Oh crap, I shouldn't have said he was a customer.

OH CRAP, I shouldn't have said it was a secret!

OH CRAP, I certainly shouldn't have said it was illegal!!

Weaver95: there's gonna be a LOT of very unhappy people once those names get posted. I'll bet it cuts across party lines too - Republican, Democrat, right wing, left wing...I'll bet they all were/all hiding money from the IRS.

A very, very small portion of the big fish. Middlemen, citizens, dozens of different accounts. There are so many legal loopholes that completely ignore the "sweeping" U.S. probe it's laughable.

Weaver95: so the big guys are sacrificing the middle sized fish? I'll bet some of those smaller fish might know one or two things worth following up on....might be they're be in a mood to sell out someone more important in order to save themselves.

Sorry I wasn't clear. The people who are caught by the "sweeping probe" are the ones dumb enough to not only have the accounts in their name but all the money in one or two large accounts. In addition to politicians and executives with a few million stashed there, you'll also see the list peppered with lots and lots of "retiree Martha Gene - 82", who opened an account decades ago as a retirement nest egg and has a whopping 100k there.

That's not to say I'm making excuses for U.S. citizens who want to evade U.S. tax law, I'm just saying that the smart money, the hundreds of millions type of money.....the majority of that is still well hidden in Switzerland, Lichtenstein, etc behind proxies (not the boxxy kind), private citizens, investments, dozens of accounts, shell companies, etc. I'm not saying it to be defensive of the Americans now having to pay lots of back taxes, I'm saying it because that's what the reality is.

But that doesn't make for pretty headlines in American publications that fellate the Justice Department. The Swiss banking stuff has been in the news here almost daily for years now. The reason they don't go after the really big fish is twofold:

1.) The exponentially increasing amount of resources required to deal with a half dozen or more different countries/jurisdictions and the difficulty once private Swiss citizens/proxies enter the equation.

2.) The really big money are the ones who pull the strings in the U.S. to begin with.

Wll then cant they just move it to the Caymens or someplace else that isnt as IRS friendly

Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

Djkb: Oh crap, I shouldn't have said he was a customer.

OH CRAP, I shouldn't have said it was a secret!

OH CRAP, I certainly shouldn't have said it was illegal!!

"Ugh. It's too hot today."

This is the first thing the headline brought to mind. +1 internets for you.

FTFA: "For the U.S., it's not primarily a money question. It's a matter of making sure the laws apply fairly among taxpayers."

This guy should being doing standup at The Improv, cause that's some funny ass shiat.

Weaver95 2011-10-24 11:14:16 AM there's gonna be a LOT of very unhappy people once those names get posted. I'll bet it cuts across party lines too - Republican, Democrat, right wing, left wing...I'll bet they all were/all hiding money from the IRS.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Just rich people.

I wanted to offshore some money to get a better return on my savings than 0.1% (ugh!), but swiss banks don't even look at you unless you have at least 50-100k. Which saddened me.

The rates weren't very good anyway (for the time, they're much better than the 0.1% we have now)

No one uses Swiss accounts any more. The Caribbean is more convenient.

They dropped it because it no longer impacts anyone. They gave all their customers 2 years notice to remove all their monies and wipe the records clean.

There was a period of amnesty to take money out of these accounts and deposit it elsewhere with no penalty.

So the only people left with money in these tax haven accounts are just the 1% that forgot they had some of their wealth there.

Rich win again!

Expecting secrecy from a Swiss bank account? In 2011? I hope you guys don't do this.

That's what Dubai and the Bahamas is for.

Now we will know where all the Fark money goes.

Weaver95: there's gonna be a LOT of very unhappy people once those names get posted. I'll bet it cuts across party lines too - Republican, Democrat, right wing, left wing...I'll bet they all were/all hiding money from the IRS.

I've got the list. Want it?
Hold on....someones calling me.
Whoops, I deleted it.

I just bought a learjet. Take your 99 percenter problems elsewhere you hippy.

Did anybody mention that another country will step up and fill the void that the Swiss left by doing this?

fawlty: FTFA: "For the U.S., it's not primarily a money question. It's a matter of making sure the laws apply fairly among taxpayers."

This guy should being doing standup at The Improv, cause that's some funny ass shiat.



I agree A+++ would laugh again.

Tjos Weel: No one uses Swiss accounts any more. The Caribbean is more convenient.

I was gonna say- who uses the Swiss anymore? Too much regulation. Now, the Caymans- if you want to stash $13M in a way that's really untraceable, that's what you do!

ZOMG, the OWS is working!!

LOL ok just move it to Costa Rica

Gig103: groppet: Wll then cant they just move it to the Caymens or someplace else that isnt as IRS friendly

You don't think that the big fish (i.e. the ones the IRS is targeting) haven't already done this? In addition to all the things Shadenfreude said, that is.

How would that help them?

I assume the banks doesn´t just turn over the current amount, but also the activity on the accounts.