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Visualizing The World's Tax Havens
More and more companies are stashing their cash offshore, and they're doing it at alarming rates. Why? Put simply, it's about eluding the tax man.
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Wouldn't a government of the people, for the people, and by the people be upset by all of this?
Every citizen of this earth should be tee-totally pissed!
But, do they know? Hum...msm?
Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you nineteen for me
'Cause I'm the taxman Yeah I'm the taxman!
Ahem……
The list of tax havens includes such exotic places as Delaware, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.
You have never heard about incorporating in Delaware? Or having a shell company headquartered in Nevada?
You born in a barn?
Aren't these red states? Any correlation?
Am I the only one who looked at the first few posts and thought, "OFA, GTF off this website!"
If you can declare Bankruptcy and not lose your Principal Residence or ANY thing stored there, would you not live there, if you chose to live in the US?
Places like FL, TX...
Just ask Burt Reynolds or OJ Simpson on how they're doing in FL? /s
A pity that Peru is not a tax haven. Their corporate rate is 30%. Peru offers none of the dodgy benefits of the more famous tax havens.
On the other hand, our Peruvian company only sells in Peru (and buys from Asia), hence not subject to any US laws.
this impossible for us peasants to ever get a little ahead
Shut up and work faster, or I cancel your health insurance. Maybe I fire you and hire Juan instead.
How the fuck is Cyprus on that list???
It's because this isn't tax advice.
It's about hating people who don't pay taxes.
Paying taxes is good. Not paying taxes is evil.
That's the whole point.
And why is it ""alas" you and your money can be reunited??" "Alas" is an expression of grief, pity or concern. Maybe that's why Cyprus is on the list. Otherwise methinks it is a typo of "at last".
War used to be fun.
I could ask "Alright mates, we'll get a boat and invade The Cayman's and sack its treasure. A double issue of Grog for every man that makes it."
And there we'll be, swords drawn, sneering and posing proudly over our treasure chest filled with 1's and 0's. Yes mates, as many 1's and 0's as there are stars in skies.
But the sea would still be filled with the protecting British navy.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cj.html
The Union Jack be damned, mate. Arrrrrr... Arrrrr....
Think of it, as many 1's and 0's as there grains of sand on a beach.
And the women...! Arrrrr....!
"But the sea would still be filled with the protecting British navy."
Gawd help us, you're living 60 years in the past. The British Navy hasn't got enough ships to fill the River Thames. The British Navy has a grand total of 19 surface fighting vessels and 11 submarines. The freakin' aircraft carrier hasn't got any freaking aircraft, just helicopters. Freakin joke, that's what the Royal Navy is.
I tried to get the current service list from the RN website but it's not working (normal) so here's the list from Wikipedia:
19 of the commissioned vessels are major surface combatants (6 guided missile destroyers and 13 frigates) and 11 are nuclear-powered submarines (4 ballistic missile submarines and 7 fleet submarines). In addition the Navy possesses an aircraft carrier (though without fixed-wing aircraft)
I spent a long time in the RN, watched it get slowly killed by wankers in parliament. Doubt it could win a fight aganst the Belgian Womens Rowing club now
theyre still paying for kicking the Argies. wars are expensive dont you know
" "Alright mates, we'll get a boat and invade The Cayman's and sack its treasure."
Its the otherway around. The pirates live in Caymans and they send raiding parties into the big nations (US, EU, Asia, etc). The plundered wealth is buried in the Cayman's. Today it just no stolen loot (aka MF global), but Drug, arms, and even human trafficing (modern slavery).
Shit, you didn't fall for it.
Until we all pay a 10% flat tax rate, we should go after these tax cheats
Nope, everybody should become an active tax evader. Just cause you are getting robbed don't give you the right to sic the thieves on your neighbour.
Exactly. More loopholes for everyone and eliminate the income tax and make corporate taxes competitive.
taxes are obsolete. the fed prints all it can and there is no inflation.
uh..... webster tarpley and tax wall street .01% tax.....?
(or the putaipan etf 1$ a trade tax! )
uh..... webster tapley and the wall street .1% tsales tax.....?
(or the putaipan etf 1$ a trade tax! )
No, you get something like Greece where nobody wants to pay for services at any rate. Taxes aren't automatic thievery, but tax evasion/avoidance certainly is.
Yup. It is why Greece is largely a disfuctional shithole (albeit with great weather) and has been for a long, long time with a huge Greek diaspora everywhere. Greeks are great traders/smugglers but there is little sense of community in Greece and most would f@ck over their neighbors quite willingly and readily for a few extra bucks.
You sir, are a fucking retard.
Right-o!
Native American tribes should start tax haven banks for all of us little people. That would be freaking hilarious, and probably quite successful.
the N.A. tribes could get the 12 Tribesmen to set it up for them-from our tribe to yours.
They already have them! They serve fire water to white trash and take back their land - one home at a time.
I could go to college forever with that much cash.
If you are Mitt Romney, step #7 is campaign for president chastizing the 47% of people who don't pay taxes, but also don't have any money.
"This is just how the system works"
If the IRS comes breathing down your neck because you missed 5 bucks on your personal taxes, have the above information at hand and tell them to fuck off.
Good luck with that
Is that what Wesley Snipes did?
or- the "reeducation of black mousecateers"
they are coming out with a new crypto graphic C note in October. If Obummer had the balls to go red money, and give everyone 3 months to convert their old hundo's into new ones, to flush that cash out into the open....would this off shore money convert over or would it be up shits creek?
Could you give a citation of link?
you mean linky? -
http://www.ibtimes.com/new-100-bill-release-date-set-early-october-will-...
the wrinkley ones havebeen cured! new ones a cummin'.
The offshore money is digital, not paper in most cases. So it wouldn't make any difference.
thanks feralserf.
Stop the bitching.
You know that those who made the system made it to their advantage.
I thought that is why everyone is bitching. You just want us all to bend over?
The biggest cheat is ExxonMobil. They reap the benefits of USA's insane military spending that directly benefits them and we all pay twice -- once at the pump, and then again to the tax man.
And some with their lives.
Get your "0" savior right on that Nut Sack.
Yes you Can!!
Forward Bitch...........
Bush was also a cheerleader. Go team! bitch.
That list is a lot broader than ExxonMobil but then again at the same time the US still is hovering up oil & using it on a daily rate per citizen that isn't matched anywhere close on the planet.
The world is such a small place to stash that much cash and am thinking the multinationals realize this also, too much prone to bail-ins or nationalizations.
Where will they put it? Cloud? Moon? Backyard?
Got it... boating accident.
Nobody here said lower the fuckin tax rate so they don't have to hide it?
We all know taxing is thievery so don't wish it upon anyone. People must contribute and not live off others for this world to work.
Exactly. Plenty of places have sub 25% tax rates and as a result far fewer are squirlling billions out of there.. incidentally those countries dont have a history of running tanks up and down the desert in violation of international treaties.
Corporate taxes have plummeted as a share of federal revenue from a high of 32.1 percent in 1952 to less than 9 percent.
Yupes.
It's the mindset of the sociopath that they should pay nothing at all to help with shared services.
It doesn't matter if the tax rate is simple and a miniscule amount, it doesn't matter that they personally benefit from public services, from roads to law enforcement to fire services: in the anti-social mind of the sociopath, contributing to the shared pot if you can avoid it is being a sucker and "They're all suckers but I'm no sucker".
A flat tax would not get those types to pay anything, no matter how simple or small. The only way a flat tax would help with tax evasion is if it was so extraordinarilly simple that it would be extremelly easy to spot those evading it.
So if these companies were actually paying the taxes they were suppose to, earnings would be $150 billion lower annually. i would love to see some company by company schedule showing how much avoiding taxes has improved their profits.
But isn't the whole point of taxation under Keysian theory simply a way to collect data? Or enforce social behavior controls?
Improved the profit of big business which is effectively subsidized by small businesses.
I work with a big chunk of those so-called tax havens and today (or after 9/11) there is NO WAY a serious bank accepts a large amount of money (above $1m) from a nominee without knowing who the ultimate beneficial owner is. Just to clarify.
What about houses like MF Global?
I said a serious bank :)
Weren't they a primary dealer? isn't that the highest acheivement a bank can have?
I don't know what you mean by serious bank
That is supposedly so (I've done all the Anti-money Laundry training courses when I worked in finance), and yet HSBC was caught doing money laundering for the Mexican Cartels.
Maybe your statement should be corrected as "there is NO WAY a serious bank officially accepts a large amount of money (above $1m) from a nominee without knowing who the ultimate beneficial owner is"
You are right. Anyway the real criminals find always a away...
So I just make up a few extra sham companies andhire more noninee's to keep every thing belowa mil awe so I have to have 5 debit cards instead of 1 to tap those funds worldwide.
Aren't these just human reactions to bullying aka tax collection? The gubmints of the world face the laws of unintended consequences, until the can figure out how to snuff their adversaries (aka smaller criminal gangs) out.
There are a million ways to get your tax back. Buy a huge yacht and sail it back. Buy gold bars and ship it back in cargo containers. The list goes on and on.
Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, wrote last month that “When the financial crisis hit, politicians from high-tax nations didn’t let the crisis go to waste. Acting through the G-20, they launched an attack on so-called tax havens, asserting that ‘hot money’ from the offshore world somehow had caused the banking system to become unstable.”
As to why multinational corporations should not have to pay taxes, Mitchell rambled on: “Nobody in the Cayman Islands or Monaco was responsible for the Federal Reserve’s easy money. Nobody in Panama or Singapore had anything to do with the corrupt system of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac subsidies.”
That’s a lie.
The reason they don’t pay taxation on their foreign production is because they are crooks. They’ve worked out arrangements under the table with the government using dozens of congressional staffers enabling the multinationals to go tax free so the Congressman with his tinted hairdo and buffed nails can retain his comfortable position. These Congressmen and their congressional staffs should all be hosed out with a fire hose; they are the vermin who bill the regulations, design them, fashion them into 1000s of pages and in there somewhere is the ability for Apple not to have to pay too much tax.
There are two different kinds of tax havens; there’s the point whereby you try to lessen your taxes under the laws that govern all, and there’s a point whereby you take all or nearly all of your profits from your multinational corporation offshore so that the taxpayer can support your operation with the use of military and the accompanying advantages and infrastructure of being an American-based company.
We’re not that stupid, Mr. Mitchell. It’s one thing to pay the least amount of taxes legally possible by looking to relocate to some foreign locale to get away from the crushing tyranny of taxation. But it’s another thing to have a sweetheart deal whereby you pay darn near nothing because of these connections and Joe Schmo of Ohio has to pay taxes to support General Electric while General Electric pays nothing. And the answer is because General Electric has a special arrangement with Congress. And, oh, yes, Congress wants to make sure that Joe Schmo and America's small busnessmen pay taxes on all their out-of-state Internet purchases. It's only fair, you know; Congress needs the money.
It’s time for these multinationals to either 1) pay the tax, or 2) get the heck out of our country and locate in a tax haven where they’ll be happy. And the first thing for you to do, GE, is to call up the country and see if their marines will help you when you get in trouble.
They might; I don’t know. But I think that you should check
Or maybe they want to keep what they earned. If they didn't earn it then they stole it and that is a criminal matter. I for one completely understand why someone would want to keep the money they earned from being stolen by another. But that is just me. "There are no contridictions in life. If you find yourself with a contradiction, check your premises."
Brought to you by John Galt ;-). Easy folks, this is completely rational.
U.S. average corporate taxes are low by international standards; the average corporate tax rate (2000-2005) in the U.S. was 13.4%, lower than Australia, the UK, France, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, Japan, Finland, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Canada, Switzerland, and Korea. These are statistics from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Therefore, I ask you. Why do you want me to pay Apple’s tax bill? Why do you want me to pay income taxes of 35% taxes to the IRS, 10+% taxes to the state of California, plus SS and Medicare “taxes” on my business income while Apple pays little or none?
Or are you saying you want the Federal Income tax eliminated? If so, I agree with you, but it should be eliminated for me as well as for Apple.
+1 This
There is a point that needs to be made very clear and has a lot more to do with Free Markets than with taxation:
- The real schemes to evade taxes (the one described in this article is bullshit) are only accessible to very large companies, so why should small and mid-sized companies have the competitive disadvantage of having to pay more taxes than large companies due to a tax system which is designed in such as way that it contains loopholes that only the large companies can fully exploit?
That, even from a red-tooth-I-ain't-givin-notting-to-the-state point of view, is the real problem in a supposedly Capitalist system. It's one more nail in the coffin of a Free Market system where success is supposed to come from being having better/cheaper products.
A similar argument can be made on the people side: why is the tax system done in such a way that only some people can exploit loopholes to pay less tax?
+1 which leads me to the radical notion that any tax code longer than a few pages is just full of political pork barrels to megacorps and lobbies
+1 for noting the ongoing war of Big Biz against Small and Medium Biz - which is leading to the monstruos point where a budding entrepreneur is not angling to build up a multi-generational own venture but only building up something that financials can buy and integrate into a megacorp
eventually you run out of entrepreneurial spirit, in this financialization-capitalism model. to paraphrase the "it takes a village...": it usually/often takes an entrepreneural family to raise an entrepreneur fit for organic growth of the sustainable kind
The little guy doesn't have offshore subsidiaries that are actually conducting business in foreign lands, so he's not competing with GE (overseas).
The problem started because of Accounting Industry BS, it is not only permissible (but rewarded by Wall Street) for multinationals to leverage their global footprint to minimize their taxes.
This demand (and the "product development costs" borne by the multinationals who are tasked with maximizing EPS while subject to taxation in multiple jurisdictions creates an industry which has lowered the barriers to entry so that the merely rich and larger domestic companies can now make themselves into "on-paper multinationals".
The problem is that the proposed solutions ignore the genesis of the problem itself, which was multinationals actually running businesses and competing overseas. The US government isn't going to put GE, Exxon, and Google out of business, to do so would be stupid. So any new "solution" will inherently include new "loopholes" even more exclusively tailored for them, and them alone. Unless someone starts by cleaning up the accounting standards and regulations that provide the framework for misallocation, and then moves to cleaning up the tax code in a fashion that respects and properly reflects the inherent differences between a domestic and multinational firm, then an effort at reform is destined NOT to deliver the results promised (to the public).
Define "average" - your statistic is a statistical manipulation.
JR: "It's a wrench dumbass!" Put that into Google and watch the movie and you will understand. I am just a law abiding citizen who is completely incapable of undertanding 3.8 million words of the tax code. "A man has to know his limitations." I fear you really don't understand my point. OF COURSE I DON'T WANT YOU PAYING ANYONE ELSES TAXES, that is just a differnt form of theft. All I want you to do is think. It is very hard and when you do you will, dare I say VOMIT. "This is going to get fucking ugly!"
Lest we forget, international tax evasion was one of the main reasons Cyprus was taken down:
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/european-debt-crisis/where-will-...
Same for Ireland:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement
Shit, even the Swiss have capitulated to the IRS:
http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml
QE for banks lead to lower standard of living for all the citizens of a country except for the beneficiaries of the bail outs. The poor people in any country live hand to mouth and do not contribute to tax revenues. The others who earn their living by small businesses or salaries pay taxes at a much higher rate than the rich individuals or big businesses. This is due to the loopholes in the taxation system which enable them to declare maximum profits in countries which have the least tax rates. So effectively in the long run the governments route the money collected as taxes from the middle class of people to the banks so that the bankers can enjoy enormous bonuses. We are in times of privatizing the profits and socializing losses for those who are well connected to the governments and the law makers.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article40231.html
Alright then. Now I know exactly what to do with all those millions I don't have!
5A/6. Your haven gets raided by a US or EU directed military force before you can get anything out. By the time order is restored, Cyprus' fate starts looking good and you end up paying more than whatever the original tax bill was to be. Boating accidents and similar acts of "plausible deniability" become admissions of guilt. Finally, the country learns from the Cyprus example and allows for no exceptions.
You completely misunderstand how tax havens work. Very little "stuff" - not even bank accounts - actually lives in tax havens. Tax havens are merely places where holding entities (corporations and trustees mostly) are domiciled. The actual assets will be wherever they need to be - you don't find any ships or oil wells or rubber plantations or factories in most of the tax havens, just buildings with brass plates fixed to them. Also, when a banking system gets Cyprussed there is always enough warning for the astute and knowledgeable to get their money out. You really think the average dumb shluck bureaucrat and soldier is going to beat the big money? The way to beat the tax havens is to reduce onshore taxes to a level which the big money finds acceptable, and I'm not being naive here, there is a point where it makes more sense to pay the tax and not go through the ontortions necessary to use a tax haven. If corporation tax is at 20%, and income tax top rates are below 40%, and death taxes are at 10% then most (I accept not all) the offshore money would wing its way back home and the tax havens would become much less important.
http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2012/01/judge_kicks_media_out_of.php
Roland Arnall of Ameriquest subprime fame, the billionaire his estate paid more in estate tax planning fees than they paid in taxes, so much so the govt "classified" the trial (over estate planning fees).
Even dead billionaires skate.
Stupid, even by the almost incredibly high standards of the tax and wasters as it studiously avoids mention of New York City and the City of London.
I don't understand how Google is not on the list, that's a glaring omission as they have reportedly over a hundred billion offshore
Lower the tax rate to a level where it's easier to simply pay it than bother creating offshore structures.
At last, a voice of reason.
Amen, my brother.
I don't care how much you loathe the large companies doing this, they are minor problem compared to the blood sucking behemoth that wants all of your money: The US Federal Government. I'd rather flush the money down the toilet than pay this monster. At least then I could be relatively sure it would do no harm. (If it blocks the toilet up I can clear it with as plunger. If only it were that easy to flush the IRS.) So, fuck the government, and more power to any one or thing who figures out how to avoid supporting it.
Go ahead and down arrow me. See if I give a shit.
All up arrows to the HypnoToad.
So is the author complaining that these companies and people are getting around a corrupt tax system, or is he congratulating them?
Tax avoidance clearly indicates that the system is broken not the people. If our socialist govt stopped it's control over our economy this kind of thing wouldn't happen (or happen infrequently). If you have a legitimate way to get around the tax man, G-d bless you.
"Casing the Joynt"
Tax and Spendaholic Governments are no different from any other addict. They will steal from anyone, spouse, children, grand children, friends, strangers to support their habits.
To paraphase the late Margaret Thatcher - the problem Tax and Spendaholic Governments is that sooner or later they will run out of other peoples money to tax, confiscate, steal, to perpetuate thier habit.
They can steal money from offshore bank accounts, but once it is gone it is gone.
Even if the US could tax, confiscate or steal $32 trillion dollars, with a $5 trillion GAAP budget deficit (OK technically we do not have a budget), this money would only last 6 years. Then what - still overspending to the tune of $5 trillion a year.
"What could America do with $150 billion in lost taxes?"
Faulty test question. Correct answer would be "ignore the deficit, buy more votes".