal family.
German prosecutors in Bochum then moved in on suspected evaders last month. Already, the dragnet has resulted in the resignation of Klaus Zumwinkel, the Deutsche Post (DE:555200: news, chart, profile) chief after allegations he used the bank to hide around 1 million euros from German tax authorities.
'If someone puts their money in a mattress to avoid paying taxes, I can't say, You have to stop making mattresses.'
— Klaus Tschuetscher, Liechtenstein justice minister
It also emerged that U.K. tax authorities -- having initially snubbed similar data in 2006 -- had followed suit. They paid their informant a reward of around 100,000 pounds ($198,000) for the names of some 100 account holders, collecting information that has reportedly pointed authorities to around 100 million pounds worth of uncollected taxes.
Since then more than a dozen other countries, including the United States, Sweden, Australia, Italy and France, are reportedly probing whether citizens have used the bank to evade taxes. Expanded global coverage.
Politicians who have viewed tax havens as a scourge have a new swagger in their step, and vow to carry on a global hunt for evaders.
New zero-tolerance stance?
"We are witnessing a worldwide rejection of tax haven abuses and a new level of international cooperation to stop tax havens from facilitating tax dodging by the wealthy and powerful," U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a sponsor of legislation designed to crack down on tax havens, said last week.
The Paris-based OECD, which attempts to coordinate economic policies among the world's 30 richest nations, sees the case putting a spotlight on its decade-long effort to thwart offshore tax evasion