(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
I’m sure the Very Serious People response to anti-rich people leaks to wikileaks will be the same as their response to leaks embarrassing powerful people in governments. It’s just wrong to hold powerful people accountable for anything.
Look forward people!
The Independent’s Johann Hari explains why many tax dodgers are fearing the information, now in Wikileaks’ possession, about hundreds of off-shore banking accounts.
Ex-Swiss banker, Rudolph Elmer is set to go on trial in Switzerland for violation of the Swiss bank secrecy laws, forging the documents sending threatening messages to two officials at Julius Baer. He is the former chief operating officer in the Cayman Islands and employee of the powerful Julius Baer bank. Elmer’s lawyer, Jack Blum, one of America’s leading experts in tracking offshore money, says, “Elmer is being tried for violating Swiss banking secrecy law even though the data is from the Cayman Islands. This is bold extraterritorial nonsense. Swiss secrecy law should apply to Swiss banks in Switzerland, not a Swiss subsidiary in the Cayman Islands.”
Mr Elmer had given these CD’s to “national tax authorities including the Internal Revenue Service in the United States, said he had turned to WikiLeaks to “educate society” about what he considers an unfair system that serves the rich and aids those who seek to launder money.”
The offshore banking industry has come under increasing pressure in recent years amid accusations that places like the Caribbean, with looser financial laws, allowed investors to avoid taxes and that some banks helped to create complex webs of companies and trust funds there to confuse tax authorities abroad.
In 2009, Bradley Birkenfeld, a former private banker for UBS, disclosed some of the industry’s illegal tactics and forced the bank to turn over details of several thousand client accounts to the I.R.S. as part of a legal settlement. UBS agreed to pay a $780 million fine and admitted criminal wrongdoing.
Only $780 million!! Compared to what they probably really owe in taxes that is spit in the ocean.
The US Department of Justice continues in its investigating of Wikileaks and Julian Assange for the leaking of US documents that so far are more embarrassing than violations of any real “state secrets”.
It’s fairly clear by now to the average person that the Swiss and the United States are protecting “big money” that owns them and that there are a different set of laws for “overlords” and the rest of the “serfs”. Maintaining the status quo at all costs.
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Elmer was found guilty in Swiss court on Wednesday. Despite the prosecutions call for eight months in prison, Judge Sebastian Aeppli fined Elmer to over 6000 Swiss francs ($6000).