Posted on 12/26/2011 10:42:14 AM PST by ColdOne
Two headlines. Similar stories. The first from Switzerland:
US OFFERS SWISS BANKS A DEAL
The United States authorities have offered to lift the threat of legal action against 11 Swiss banks in exchange for information, a Swiss paper reported on Sunday.
This is part of a very long story. The US Justice Department has been doing everything it can to get the names of US citizens who have Swiss bank accounts. The DOJ damn near busted UBS over this a few years back. Now they are going after the other Swiss banks. The lawyers at the DOJ don’t kid around: “Give us the names or we’ll sue the shit out of you”.
Given what happened to UBS ($780mm in fines), the other banks have no choice but to fold and hand over the info.
This second story ratchets things up a bit and brings it home:(Link)
FEDERAL JUDGE GREEN LIGHTS IRS SEARCH FOR CALIFORNIA GIFT TAX CHEATS
A federal district court judge has given the Internal Revenue Service permission to serve a “John Doe” summons on the California State Board of Equalization demanding the names of residents who transferred property to their children or grandchildren for little or no money, from 2005 to 2010.
The IRS has used John Doe summons to seek lists of American taxpayers unreported offshore accounts at Swiss Bank UBS and at HSBC’s bank in India.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.businessinsider.com ...
ping
What Good Can a Handgun Do Against An Army?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2312894/posts
The joys of Globalism....individual nations no longer having control over their own finances
Swiss banks should have told the DOJ to buzz off....if they did not, they will release names of all the Democrats who have Swiss accounts. That would keep the current DOJ and IRS at bay
Hoever, until all this globalist free trader Communist nonsense is ended, no ones finances are safe
The IRS ... the Gestapo of our time.
not sure I know how asking for income data of an American citizen is wrong? There may be a few poeple that are not being honest on their tax returns. Work hard play by the rules, that includes paying what you owe.
I tend to agree, I want lower tax rates, I want a less intrusive government, I want more financial freedom, but since I am not rich enough to hire teams of lawyers to help me illegally hide my money off shore, than either everybody should be legally allowed to do so (i.e. work to change the laws), or the until the laws are changed, I see it as a proper role of government to catch tax cheats.
This includes rich bankers hiding their money offshore, and then illegal immigrant working for cash while he collects government assistance.
Both are currently illegal and both should be prosecuted.
Criminal tax evasion is not a illegitimate conservative principle.
oops that should read:
“Criminal tax evasion is not a legitimate conservative principle.”
(Freudian slip?)
The issue is “John Doe” summons. The whole 4th Amendment is basically overturned by that... The Feds can’t come snooping around your possessions and properties without due cause - and a “John Doe” summons is about as causeless an action as you can find.
We remind people that they and they alone are responsible for the safety of themselves and their children - not a government agency. We tell ourselves it is up to us as individuals rather than government courts to determine what is or is not Constitutional. How can we then preach self-reliance and allow a government agency with a vested interest to tell us what we owe in taxes. The fact that they team up with the DOJ is hardly comforting since they have and use “pet” judges to rubber-stamp their warrants.
Tax evasion is probably the second-oldest profession and one that all of us work at - at least part-time. And since there is always the question about whether or not the North Carolina legislature ever properly ratified the Sixteenth Amendment there will always be those who will not pay income taxes.
More power to ‘em, I say!
Whatever happened to telling the DOJ to F#%* off??
Just what I was thinking, however all of these people are whimps. Nothing changes, nothing will. The NWO will eventually engulf anything that they want.
Members of Congress are panicking, hoping to pass some law, any law, to prevent the IRS from seeing their secret accounts.
Some foreigners came to America for the promise of freedom, justice and the rule of law. Many discovered it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. So they left America but kept dual citizenship or renounced American citizenship because of extreme taxes.
Most of the accounts that were turned over by UBS were of former dual citizenship who had renounced American citizenship.
But former American citizens who have renounced their American citizenship are now by law liable for taxes on all income 10 years after the fact, after renouncing. That little Gestapo piece of legislation was a creation of Harry Reid.
The democrats have turned America into a gulag of taxation unless one pays them of course ‘protection money’.
Buying and selling gold and silver is the on-shore version of a Swiss bank.
If Obama gets a second term then when the economy really collapses they may come for the lists that detail who has purchased these coins and bullion.
Right now you can sell a thousand gold coins and get cash in hand with no receipt...if you bought at 500.00 and collect 300% plus in cash now, no one is the wiser. This may change someday.
I liked it better the first way. I’m sure that you realize that a tax rate approaching 100%, for example, could be legal, but evading it would be consistent with conservative principles. Our income is our property, and a government that takes all or most of our money is enslaving us. That’s not conservative. Of course, the dilemma for the conservative is whether abiding by an unjust law is morally superior than resisting it.
It can be difficult to exactly determine what is a fair or just tax rate. But certainly, our current tax structure is inconsistent with our nation’s founding and its ascent into unprecedented prosperity.
So as the tax rate and rules increase to ever greater heights and complexity, the moral argument to pay taxes becomes weaker and weaker as our greedy and rapacious government grows and grows.
The IRS is a criminal enterprise that puts the mafia and other underworld organizations to shame. The tyranny the IRS imposes upon the American people is also the shame of the American Government.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
DOJ and IRS action in this story has nothing to do with free trade.
well your points about decisions made are certainly valid for the purpose of hammering the tax code or the leadership of the US government, my point is that for far too long tax havens have been set up by accountants and certain wealthy people to avoid our tax system. The amount they might pay is not the problem, if we are to change the system, we must hold all people accoutnable.
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