Secret Files Expose Offshore Funds ICIJ Story.

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) was founded in 1997.

Its mission is to expose the polluting industries, transnational crime networks, rogue states, and the actions of powerful figures in business and government.

For details Link is provided at the end of the post.

Most of us know that ill-gotten wealth by all and sundry, which includes lawyers, Doctors, Business houses and of course Politicians.

Thanks to a series of mind-boggling scams in India, like 2G,ISRO, CWG,Maharashtra Irrigation,Helicopter and the forerunner Bofors, even a barely literate person knows that the money is being kept in Swiss Banks and that these banks are very secretive about disclosing the identities of their Customers.

What many may not know is the fact that there are countries which house these Funds under greater secrecy than the Swiss Banks.

A map of key “tax haven clients” around the world, including the daughter of Ferdinand Marcos and top Spanish art collector Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza.

A List.

• Bahamas
• Cyprus
• Liechtenstein
• Luxembourg
• Monaco
• Panama
• San Marino
• Seychelles

Non-sovereign jurisdictions commonly labelled as tax havens include:

• Campione d’Italia, Italy
• Jebel Ali Free Zone, United Arab Emirates
• Labuan, Malaysia
• Curaçao (Netherlands)
• Bermuda
• British Virgin Islands
• Cayman Islands
• Jersey
• Guernsey
• Isle of Man
• Turks and Caicos Islands
• Alaska, United States
• Delaware, United States
• Florida, United States
• Nevada, United States
• Texas, United States
• South Dakota, United States
• United States Virgin Islands (United States)
• Wyoming, United States
• Washington, United States
• Note that the US is included in the Tax havens list

The funds are held in an Offshore Trust in these tax-havens.

The Company address will be a ramshackle building, it may house many such Companies(Trusts)

Detailed blog on how an offshore fund is created and operated follows.

Look at the Office of offshore Company holding Millions of Dollars.

Thousands of offshore entities are headquartered on this building’s third floor, which houses TrustNet’s Cook Islands office. Photo: Alex Shprintsen

ICIJ obtained secret files from these banks, Countries, Trusts.

The statistical highlights of the size of the Documents.

2.5 Million Files.

1,20,000 Offshore Companies.

170 Countries.

In gigabytes, more than 160 times larger than the leak of U.S. State Department documents by Wikileaks in 2010..

86 Journalists from 46 Countries were involved in ferreting out the details.

#0 Years records  unearthed.

Document Highlights.

• 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.
• The mega-rich use complex offshore structures to own mansions, yachts, art masterpieces and other assets, gaining tax advantages and anonymity not available to average people.
• Many of the world’s top’s banks – including UBS, Clariden and Deutsche Bank – have aggressively worked to provide their customers with secrecy-cloaked companies in the British Virgin Islands and other offshore hideaways.
• A well-paid industry of accountants, middlemen and other operatives has helped offshore patrons shroud their identities and business interests, providing shelter in many cases to money laundering or other misconduct.
• Ponzi schemers and other large-scale fraudsters routinely use offshore havens to pull off their shell games and move their ill-gotten gains.

 

Who are exposed?

• Individuals and companies linked to Russia’s Magnitsky Affair, a tax fraud scandal that has strained U.S.-Russia relations and led to a ban on Americans adopting Russian orphans.
• A Venezuelan deal maker accused of using offshore entities to bankroll a U.S.-based Ponzi scheme and funneling millions of dollars in bribes to a Venezuelan government official.
• A corporate mogul who won billions of dollars in contracts amid Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s massive construction boom even as he served as a director of secrecy-shrouded offshore companies owned by the president’s daughters.
• Indonesian billionaires with ties to the late dictator Suharto, who enriched a circle of elites during his decades in power.

 

Tony Merchant, one of Canada’s top class-action lawyers, took extra steps to maintain the privacy of aCook Islands trust that he’d stocked with more than $1 million in 1998, the documents show.

In a filing to Canadian tax authorities, Merchant checked “no” when asked if he had foreign assets of more than $100,000 in 1999, court records show.

Between 2002 and 2009, he often paid his fees to maintain the trust by sending thousands of dollars in cash and traveler’s checks stuffed into envelopes rather than using easier-to-trace bank checks or wire transfers, according to documents from the offshore services firm that oversaw the trust for him.

One file note warned the firm’s staffers that Merchant would “have a st[r]oke” if they tried to communicate with him by fax.

Tony Merchant.

It is unclear whether his wife, Pana Merchant, a Canadian senator, declared her personal interest in the trust on annual financial disclosure forms.

Under legislative rules, she had to disclose every year to the Senate’s ethics commissioner that she was a beneficiary of the trust, but the information was confidential.

The Merchants declined requests for comment.

Other high profile names identified in the offshore data include the wife of Russia’s deputy prime minister, Igor Shuvalov, and two top executives with Gazprom, the Russian government-owned corporate behemoth that is the world’s largest extractor of natural gas.

Shuvalov’s wife and the Gazprom officials had stakes in BVI companies, documents show. All three declined comment.

In a neighboring land, the deputy speaker of Mongolia’s Parliament said he was considering resigning from office after ICIJ questioned him about records showing he has an offshore company and a secret Swiss bank account…

 

Source: ICIJ

http://www.icij.org/offshore/secret-files-expose-offshores-global-impact

Related articles

• Hard drive’s 2.5m secrets (theage.com.au)

Swiss Banking Laws-How to get Black Money Information ?

Image via Wikipedia

 

On black money in Swiss banks,Indian Government has been dragging its feet by saying that Swiss banking laws do not allow information to be shared with others on the ground of ‘Client Confidentiality’.

This is absolute non sense.

The Indian Government is to have an agreement with the Swiss Government

If the person has not declared his Swiss account in his Country of origin,

If the Government can declare the person to have amassed wealth by Criminal means.

If the Government brings in a complaint to the Swiss Government and the concerned bank,

then the Bank on receiving the deposit if it is being made after the complaint may notify the Swiss Government to arrest the person when he comes to Switzerland for claiming  the amount. 

If he refuses to come, then the bank may freeze his assets.

( in case the criminal act for which the person/information is being sought is not punishable under Swiss law, one needs to book the offender under an appropriate offence that would meet with Swiss Law-some times you have to tweak the law to get Justice)

What is needed is the Political will.

Now to the laws on Swiss Banking System.

“

The Swiss banker’s requirement of client confidentiality is found in Article 47 of the Federal Law on Banks and Savings Banks, which came into effect on November 8, 1934. The article stipulates that “anyone acting in his/her capacity as member of a banking body, as a bank employee, agent, liquidator or auditor, as an observer of the Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC), or as a member of a body or an employee belonging to an accredited auditing institution, is not permitted to divulge information entrusted to him/her or of which he/she has been apprised because of his/her position.”

Exceptions

In order to sidestep this law, there must be a substantial criminal allegation before a governmental agency, especially a foreign one, can gain access to account information. Tax evasion, for example, is considered a misdemeanor in Switzerland rather than a crime.

According to the Swiss Bankers’ Association Web site, however, there is also a duty for bankers to provide information under the following circumstances:

• Civil proceedings (such as inheritance or divorce)
• Debt recovery and bankruptcies
• Criminal proceedings (money laundering, association with a criminal organization, theft, tax fraud, blackmail, etc.)
• International mutual legal assistance proceedings (explained below)

International mutual assistance in criminal matters

Switzerland is required to assist the authorities of foreign states in criminal matters as a result of the 1983 federal law relating to International Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters. Assets can be frozen and handed over to the foreign authorities concerned. Assistance in criminal matters follows the principles of dual criminality, specialty and proportionality.

Dual criminality means that Swiss courts don’t lift the requirement of bank/client confidentiality unless the act being investigated by the court is punishable under the law in both Switzerland and the country requesting the information. The specialty rule means that information obtained through the arrangement can only be used for the criminal proceedings for which the assistance is provided. The proportionality rule means the measures taken in conducting the request for assistance must be proportionate to the crime.

International mutual assistance in administrative matters

Under these proceedings, the Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC) may communicate information only to the supervisory authorities in foreign countries subject to three statutory conditions:

• The information given can’t be used for anything other than the direct supervision of the banks or financial intermediaries who are officially authorized and can’t be passed on to tax authorities.
• The requesting foreign authority must itself be bound by official or professional confidentiality and be the intended recipient of the information.
• The requesting authority may not give information to other authorities or to other public supervisory bodies without the prior agreement of the SFBC or without the general authorization of an international treaty. Information can’t be given to criminal authorities in foreign countries if there are no arrangements regarding mutual legal assistance in criminal matters between the states involved.

Taxation

Swiss residents pay 35 percent tax on the interest or dividends their Swiss bank accounts and investments earn. This money is namelessly turned in to the Swiss tax authorities.

For nonresidents of Switzerland there are no taxes levied on those earnings, unless:

Swiss Withholding Tax

There is a 35 percent Swiss withholding tax on interest and dividends paid out by Swiss companies. So, if you invest in a Swiss company such as Nestlé or Novartis, then 35 percent of any dividends will be withheld as a tax regardless of where you live. The same is true if you buy bonds issued by a Swiss company. If you’re a Swiss taxpayer (or if your country has a double taxation agreement with Switzerland) then you can claim the tax back. Double taxation is when income is taxed both in your home country, as well as the country in which the income is earned.

EU Withholding Tax

On July 1, 2005, the European Union Withholding Tax came into effect to prevent residents of EU member countries from avoiding paying tax on interest earned on money deposited in foreign banks with very strong banking secrecy laws. The EU goal had been for all countries to disclose interest earnings to the home countries of their bank clients so that that money could be taxed. Several non-EU countries, Switzerland included, didn’t agree because it went against their banking privacy/secrecy laws. Now, bank clients who live in the European Union pay a withholding tax on the interest made by certain investments. This tax started at 15 percent and is gradually increasing to 35 percent by 2011. No exchange of information or taxes on capital or capital gains is levied.

Inheritance Tax

If you want to pass on your account to your family (and you’re not a Swiss resident) you’re in luck because there is no inheritance tax in Switzerland for nonresidents. Your heirs are responsible for declaring the holdings to their country’s tax authorities, however.

http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/banking/swiss-bank-account3.htm

“

• We recognize the necessity for an exchange of information between reporting offices (Financial Intelligence Units, FIU), as Switzerland would otherwise face the threat of a suspension of its membership in the Egmont Group, which would lead to unnecessary international pressure and reputational damage.
• The exchange of information must, however, be conducted in adherence to strict guidelines. For example, the information can only be exchanged in the instance of a concrete case, but not amongst all group members or beyond a specific case.
• Furthermore, the information may not be passed on to other authorities in the respective country, nor may the normal administrative and legal assistance procedures be circumvented as a result thereof.
• The Swiss Bankers Association will closely examine the proposal and will provide a comprehensive statement of its position on the matter during the course of the consultation process.

http://www.swissbanking.org/en/stellungnahme-20120118

What is money laundering?
Money laundering is the covert introduction of illegally acquired assets into the legitimate economy with the aim of disguising their true illegal origin.

This may take place in three phases:

Phase 1: placement

In this phase, the assets (primarily cash) are paid into banks and thus turned into bank money, or used to purchase assets that can be liquidated at short notice.

Phase 2: layering

The goal of this phase is to spread the money placed in phase 1. It often involves complex international transactions using, amongst other things, offshore banks and bogus companies. Another way to spread the money is via a myriad of confusing and seemingly unconnected transfers.

 

Phase 3: integration

The integration phase is when the assets are reintroduced into the legal economy, which may involve purchasing assets (e.g. real estate or precious metals) or shareholdings, etc.

 

Money laundering is usually associated with drug trafficking or organised crime. However, there are many other crimes which may be predicate offences to money laundering, e.g. embezzlement, corruption, extortion or human trafficking, to name just a few.

What does Switzerland do to against money laundering?
Switzerland’s mechanisms for combating money laundering, which were established with the Agreement on Due Diligence (CDB) in 1977 and have been expanding ever since, today include provisions in the Swiss Penal Code (Art. 305bis and 305ter StGB), the Federal Act on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in the Financial Sector (AMLA) and a corresponding Ordinance of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (FINMA Anti-Money Laundering Ordinance, AMLO-FINMA).

Swiss law is therefore broadly in compliance with the international recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The FATF report on the third country evaluation of April 2005 attested that Switzerland has a well functioning network of preventative measures against money laundering and terrorist financing. However, the Federal Department of Finance (FDF) did look into the implementation of individual criticisms that FATF experts had levelled at Switzerland’s anti-money laundering mechanisms. The resulting revised Anti-Money Laundering Act came into force, after the referendum period had expired unused, on 1 February 2009. The Anti-Money Laundering Ordinance was subsequently also revised, with the updated version entering into force on 1 January 2011.

The Agreement on Due Diligence (CDB), which is issued by the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) as a set of self-regulation guidelines and is revised and updated every five years, has since 1977 laid down the obligations of banks with regard to the identification of clients and beneficial owners. It prohibits active assistance in the flight of capital and tax evasion. The statutory bank auditors are commissioned by the banks and FINMA to verify bank compliance with this Agreement. Special investigators and a CDB Supervisory Board assess breaches of the Agreement, and offences are punishable by fines of up to CHF 10 million.

 http://www.swissbanking.org/en/home/dossiers-link/geldwaeschereibekaempfung.htm

Related articles

• Swiss banking secrecy: Don’t ask, won’t tell (economist.com)

Swiss Documents-Rajiv Gandhi -1,98,000 crore ,A/C Details.

The issue the government has been dodging,the names of Indians in Swiss Bank is out in the open.

* I have posted direct in my blog  the same information minus the text as the image portion of the document goes off quite often.

Swiss Illustrie ,Rajiv Gandhi’s Swiss Account

In case the document is not visible please visit the link.

Find below the list of those who hold accounts in Swiss Banking Corporation.

Swiss Ban

All the names we suspected all along find their position here.

Rajeev Gandhi,A.Raja,Harshad Mehta,Sharad Pawar,Karunanidhi,Suresh Kalmadi,Kalanidhi Maran,Ketan Parekh and P.Chidambaram.

Rajiv Gandhi‘s name is shown as Rajeev Ratna Gandhi-probably to  provide an excuse to deny the details.

Can some body let me know who is Chirag Jayesh Mohini  is?

Also read my blogs Indian Black Money in Swiss banks and also Rajiv’s Millions, where the same Bank sent me an email where it indirectly hinted that the accounts are in existence.

Wiki leaks on Swiss accounts of Indians.

Asked if names of Indians holding Swiss accounts will be revealed in the coming year, he said, “yes”. Information about such accounts “which will affect India” will be revealed in the coming year, he said.

He said since Elmer was jailed and facing legal action, he would not like to comment on the issue at the moment. “For that reason, unfortunately I cannot speak about information related to Swiss accounts in great detail…we must protect our people,” he added.

The Australian whistle-blower said governments in some countries are “sucking out” data from e-mails and internet transactions and passing on this “economic intelligence” to companies like Walmart. He made some startling revelations about “hacking” and “hijacking” of data of unsuspecting people.

Assange maintained that NTRO, which he termed was India’s equivalent of National Security Agency of the US, was engaged in similar kind of surveillance under the cover of keeping track of “Islamic terror“. However, there were no known instances of NTRO sharing such information with private companies.

Assange said e-mails, transactions done through credit and debit cards as well as information sent on the internet, “go through the Pacific (Ocean) and US” and are intercepted in the name of national security and to combat terrorist threats.

“Part of this mission is to provide economic intelligence to companies like Walmart, Lockheed Martin and Boeing. They (security and private agencies) suck up this intelligence and use it for economic benefits,” Assange said. He, however, maintained that he did not have any proof of the beneficiary companies paying for this kind of information.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-12-03/news/30471852_1_julian-assange-rudolf-elmer-economic-intelligence

Also read my Blog on Swiss Bank Corporation.

Related articles

• Details of Swiss account holders may be out next year: Assange (thehindu.com)
• http://ramanan50.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/indian-black-money-in-swiss-banks1400-billion-dollars-inr-63000000000000/
• Rajiv Gandhi Middleman To Main Player In Corruption. (ramanan50.wordpress.com)

 

Tax Havens- All about laundering Black Money.

 

 

Politicians form a class of their own.

Through out the world they are united in stashing laundering money along with crooked businessmen.

Unless ordinary Joe revolts this can not be stopped.

 

Tax Haven, Investment Haven, Asset Protection Haven.  What does it mean?

Exactly what is meant by the term ‘tax haven’? A Tax Haven is geographical area (nation, city, state, or zone, usually known by the term, “jurisdiction“) that levies a lower rate of taxation than average when compared to other nations and jurisdictions. Some jurisdictions levy no taxes at all, and most levy no tax on ‘foreign earned income’, meaning income that is earned outside of their jurisdiction.

To attain privacy [anonymity] as well as to attain a local ‘presence’ the most common practice is to use a paper interface by creating a corporation or IBC (International Business Corporation) in that jurisdiction. By forming a corporation in such a jurisdiction, we become liable to pay that jurisdiction the taxes levied against that corporation on profits earned by the corporation. If there are no taxes levied, then we operate our company at a distinct advantage to companies who must pay 30% – 40% rates of taxation.  Many individuals also move a large portion of their existing assets to a tax haven jurisdiction. It should go without saying that in setting up offshore it is essential to do things correctly. There are qualified offshore advisors which can provide legally correct financial structures for those thinking of moving offshore.

Once our business and/or our assets are offshore, they can be so structured as to take good advantage of beneficial tax savings. They can also enjoy a greater degree of protection from monetary predators.  Anonymity is an important attribute of being offshore; not all jurisdiction provide total protection to their clients anonymity.

Here are the rough overall criteria which more or less describe the basic advantages of a tax haven: Some existing level of freedom from taxation Banking, Corporation, & Transaction secrecy laws that protect both privacy and assets. An absence of exchange controls and other governmental handicaps to doing business   The No-tax Tax Haven Tax Havens fall into different categories. The simplest being the No-tax tax haven.  A no-tax tax haven is a country (or jurisdiction) that has no income, capital gain, or wealth taxes of any sort and in which there are facilities and legislation under which we can incorporate and/or form corporations, foundations, and trusts. This type of tax haven is a pure tax haven. The countries that fulfill this definition include; Anguilla, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Djibouti, Turks and Caicos, Vanuatu and perhaps a few more which we will discuss in subsequent articles. The governments of these countries most usually earn their revenue by charging fees on: documents of incorporation, the value of corporation shares, registration fees, and so forth.  We can operate a business from one of these countries without any income taxes on the money earned by our corporation; or by investments made into the stock market, banks, or the holding of income producing assets such as real estate or precious metals. There are some special considerations which must be observed, but for all intents and purposes the money we earn using a no-tax tax haven as our business base are tax-free. It is not necessary to live in one of these jurisdictions to make use of their beneficial tax structure. It is possible to live in one jurisdiction and have one’s corporate structure in another. In fact it may be preferable to separate corporate jurisdiction, business jurisdiction and resident jurisdiction.  A fuller explanation of this will be explained in a subsequent article. In the use of more than one jurisdiction it is probably prudent to maintain an office presence in a jurisdiction where one does not earn an income.   Foreign Source Income Is Tax Free The No-tax-on-foreign-source-income Tax Havens Next, in degree of taxation levied, we have the No-tax-on-foreign-income tax-havens.  These countries (jurisdictions) do impose income taxes, both on individuals and corporations, but only on locally derived income. The countries that fulfill that definition include; Hong Kong, Liberia, Panama, Philippines, Venezuela, Shannon International Airport, Jersey, Belize, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Gibraltar, and a few others whose rules and regulations regarding income will be discussed in subsequent articles. The Low Taxation Tax Havens Some countries establish fixed rates of taxation.  These countries are called Low taxation tax-havens.  They generally tax a small amount on corporate income and have double-taxation agreements with many high-tax countries that when taken in combination and structured correctly work to reduce the overall degree of taxation. This is best for individuals who are not going to become permanent expatriates, but may some day want to return to their home country. The countries which more or less fulfill the Low Tax definition are Cyprus, the British Virgin Islands, Liechtenstein, Oman, Switzerland, Jersey, Guernsey, and other countries which we will be discussing in subsequent articles. Other Categories Then there are the special incentive privileges to off-shore companies and qualified holding companies that are given by tax havens such as Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles, and Singapore.  Plus the international business company tax reductions given by Antigua, Barbados, Grenada, Belize and Jamaica. Which Tax Haven Is Right For You? Count Your Cards While the categories of Tax Havens give us a general indication of their types of taxation, the level of taxation is not a pure indication of their worth to us.  Panama has become one of the more popular Tax Havens because of its ease of entry, its use of the US Dollar, and its excellent banking system. However for the most part one cannot hold any currency in a Panamanian bank other than the US Dollar. There is one bank that does allow EURO accounts but they are not sophisticated in the handling of EURO accounts.  One cannot hold gold or other precious metals in a Panamanian bank. Banking secrecy is said to be guaranteed by the government of Panama, however there is also a guarantee that one cannot be extradited from Panama yet several people have recently been extradited from Panama under circumstances that were less than forthright. Big Brother Is Watching You While Panama still remains the haven of choice for the average person seeking to move offshore be aware that anyone using a US passport to open a bank account in Panama will have that fact reported to the US government. This has become true in many jurisdictions, and some jurisdictions will now no longer accept clients who hold US passports.  The US government is placing a great deal of pressure on offshore jurisdictions, and offshore banks that have correspondent banks inside the USA must comply with US government requirements or face the consequences.  There are still some nations that only require a residency card to open an account, and if one has residency in those nations one can open an account and maintain anonymity. Real Estate / Second Passports The purchase of offshore real estate remains the best placement for funds we wish to expatriate. However most of us cannot put all of our money into real estate, nor do we wish to. There are a number of shell game paper interface tricks that are used to hide the true owner of an IBC or Foundation, but the day of judgment arrives when we have to open a bank account, because as the signer on that account we have to present our passport. The only solution in these matters is to get a second passport.   Fake Passports vs Real Passports We know of two South American nations where one can get an under the table passport. These passports are registered in the system, one can travel on them and for all intents and purposes they are real passports.  Your best hope with one of these passports is that you end up in a US prison and not a South American prison, because prison conditions in South America are horrendous.  Our advice; don’t even think of using a fake passport; life isn’t a James Bond movie, and you aren’t Double O Seven. The Dominica Passport is only $75,000 – if that fee is too much for you than go ahead and open an offshore bank account with your US passport because you don’t have enough money to set off any alarm bells in any case. Help! Where Can I Stash My Assets? Recommendations If you are not sophisticated in the world of offshore, and you feel like the fincancial crisis is about to collapse your finances we would recommend the Sovereign Society, which is a worldwide group of investment & privacy advisors that teamed up to provide safe advice about moving offshore, choosing the safest tax havens, best banks, and the most secure devices in which to protect your assets.  They have years of experience and a very good track record. We have some articles written by Sovereign Society members Move Overseas You only face consequence if you live in the USA, if you are moving offshore your concerns shouldn’t be too great. The US government is not going to expend the time and effort to track down everyone moving abroad because millions are doing so and most of their assets are not repatriable.  How are they going to confiscate your ranch in Argentina and move it back to the US? Bank in Austria Banking in Austria is considered safe for US passport holders, but they won’t take clients living in the USA. If you are a US passport holder living outside the USA an Austrian bank would be a preferred place to put your assets. Read our report on how to bank in Austria Quick Residency Two nations that are quick to provide residency are Belize and the Dominican Republic; in the Dominican Republic one can open a bank account with a residency card.  John Schroder has a program in the Dominican Republic; contact him about obtaining residency in the Dominican Republic –   Offshore Service Providers Offshore service providers can find solutions. We are building up a list of offshore service providers whose services we can ascertain to be honest and reliable. Until we have that list in place please be circumspect in dealing with offshore service providers. Mention what you have read on this page, if they say that yes, that is true, however I can find solutions to these problems, then proceed with caution. If, on the other hand they say that what is written here is hyperbole, totally false, and that we don’t know what we’re talking about, then head for the door and find another offshore service provider. The defining characteristic of offshore investing is that much of it is uncontrolled, or loosely controlled by any government regulations. While that is its positive characteristic, it also why it is a sector full of crooks and flimflam artists. Caveat Emptor. Please proceed with caution. Offshore Banks We have a list of offshore banks. In most cases an offshore service provider is not required to open a bank account. Seek out a bank and make an inquiry. Find out their policy and ask about opening an account. If you wish to make investments via the bank you will have to ask if they provide investment services, do they hold precious metals, can you hold deposits in multiple currencies.  If you are a US passport holder be sure to ask what their policy is for US passport holders. If you reside in the USA keep in mind that the US government monitors all mail leaving the United States addressed to certain jurisdictions. Using A Tax Haven By opening a corporation in an offshore jurisdiction, the businessman and/or investor can recognize substantial tax savings as well as protection from frivolous lawsuit.  The structuring of such a program must be done correctly. Opening an offshore corporation is not difficult. In some cases it may be necessary to have an offshore office so that the offshore presence is actual rather than purely virtual, in other cases it is not necessary; this depends on the nature of the enterprise.  If we want to protect our savings and keep our assets in an offshore bank then an office is not necessary, if we are running a business we may want to have an office in that jurisdiction, either in the form of actual office, or as a virtual office where we receive mail, fax, and have an answering service for phone calls.  Today with Skype and other VoIP telephones it is easy to establish a virtual phone number in any number of jurisdiction which ring in other jurisdictions. Creating A Virtual Presence We can now have a US dial tone almost anywhere in the world …and call to anywhere in the world – in many cases toll free -  Those of us who have lived overseas for decades have been witness to an amazing evolution in the ability to make international telephone calls.  In the book version of Escape From America, a telephone system called Call Back was recommended; which at that time was a state of the art modality in the ability to make international phone calls.  Most people had never heard of it. Today Call Back is old hat.  Every few years the technology of what is called ‘telephony’ (teh-LEH-fuh-nee) makes even greater strides.  Today we have OOMA, Vonage, Skype, and a dozen other stystems each of which use VoIP, (Voice-over-Internet protocol)  a protocol optimized for the transmission of voice through the Internet or other packet-switched networks. There is a reason why each of the three systems mentioned are excellent services and which is superior depends very much on what it is we intend to use our overseas telephone for. As of this writing OOMA is the latest, and perhaps the greatest; it gives us a US telephone number that provides free calling to any US number, and low cost international calls. However OOMA doesn’t give you a virtual telephone number in London, or in other parts of the world, Vonage does.  With Skype you get can get up to ten numbers in a very wide choice of jurisdictions. Note, for the purposes of this article, that a Skype number can be forwarded into another phone. Skype is great on a laptop, especially now that you can hook in a USB port telephone and carry it with you when you travel.  The hardware is where the innovations have occurred.  We have made a list of the phones that we recommend. Click here to see them all – each of the phones listed explains its features and its cost. If your desire is to create a virtual presence in a jurisdiction or to achieve anonymity this is the best way to do so. There is also a way to forward a phone number located in any jurisdiction into a VoIP number by using PBX software which we will be discussing in a subsequent article. Also note that if you intend to live overseas you will want one of these phones if for that reason alone. You Can’t Bug Me Note: We have been told that VoIP phones are extremely difficult to bug. This, we are told, is because they use a digital signal and it is difficult to read, much as a fax line is difficult to read. Such signals can be read by someone intent on bugging a phone, but only with great difficulty and at great expense.  Due to the proliferation of VoIP phones in use the chances of a VoIP phone being bugged are extremly remote. http://www.escapeartist.com/Special_Reports/What_Is_A_Tax_Haven/   Related: Many large U.S. companies use offshore subsidiaries and creative tax planning to lower their tax rates at the expense of the rest of us. As taxpayers and legislators wring their hands over missing budget funds, it is eye-popping to see where much of the money has gone. The list of players using offshore tax havens to shift profits overseas reads like a Who’s Who among big businesses and banks. For starters, there’s Google, which has paid a tax rate of 2.4 percent since 2007 on its profits. Then there’s Goldman Sachs, which in the same year received a $10 billion taxpayer bailout and paid just a 1 percent effective tax rate on their profits. The “Big Four” audit firms, such as Ernst & Young, not only advise clients on tax haven strategies, but use them to also ship their own profits overseas. Most recent exposés give a frightening peek into the aggressive tax maneuvering of companies such as General Electric, Carnival, Boeing, Yahoo and Southwest Airlines. Official estimates by the federal GAOshow at least 83 percent of the largest 100 companies have created offshore subsidiaries in places like the Cayman Islands that are officially listed as tax havens. Offshore tax havens cost the Treasury over $100 billion per year. It’s the equivalent of a massive annual bailout for America’s largest, and often times, least scrupulous corporations. We should never have tolerated it and can no longer afford it. Rampant tax avoidance by corporations is not even good for business. Capitalism works best when companies thrive based on their efficiency and capacity to innovate; not based on the number and aggressiveness of their tax lawyers. Curiously, some of the most vocal defenders of tax havens seem to forget about the lost revenue while issuing strong warnings about the size of our deficit. For instance, John Castellani, president of the Roundtable, a vocal critic of large deficits calls closing tax haven loopholes, “the wrong idea at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.” For those who oppose reform, the shifting of tax burdens onto already struggling taxpayers and small businesses doesn’t even seem to deserve a shoulder shrug. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phineas-baxandall/iin-the-public-interesti_b_823717.html

 

 

Indian Black Money in Swiss Banks,1400 Billion dollars (INR 6300000,00,00,000 )

Image via Wikipedia

Please read my blog on Rajiv Gandhi 2.5 Billion Francs under corruption.

Figures in the story,does it include Rajiv’s?

I can not count the zeroes.

Story:

The revised Tax treaty between India and Switzerland which will be placed before the Swiss Parliament for final approval is creating nightmares to those tax evaders who have cheated tax to the tune of Billions of Rupees.

(Weak heart people may skip the below paragraphJ)

It is believed that an astonishing sum of around 1400 Billion dollars of black money is deposited in Swiss banks by the Indian Tax evaders. This amount is equivalent to   6300000,00,00,000 INR which is about 13 times larger than the country’s foreign debt !!!!

Now there arisen a ray of hope to pull through this black money from these banks as the Switzerland’s Parliamentary Committee has given the go-ahead to the revised tax treaty between India and Switzerland that would eventually allow our government to access the secret Swiss bank accounts of Indian tax evaders.

The extremely stable economy, privacy and good returns on the investment have made people across the globe to deposit their money in the Swiss Banks. It is often misapprehended by many of us that the term SWISS BANK is a single bank, which is not the case. There are more than 400 banks in Switzerland ranging from two very big banks to small banks. Union Bank of Switzerland (USB) and Swiss Bank Corporation are the two biggest banks in Swiss of which the branches have spread across many continents.

http://www.blueznu.blogspot.com/

Related:

It has become clear to the Supreme Court that the looters are preparing the grounds for the cover-up If Wikileaks exposes Indian accounts in Swiss Bank.The looters over a period of time digesting, scam after scam have become immune to public opinion. They have developed a skin so thick, that it would make a Rhino blush.

Even if Wikileaks and Rudolf Elmer publish all the names of the illegal Indian account holders in Julius Baer, and the other Swiss Banks follow suit, nailing the looters is a far cry. These accounts will have been masked by layer upon layer of bogus legal entities. The looters are sure to have taken all these precautions to ensure that the trail does not lead to them. This is more than sufficient excuse for the Indian investigating agencies, controlled and directed by the looters themselves. The ‘Bofors Loot’ scam investigation is an eye-opener.

http://www.prophet666.com/2011/01/wikileaks-indian-swiss-funds.html