It is well known that Swiss banks hide Wealthy U.S. Citizen's assets. Nothing new, and, a long time in coming.
This is not a good analogy, because most likely it will reveal several million and maybe a few billion of unpaid taxable interest. It will also serve as a deterrent from other offshore tax cheat banks.
us government has a right to a reasonable tax on profits made within the us. why should the us government be allowed to tax profits from other nations? I doubt many people would support me but I think progressive taxation without limit is stupid, the government does nothing extra for the extremely wealthy compared to the middle class, infact the wealthy probably cost the government less because they don't need to feed off employment insurance amoung other government backed services.
Domestic citizens are required by law to report ALL taxable income. Take for example I have an Israeli bond, the Israeli government reports the taxable income to the IRS and sends me the necessary paperwork to report it. The problem the US has with Swiss banks is that they are not reporting, when I believe is required under US law. I don't blame them for going after these accounts, and as I said, this is a long time in coming. It'll probably plump up the treasury by a good 300 mil.
LMAO. First pull the plank out of your own eye. 1. The US is anything but an innocent party in the game of supporting anything that makes you money - until the smell gets too bad then it hiding time. 2. Lets not forget slavery 3. Its time that the US stopped bullying everyone. Look how much fun Iraq has been .. and since when has anyone won in Afghanistan? 4. The US's lack of respect for other peoples sovereignty is one of the reasons that China has made such big gains against the US in recent years (its not just the hard working vs the hard consuming).
I care little about this. The Swiss banks are hiding millions of dollars in revenue that should flow to the US treasury. Sovereignty or not, this is justifiable. Don't forget the US ended slavery, and was followed by dozens of other countries after banning the practice. We shed blood over it, and, I believe, lost more men in the Civil War than in WWI and WWII in combat. Per 1: This refers to nothing in particular. Greed is good. Look it up. Per 2: We ended slavery, and were among one of the first countries in the world to do so compared to events in that day and age. Come back to the new millenium. Per 3:Iraq will emerge as a powerful, free, democratic country. Per 4: I don't see china as a threat. Their living standards are still very poor compared to the wests, and, on per capita basis, about a fifth being generous to the US standard of living. Not even half as good as some of our poorest or those at the poverty line.
Here's the thing, in order to avoid paying taxes, you must cut all ties with, in this case, the USA for a minimum of 2 years....i.e. no house, no US bank accts, no sending your kids to school in US. Otherwise, you have broken the law. Switzerland is broke. They will implode if they can't keep these archaic secrecy laws. Times change. And, paying taxes is the law. Law is not about morality....
I would agree here. I hate stupid people trying to dispute laws with "morality." These are not the same thing at all. And, seriously, the only argument the Swiss Banks, particularly UBS could make, is plead ignorance, and let me tell you how well that holds up in a federal court.
So if they boycott and we retaliate, could we live without Godiva chocolate and those little knives? Maybe the U.S. could finally medal in the bobsled if Swiss boycott next years Olympics at U.S. owned Ski Resort in Vancouver. UBS admitted to defrauding the U.S. government and settled, subject to them turning over this info. SEC Swiss equivalent demanded that UBS turn over this info. The battle seems to be intra-Switzerland, as I see it. The leading party SVP, not the Swiss Gov't, versus FINMA (Swiss SEC). There are precendents here, Swiss turn over this info ONLY to aid foreign nations in tax fraud cases, this according to Swiss law. SVP is leading party with about 30% control, so maybe they change this law, still this issue at hand would be grandfathered.
Let them boycott, little pissant country. If you want to know what happens when a country like that boycotts, <i>and the US retaliates</i>, you can look at Iran's inflation rate to figure that one out.