Posted on 05/15/2009 9:20:33 AM PDT by Ed Hudgins
Most Americans know peaceful and prosperous Switzerland—America’s “sister republic”—for its beautiful mountains, tangy cheese, decentralized political system, and banks that pride themselves on protecting the absolute security of their depositors. Indeed, it’s illegal in Switzerland for banks to violate that privacy.
But the U.S. government recently forced the Swiss government to make an exception, under threat of criminal prosecution in the United States against UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank. That bank must reveal information about as many as 300 of its American depositors who the U.S. government claims are guilty of tax evasion. Further, UBS must pay $780 million in fines.
This is not some minor, soon-to-be forgotten dispute. Rather, it is part of a broad attack against productive individuals that is the logical consequence of big-government economic policies and mixed economies in the West. That’s why President Obama has now declared war on all so-called “tax havens.” In the end, the victims will be the citizens of United States and other countries as well as those of Switzerland.
Wealth security.
One might think of “wealth security” as the business of Switzerland. It is estimated that some $7 trillion worldwide is deposited “off-shore,” meaning in the banks outside the countries of which the depositors are citizens. Swiss banks hold an estimated one-third of those deposits.
Many foreigners, including Europeans of modest as well as substantial means, hold Swiss francs in Swiss banks as a hedge against inflation of their own currencies. Entrepreneurs keep money in those banks to facilitate international transactions. Others deposit funds to avoid confiscatory taxes or even outright expropriation by their home governments.
Some have criticized the Swiss banks as too secure; as in the movies, they’re seen as places for criminals to hide their ill-gotten-gains. But the Swiss banks and government do cooperate …
(Excerpt) Read more at atlassociety.org ...
Where are the liberal complaints of the Big Bad USA sticking its nose into the internal business of other countries?
They’d say they’re trying to “coordinate policy for the good of all peoples of the world.” Or perhaps that they’re “making the world safe for socialists.”
The US only has leverage because UBS wants to operate in the States. Otherwise, they would have to resort to bribery to get such information.
Must? Fines?
If the Swiss have any self-respect they'd give the Zero administration the one-finger salute.
They are a sovereign nation and don't answer to US bureaucrat regulators.
Never mind the tax evaders, I want to know where Maddof hid is billions, not to mention all those Iraqi’s siphoning off US dollars for reconstruction, not to mention from the Saddam days.
Switzerland: “Chocolate and Secrecy”.
So here's the story: The U.S. has a relatively free economy. It attracts a lot of foreign businesses, banks, and investors. A criminal element—Democrats, liberals—increase their power and, like the Mafia, move in, increase their power through extortion, charge protection, take their cut, and pretty soon run everything into the ground.
It is the company UBS rather than the country, and companies are not sovereign. If a company wishes to do business in another company, it either has to comply with the law, or take its business elsewhere, just as with Microsoft and Intel vs the EU.
They won’t take their business elsewhere though, as there is simply too much money to be made, and at the end of the day, the only real principle a company has is to make as much money as possible...
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