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Thank goodness for the Caymans...
2 replies
Thank goodness for the Caymans...
Investment Tip of the Day: Buy into companies that manufacture mason jars, as the wealthy are going to have to start burying their money on their estates to hide it from the government.
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Hiding money in mason jars won't protect its value, as the FederalReserve can just print up more and devalue yours. Best to buy thingswhose value can't be manipulated as much, like precious metals. But Iguess you'd then be a (hidden) tax evader as well. Why can't you justhand over what is rightfully the government's property?
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@self-check: Government's property? Those taxes are mine, and yours. Tax Evasion helps one person only, and hurts the rest of us.
You know what would save a billion dollars? Get rid of the IRS and move to a simplified consumption tax system. Even a flat income tax, fine. Eliminate all deductions and loopholes. Tax everyone the same percentage. The wealthy pay so much less % of their income than the middle class. Yeah, I know they pay more dollar-wise, but if you make a billion dollars, you should pay more taxes than a $30k secretary. We pay so much in taxes just supporting to the tax system it's ridiculous. And the average American shouldn't need professional training and a 500 page book just to figure out the family taxes.
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@henrygates: From my understand, doesn't it cost almost a third of a billion dollars just to run the IRS?
@jayphat: On a quick Google search, 11.6 Billion was their 2008 Budget Request, up over 11% from 2007.
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I foresee an army of accountants, tax attorneys, preparers, IRS employees, as well as a decent chunk of the Department of the Treasury being very upset with you for their new-found unemployment.
@henrygates:
\"Even a flat income tax\"
You realize that 'income' is the difficult part of this to compute, not 'tax'. Figuring your tax accounts for 1 line on your 1040, whereas figuring out your \"income\" accounts for 45 lines plus a dozen schedules and worksheets.
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@henrygates: i like the ron paul idea of doing away with the IRS and income ta altogether, and only charging tax on purchases - something along the lines of 40% would go to city/county/state/federal government agencies
@gStein_has joined the star bandwagon: Frankly I don't care if they tax consumption or income, but it pisses me off that they tax both.
@henrygates: you are also talking about 2 different \"they\"s - the federal government taxes income, while states, cities, and counties tax sales.
@gStein_has joined the star bandwagon: If only. I pay federl state, and local income taxes. I also pay county and city property taxes, including for services at the county level that are paid for by my city taxes. Fortunately, my sales tax is only collected at the state level.
@henrygates: Tax everyone the same percentage. The wealthy pay so much less % of their income than the middle class. Yeah, I know they pay more dollar-wise, but if you make a billion dollars, you should pay more taxes than a $30k secretary.
I'm assuming you are referring to Warren Buffet's comment about how his secretary pays the same as he does - that's in reference to the effective tax rate. Many high income earners make money from dividends and long term stock gains which are taxed at a lower percentage.
@wrjohnston91283: It's not just that, no. Take social security. If I pay 12% in social security tax making $50k, I'm taxed on ALL of my income. But my neighbor making $200k, it's only taxed on HALF of his income. I pay 12% in SS and he only pays 6%.
@henrygates: And if someone pays 12% on a $20k salary as opposed to a $100k salary who all of a sudden can't afford electricity? A flat tax is one of the worst ideas ever. Most sane nations have a progressive tax table as we do. Most sane nations don't allow corporations and the wealthy so many loopholes. If everyone paid 30% income tax the wealthy still have money for stuff like food and rent. With the majority of the population making less than $50k a year do you really want to start starving them more?
Tax the wealthy, they can afford it and rely on us for their income. They SHOULD be supporting us if they expect our business to fund their insane salaries. Unless you're going to make a 1% flat tax it's completely ridiculous to expect people in poverty to pay that much.
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@thisistobehelpful: This. D:
The only way a flat tax would be fair is if the costs of everything were altered based upon class.
And there'd be no cheating on that there, nope, never.
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@henrygates: Are you talking about if you're self employed? your employer pays 7.65% and you pay the other 7.65%.
And SS tax caps out at $107k while there is no cap for medicare tax
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Low, mid and high income earners all complain about paying more taxes than each other . . . can't we all just agree that we're all getting hosed?
Bottom line is that our gov't is spending trillions to help us, then taxing the shit out of us to fund it. >:( I'm OK with taxes, I get the rationale, but what pisses me off is the UNBELIEVABLE waste and fraud that's pushing our taxes ever closer to the 50% mark.
@AK47: You do realize taxes in the US are the lowest they've been in many decades, right?
Yes, there's waste and fraud. But taxes have been going down, not up; that's why the government has been running deficits and borrowing to cover its spending for the past ten years or so.
Great, billions reaped in new taxes, billions spent trying to get at these taxes, and still trillions in debt to go!
@jayphat: Going after larger dollar amount evaders is a more efficient use of IRS time than hassling the same number of poor sots who owe a few hundred dollars.
Where were all these people at when Bush was spending trillions in Iraq? That is some wasted government spending.
@bohemian: Oh, believe me, we stay pissed off.
I'm all for going after the high-income evaders, but it's not going to do much for the general deficit/debt situation, which just keeps getting worse. Nobody's hands are clean there.
@jayphat:
No, because they'll just spend more. That's why it's better to force them to spend less, but that's unpopular.
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4,450 accounts turned over to IRS.
14,700 people disclosed accounts.
Thus, 10,250 people are kicking themselves right now.
Is any employee or reader of The Consumerist guilty of shoving money off shore to evade taxes?
Not the readers. Maybe an employee or two.
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@StanTheManDean: I know some people who may use offshore accounts. Although the richest people I know keep the bulk of their money in inflation adjusted muni bonds, they are tax exempt and insured.
@Loias:Sorry, I thought my sarcasm would be evident. In reality, some peopleare taking measures to hide their valuables from thieves, while otherswho regularly get robbed are angry at those successfully hiding theirvaluables. The solution is stopping the robbers, not ensuring thateveryone gets robbed.
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yeah! stop the robbing! no one gains anything from taxes except the government, which uses all of it to buy hookers and blow for the so-called \"president\" (he wasn't legally elected because of some sort of birth certificate mishap that I'm a little fuzzy on but someone said it was true so it surely is)!
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I got 95% of my money in the Caymans, so right now it should be safe.
@viqas: I don't think it's possible for someone to violate their own fifth ammendment rights... you have the right not to incriminate yourself, but I am sure no judge would argue that your right to incriminate yourself is not similarly protected
My money is in Bank Of UnderneathTheMattress.
No fees whatsoever.
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@gStein_has joined the star bandwagon: This is where buying precious metals as a hedge against inflation comes in (e.g. gold).
Although, it's not always a sure thing. What is NASA discovers gold on the moon with their next magic rocket? ;-)
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good. i hope they throw the book at whoever had the balls to hold out. & frankly, i hope they start pressuring a few other international banks the same way they roped UBS into disclosing this data.
the biggest thing that pisses me off about tax evaders isn't their evasion - it's the fact that they're sucking money out of our economy altogether. either re-invest it or pay the taxes so that uncle sam can invest it for you. that should be your options. we don't need more scrooge mcducks swimming in money vaults in this country - we need affluent people investing in businesses that provide work for the rest of us poor saps. & if you don't want uncle sam taxing your millions, than stop parking it in a goddamn bank. go start a company or buy some shit already.
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@mac-phisto: Are they worse than 100,000 illegal immigrants sending $10,000 to Central America or 1,000 companies sending equipment,knowledge and seed money to Chinese manufacturers for industrial output?
Just asking.
@econobiker: they're definitely worse than the illegals. why? b/c those 100,000 illegals spend as much here as they send home. & many of them do pay taxes despite their status. [www.nytimes.com]
& as for part 2, i'd say they're still worse. companies move production abroad b/c there are significant advantages to doing so that are entirely legal. sending your money abroad so you can avoid taxation is not. whether those production advantages should be legal is another discussion, but as long as our government rewards companies that expatriate various segments of their business, can you really fault them for taking advantage?
So why not just take your money out of the account and close it and put it somewhere else?
That's what I did and I'm here to tell the IRS, naner naner naner.
@Ronin-Democrat: if you understood the importance of the decision by the swiss government to allow UBS (& soon other institutions) to release this information, or the carrot we used to get them to agree to do so, you wouldn't sound so confident.
but, to answer your question, if you're one of the people on this list, it doesn't really matter if you move the money. failure to declare is enough to land you in prison & give the IRS the ability to start seizing assets. unless 100% of your funds are abroad & you're in a country that doesn't extradite, this could end up being a pretty big thorn in your patushki.
Couldn't be happier about this. Revenue which is NOT coming off the back of those working for a living is fine with me.
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Here's a question I've always wondered about:
Why does a hedgefund manager only pay a 15% capital gains tax on a few billion of \"income\" but some middleclass schlub pay 43% tax on lottery winnings? They are both a form of legally sanctioned gambling. Discuss.
@MickeyMoo: Because the hedge funds can afford much better lobbying firms and funding political junkets than Joe Six Pack who just scored $24 million...
The lottery winner usually takes it in one lump sum so they have to discount the amount. That is to say they would have earned interest over the 20 year payment period that they now don't have so this is their way of getting it back.
Taxing the hedge fund manager only 15% is because of the good ole boys club, the politicians scratch their backs and in return they get money.
Ever notice how many Wall Street people go into politics? Just check out Goldman Sachs where people leaving the firm are actually encouraged to go into politics.
Warren Buffet once said during a business meeting I believe, that he would give anyone there one million Dollars if they could show they were taxed at a higher rate than his cleaning lady. Nobody got the million.
@MickeyMoo: Taxing the hedge-fund manager is socialism because he has a lot of money to take away every year. Taxing the middle-class lottery winner isn't as bad because he's never going to have that much money again and you're just restoring balance to the system.
We really need to abolish the IRS and go with a VAT or some similar tax.
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@halcyondays: Most European countries have VAT AND taxes. I dont know of a country that relies solely on VAT.
This is individual tax evaders; what about companies? I remember the article showing a two story building (of the house not business varity) which was listed as the official address for 130+ US companies to avoid paying US taxes.
Yes, there are people cheating on taxes but if your looking to collect taxes why bother with thousands or millions when billions in taxes are just waiting for people to enforce existing laws and close loopholes.
@halcyondays: They'll get their money one way or the other. I don't mind income as the source for taxation, but we could probably do with nuking the tax code and starting over. There's no reason the average person shouldn't be able to do their taxes by hand in 5 minutes on a single piece of paper.
1) How much did you make?
2) Apply these percentages.
3) Pay this amount, less what you've already paid. If you've paid too much, your check will be there soon.
@Tratios: As long as it is legal...
You want to be torqued about corporate avoidance of taxes? Read up on the synthetic coal industry tax credits in relation to AIG. The same guy who later tanked AIG (Cassano sp?) figured out that a Carter era synthetic fuel tax credit could be used to harvest 100's of millions in tax credits to offset profit taxes. So an insurance company bought idle synthetic fuel plants and leased these at a loss to coal processors in order to get the tax credit. And the actual ~synthetic fuel~ ended up being pretty much coal sprayed with diesel fuel. AIG did it after consulting the IRS if the scheme was legit and was given the green light...
The IRS (income reducing service) is going after tens of thousands of people for not paying tens or hundreds of millions of Dollars, but they couldn't find the one guy who scammed people out of tens of billions of Dollars.
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The Beast is hungry, having just spent trillions of dollars on stupid, ill-conceived bullspit. Elections have consenquences. Don't vote for *any* incumbent next time around no matter what letter they have after their names, and send a letter to your representative explaining exactly why.
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The terms of the leniency program? The IRS agreed to lube up first.
@diasdiem: Won't help much since they're \"piercing the veil\"
@diasdiem: Oh, good. I hate when the meathooks are unlubricated.