The dirt on the BA & personal offshore (tax-avoidance) bank acccounts;

[elehhhhna]

Offshore bank-issued credit cards are the easiest way to spend hidden income without much chance of detection.

Back in the last century, Bill Clinton's DOJ & IRS sued Mastercard, Visa, etc. for all records of U.S. citizens with personal (or trust) offshore credit-card accounts (example: a Bank of Cayman Visa cardholder).

The US DOJ got the lists after MUCH legal wrangling. The CC co's claimed on appeal that they didn't know the names of their own cardholders--just the issuing banks & acct. number. Obviously that's A BIG FAT LIE--they sure can find you when your payment's late, right? The Judge had a FIT and they lost.

DOJ got the records. A 2 year "offshore personal acct tax amnesty" was announced in '99 or '00. During that time one could REFILE tax forms, report & claim the income, and pay the tax and interest--penalty free, including NO PROSECUTION. This amnesty program prompted the remittance of many, many dollars to the IRS. So far, so good.

Fast forward to the Bush Administration. Guess what? The investigation program has been DROPPED, STOPPED, and BURIED.

Caymanian bank employees (it's only one of about 30 tax-haven countries, fyi) will tell you NOTHING , EXCEPT that the names on these personal & trust accounts , if released, would spark riots, if not a revolution. Religioun, sports, political, entertainment, big-biz, known criminals, you name it--the names on those accounts are very, very , VERY familiar.

This story needs a good investigative journalist, pronto.

[elehhhhna]

1. Kick for SCANDAL

[madokie]

2. Kick for truth

so much bullshit going on, so little time left for it to even matter anymore

[elehhhhna]

3. If properly pursued, this could collect enough money to

MORE than balance the budget AND put a big DING in the deficit. Unfort., I suspect almost all our politicians keep dirty money offshore.

[madokie]

5. sure it would, the reason we can't have meaningful legislation

is because the majority on each side of the isle are bought and paid for. imo

[elehhhhna]

6. We HAVE the legislation. We have halted enforcement.

[sweetheart]

4. like this?

Getting offshore is not the big mint, all persons who have to leave the USA to escape the nazis
will have to establish "offshore" accounts. . its hardly criminal. The house slave mentality
is to report on other house slaves, so that one is closer to the big master, and the point
missed is that the military complex has taken all the money whilst people were looking for
offshore visa accounts.

http://www.bankwizard.co.uk/scc.html

[elehhhhna]

7. Offshore banking has some legitimate merits. It's the tax dodging

AMd other prosecution that's being ignored.

COngress just had a hearing on this -- they don't know the OP info or they're bullshitting about their "outrage".

This is how it works: Illegal or off the books, unreported income is sent to a Caymanian Bank via wire, check, bearer bonds, cash etc.. The offshore Bank issues a Visa or MC to the account holder. Account holder uses card liberally and pays the bill with the esisting balance. VOILA.

Unless the IRS does a "lifestyle audit", there's no good way to detect this activity.

Rental prop on Cayman brings in BIG BUCKS. Property owners consistently have their rental income deposited in Cayman banks and thus no one reports the income to the IRS, as the banks have no law forcing them to do so.

When GW said the rich already have efficient ways to dodge taxes, he knew what he was talking about.

[sweetheart]

8. People are economic creatures, seeking the lowest taxes

After all the high winded talk, people seek to pay the lowest taxes they can, as its either
*they* keep the money, or it goes to murdering brown people. Then americans, like poeple
from nations all over the earth, are seeking to optimize their tax profiles in an uncertain
time where a huge bill is gonna get dumped on the taxpayers coming up when the bills arrive
from junior's war(s).

Really, given modern technology, i would recommend a reform of the tax code to entirely
eliminate the filing of personal income taxes, and instead replacing it with an intelligent
real-time progressive tax that is taken on all electronic payments (including payroll).
With the right computers hooked up to the right banks, the whole nation's tax system could
world in real-time without any paper filing or intrusion in to lifestyles.

As stands, modern communications and legal systems have outpaced the antiquated system of
economic laws that seeks to contain taxpapers in to one place. And increasingly, as people
travel about more and more given modern transport, the tax payment profiles should follow
the individual that they pay for services where they *are* and this is wholly askew to
the imperial system today of universal taxation on all citizens no matter their location on earth.

As stands, since they aren't going to close those loopholse they themselves are using,
then if you can't beat 'em, and they laugh all the way to the bank whilst the stuck
urban poor pay for their war whilst they suck a tropical drink on the beach.

[FormerDittoHead]

9. Impractical

First off, if you have payroll tax and no itemized deductions, sorry, filing taxes ISN'T THAT COMPLICATED.

Unless you're proposing the right wing's wet dream "fair tax", your suggestion can not work due to the fact that outside of payroll taxes, taxes are levied against PROFIT, which means calculating expenses, depreciation, etc. You can't do that real time.

I hate to say it, but outside of the alternative minimum tax, the tax code really isn't THAT complicated beyond what the citizens themselves have created by trying to game the system.

If you think the tax code is complicated, blame the crooks, not the government.

Any system, yes, even a national sales tax, can be gamed, and the long term result will be a series of court cases and a complex set of do's and don't, which will end up pretty much where we are now.

However, every suggestion which wipes the slate clean for the short term to satify some fantasy that a system can be created that people won't even try to game has always, ALWAYS benefited the rich and the dishonest in the short term, and ends up being just as complex in the long term.

Here's the solution: close the loop holes and enforce the law.

[sweetheart]

10. Yet they are not closed

It is not so hard as you make out. Britain does not require tax filing for normal cases,
the proper amount has already been withheld automatically, and unless you are self employed,
tax filing is progressive and automatic.

When a payment is made, the Payee is known, The beneficiary is known, the amounts, currencies
and the items are known. All major payments including payroll pass through networks where
these data re known absolutely when the payment is made, and a variable (progressive) tax can
operate in real-time on electronic payments. If they are sure enough to debit/credit your
bank account/credit card, then there is secure enough information to derive taxes too. Its
not rocket science, its basic database transaction systems, and they would work perfectly
just like they do in most countries that have better implemented their progressive computer tax code.

A complex tax code is regressive, as only the rich can afford to comprehend and use it, yet everyone
pays a certain amount of time and energy to file the paperwork to state and federal.