We know that the European Union does not respect the sovereignty of other countries. We know that governments will accept stolen goods if they think that they can get away with it. The British government is now capitalising on the proceeds of theft, a manoevre that would result in individuals going to jail. Let us hope that this is challenged, since how could one guarantee the veracity of stolen data:
Meanwhile, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) expects to obtain £100m in unpaid tax from 100 Britons who bank in Liechtenstein. It paid £100,000 to Heinrich Kieber, a former bank employee, for clients’ names and bank account details. In the past few days it has begun sending them letters referring to their account numbers.
The European Commission, Britain and Germany are attacking any country that wishes to provide a tax haven. Along with the OECD and its list of recalcitrant countries, they wish to overturn secrecy laws and end the existence of tax havens. If you cannot stand the heat of tax competition, they reason that you should crush the territories:
THE chancellor is to step up hostilities against Britain’s super-rich by pressing for sanctions against Monaco, the Mediterranean tax haven.
Under one proposal, to be discussed by Alistair Darling with European finance ministers on Tuesday, there will be a levy on any money transferred to a Monaco account from anywhere in Europe. Precise policies will be discussed the following week at a meeting of Europe’s tax authorities in Berlin.
The threat of sanctions marks an escalation in the battle between European governments and the continent’s three remaining tax havens: Liechtenstein, Andorra and Monaco.
“So far the attention has been on Liechtenstein, but Monaco is the goldmine,” said a Whitehall official. “Germany has got the bit between its teeth now and Monaco is where they want to go next – and we’re right with them.”
They even have Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore in their sights. I foresee an archer’s salute and a raspberry. Note that the usual excuses of terrorism, moneylaundering and social justice will be trotted out as an attack upon the freedom of individuals to live where they please and enjoy the pleasures of low taxation. Remove the threat and the peons at home might not want the same.
If the government are using clearly stolen data in this case and hence breaking the laws of their own land, how can anybody (other that a brain dead simpleton), expect them to adhere to any rules whatsoever with regards to ID cards and their supporting datbases or indeed on any other question at all?
In this instance they have proved themselves, beyond any doubt whatsoever, to be evil, corrupt, lying bastards with no sense of right or wrong at all.
They cannot be trusted to do the right or proper thing in any given situation.
What did we do to deserve bringing this calamity of a government down on our own heads? Those of you who voted for them should hang your heads in deep shame.
We live in a kleptocracy. Nobody cares.
At the very least the Prince of Liechtenstein should put a dead-or-alive bounty on Heinrich Kieber as a deterrent to any others who might be tempted to rat people out for their own gain. Not openly, just ‘let it be known’ and when the fucker turns up dead one day, the message will be understood perfectly.
This is just proof that democracy and political integration is bullshit. I hope Liechtenstein, Monaco and Andorra to tell the vermin in London, Berlin, and Brussels to go to hell.
Lichtenstein could also attempt extradition of UK officials who paid for the criminal activity. They won’t get it, but wouldn’t it be fun if some day some UK bureaucrat happens through Lichtenstein for some reason… and gets tossed into prison?
Oh Lord would that be something to raise a pint of the dark stuff to!
I am not on Herr Kieber’s CD…nor anyone else’s…but I firmly believe that one has the right, and duty, to protect one’s honestly acquired ‘Hab und Gut’ against theft by arbitrary legislation; especially if the excuse given is ‘the redistribution of wealth.’ (ROTFL)
By all means go after the launderers, drug barons, venal heads-of-state & skiving politicos.
The honestly wealthy, who are ipso facto wealth creators, should be able to bank wherever they wish.
Theft is a crime. Even in the O.T. “Thou shalt not steal” and “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s ass nor his wallet,” and I’m sure that there are more-modern wordings available.
To receive stolen goods, intending to benefit from them, and knowing them to be stolen, is also a crime.
Therefore, some judge in Liechtenstein needs to put out arrest warrants for a whole bunch of UK tax collectors. After all, if Europe is one big happy union and ready to enforce each other’s criminal process…
I’ll get started on a batch of something worth raising to the notion of tax collectors being arrested.
(Hmmm…traditional English-style barley wine with a smoky backflavor?)
Sunfish:
Liechtenstein is not part of EU. Still, what Dale said. They should at least demand extradition as loudly as they can, even though they will not get it.
Expat:
Sorry, no. First, how many truly honestly wealthy can you point to? Second, everyone should be able to bank wherever they wish. If the UK government has moral objection to some of Liechtenstein’s banking customers (such as drug barons and venal heads of states), then there are legal and morally sound ways to deal with the problem. Stealing from a thief is still stealing, unless the secondary thief is going to return the money to its original owner, which usually is not practical. And, lastly: ideally, places like Liechtenstein should themselves have moral objections to banking with, well, morally objectionable characters – maybe they do, I don’t know.
Sorry, botched the tags.
It seemed for a time the government’s attitude was: one law for you, and one law for us.
Now it is: one law for you.
What is the standing on offshore havens such as Monaco (within the EU), Isle of Man, Channel Islands (likewise) or even places such as the Vatican and San Marino? I would just love to see the tiny-minded thugs of HMRC trying that on the Istituto per le Opere di Religione (Vatican Bank) for unpaid taxes of some senior British bishops.
Secondly, if I did bank with a private bank in Liechtenstein and a bank’s staff member sold my private details to a state then surely I have grounds for some fairly massive compensation from that bank, perhaps to the extent of their paying the pound of flesh to HMRC on my behalf?
Julian,
Monaco and the Channel Islands do not belong to the European Union. Hence, the silence of France.
Liechtenstein can, plausibly, remove itself from the European Economic Area and rely solely upon its customs union with Switzerland. This could actually enhance their international standing.
I do not think that Germany or Britain will for ce bank secrecy through.
Damage to Liechtenstein may arise if the bank does not have an E & O/D & O policy and the customers are unable to gain compensation for their loss. But, if I were a bank, my contract with the customer would state that if the monies deposited broke the law of their domiciliary state, the bank could not be held responsible if they were caught, by whatever means.
Caveat emptor!
The Isle of Man is not in the EU either.
It’s odd that if you are a “Non-Dom” living in the UK you are able to pay little or no tax on some or all earnings.
Yet if you are a UK resident banking “offshore” you will hunted down by any and all means possible.
Whether you pay tax or not seems to depend on who you friends are.
The US government has paid off Kieber, too:
IRS searches for hidden U.S. assets in Liechtenstein banks
The point is, if you refuse to accept said data, it is like refusing the testimony of a witness. The point here isn’t tha tax havnes per se, but that a lot of the money never was taxed at all in the countries where it accrued as revenues.
Am I understanding you correctly, Ralf? You are saying that it is okay for law enforcement to pay for crimes to be committed in order to get evidence of other crimes?. So they could, for example, pay a burglar to search your house for signs of drugs?
I think not.
“The point is, if you refuse to accept said data, it is like refusing the testimony of a witness.”
Where was the court case? HMRC were flying a kite,they didn’t have any specifics,I would bet some of the data appertains to none UK citizens.It would be interesting if some of those involved are people from the Former USSR with a lax view of officialdom.
I would be interested to see how HMRC would prove this in a court of law, if the accused denied the charge. Where is the chain of evidence? The proof seems to be information which a man of proven bad character admits he stole from his employers. How can any of the information which he has sold HMRC be relied on as accurate? This whole episode has demonstrated that all the state wants is your money, and will do anything to get it.
Kieber wasn’t approached by the German authorities, but contacted them first, offering the evidence of tax evasions in exchange for money. Once they had been told that many Germans violated the law, they couldn’t just ignore the whole thing.
If I were Heinrich Kieber I wouldn’t sleep in the same place twice. Some of those depositors are probably just businessmen looking to dodge some taxes, but I’m guessing some of the others aren’t the kind of people you want to be on the bad side of.
Paul, actually the UK is pretty even handed with how it treats non domiciled citizens over taxation. If you don’t live in the UK anymore, then you don’t pay tax on income earned outside the UK and you can put it and do with it whatever you like. So if you live on the Isle of Mann (can’t imagine why you would outisde of the TT though) you’re fine.
The problem, as you point out, is if you’re a resident and offshoring.
It’s quite different if you’re a legal resident of the US where they’ll hunt you down for taxes even if you don’t live in the US anymore. Not looking forward to that.
Quite correct Daveon.
Although I believe if you are noncitizen and formally state “I am a resident, but I am not going to be one from such and such a date and am not comming back” the I.R.S. may leave you alone on income you earn overseas after that date.
The E.U. is not acting “out of the blue” there is a long term “international movement” against tax competition.
If either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton win in November expect to see full agreement from the “international community” to outlaw being a low tax nation.
“You are kidding”.
No I am not.
I think I understand you now. What you are saying is that governments paying for crimes to be committed is fine as long as the crimes are done on spec (adj, 2.), meaning the price, etc is negotiated based on the resulting product’s market value. You are saying that it is only when the price, etc for the crime is agreed to in advance that there is a problem.
I still think not.
No, you don’t understand me.
From a German perspective, the crimes already had been committed, seemingly with the help of the informant’s employer:
Tax Whistleblower Sold Data to the US
If foreign financial institutions act like this, how can this behaviour possibly tolerated?
And I do now what ‘on spec’ means, thank you 🙂
“Kieber wasn’t approached by the German authorities, but contacted them first, offering the evidence of tax evasions in exchange for money. Once they had been told that many Germans violated the law, they couldn’t just ignore the whole thing.”
“You nip in the back window whilst I keep my eye open for the coppers”.
Accessory before the fact.
Well yes, that’s true Paul but the only solution then is to give back the Green Card and I’ve experienced, via a co-worker, the kind of future attention that gets you from the DHS.
The US is far from a low tax nation and frankly, I’m appalled at the return I get on my tax payments, given all the stuff I have to pay for out of pocket in addition to taxation, and I live in a low tax state (in so far as there’s no State income tax).
If I move to California later in the year I will be requiring a fairly substantial hike in pay to make it work my while.
No Ralf. They are not “foreign”. They are domestic businesses in a sovereign state. Your intent that one nation/state may enforce its laws by criminal means in another nation/state has serious flaws.
It is a rejection of free trade. There is no other way to describe it. It presumes either a supranational body setting ‘international’ law or separate rules regulating each country a nation trades with. You need to be honest about that.
Why should financial institutions be any different than, say, search engines? I presume you defend China’s censorship and furthermore, that you think they are to be excused for sending saboteurs into other sovereign states to destroy servers? Or at least paying them after the fact for their activities.
The whole structure of your argument is one of ‘ends justify means’. State ‘A’ was wronged by its own citizens so state ‘A’ is justified in getting its ‘pound of flesh’ by committing criminal acts in state ‘B’.
You are are advocating that any state (‘A’) may mandate any other state to abide by ‘A’s laws. You are defending criminal acts perpetrated by sovereign state ‘A’ in other sovereign state ‘B’ because ‘A’s own citizens are committing crimes under state ‘A’s law against state ‘A’. No crimes occurred in state ‘B’ (unless you believe states have the right to set the internal regulations of other states). The ‘crime’ was a citizen of ‘A’ removing property from state ‘A’. Either that or one of citizen of ‘A’ falsifying information demanded by state ‘A’. Either way, the actual crime could only have occured within state ‘A’.
You are advocating a situation where every business in state ‘B’ must choose between obeying their own state ‘B’ laws, or obeying foreign state ‘A’s laws in regard to activities that occur entirely within state ‘B’. Unless of course, you believe state ‘B’ be may be forced to ratify laws dictated by state ‘A’.
You are also creating a situation where every business in state ‘B’ must understand the laws of every other state well enough to understand and obey the instructions of those other governments. Unless you believe that representatives of all sovereign states will only ever demand things they are legally entitled under their own laws to demand, and that businesses in state ‘B’ must therefore accept the word of representatives of state ‘A’ as accurately and fully stated.
Are you Muslim? This is sounding a lot like how Sharia jurisdiction is established.
Davon wrote “So if you live on the Isle of Mann (can’t imagine why you would outisde of the TT though)”
Actually the only time I leave the Island is when the TT is
on 🙂
Ron Brick,
so if a member of a criminal gang offers to confess and sell the police incriminating evidence against said gang, should the police turn the offer down?
I think not
Midwesterner,
bullshit, sharia!
To make money for their clients, those banks in Liechtenstein have to do business outside this little principate, so that they are subject to the laws of the places where they do business.
Besides, if they help foreigners to evade their countries’ tax laws, they are not passive recipients of the money and have become accomplices.
What di you think the US authorities would do if a foreign bank doing business in, among other places, the US started to help the m evade US tax laws?
And so what if they are?
Liechtenstein is not a citizen of Germany. L. is not located in Germany. How is L. supposed to be subject to German laws? What gives Germany or the UK any right to demand that a foreign government enforce German or UK law, especially when the enforcement would require that a crime be committed in Liechtenstein?
German law is controlling, in Germany. UK law is controlling, in the UK. Neither set of laws should be any more than a curiosity in a third country. Yes, I know that my own country is also an offender in the extraterritorial tax collection racket, and is farking awful in that respect. Not relevant.
(Ask me again sometime after EU nations start extraditing murder suspects back to the US. I might be more in favor of international cooperation then.)
Ralf, the bases for your acceptance of a government’s unchallengable right to enforce its law in other sovereign states (and that is the central point of your arguments) is shifting all over the place. It’s quite clear you have reached your conclusion first and now you are reaching for rationalizations to support it.
And yes. Sharia. I said “This is sounding a lot like how Sharia jurisdiction is established.” If the ‘crimes’ you were attacking were against Allah instead of the tax collectors, the Islamist’s arguments would be fundamentally the same as your’s. Only the legal authority recognized and the particular ‘crimes’ cited would change.
Well, let’s give it a try and see if it works. I’ll take your arguments and change only the crime and the actors. Let’s see if my statement that “This is sounding a lot like how Sharia jurisdiction is established” is a plausible one. Here are five of your sentences justifying buying and using the stolen information.
Eh. Sounds plausible enough to me. Especially since you abandoned moral and legal grounds and pleaded on behalf of the greater good. You are seeking not lawful conduct by government, but behavior modification of subjects.
I think this is your money quote:
Your choice of words, general tone, and the open ended rhetorical nature of the ‘question’ says a lot about your meta-context.
The people receiving demand letters are probably within their rights to attack the veracity of the (illegal) evidence against them. Kieber could have, after all, completely fabricated the data on the disc, and how could anyone prove otherwise? I think (and hope) that rules of evidence in the UK still require a chain of custody for items entered as evidence. “It arrived anonymously in the mail” might suffice to get a search warrant, but shouldn’t be allowable on its own.
But perhaps I’m too much an idealist.
In a US court, “it arrived anonymously in the mail” would typically NOT support a warrant. Every judge I’ve dealt with would fall back to the (legally correct, IMHO) position that someone needs to have direct personal knowledge of the facts alleged in the affidavit. And that we need to be able to produce that someone.
That’s the difference between an anonymous informant and a confidential informant. An A.I. is unknown to police and is almost worthless: we might take that anonymous tip and it’ll tell us where to look for further information, but we can’t use uncorroborated anonymous information to support any intrusion into a place where a person has any reasonable expectation of privacy.
A C.I. is a little different. His identity will generally not be disclosed to the defense. However, it’s known to the investigator and produced for the judge. What often happens is that an investigator will actually produce the C.I. for the judge, so that the judge can determine the informant’s reliability for himself before acting based on his information.
(And someone will now mention Steve Jackson Games, and be absolutely right, and I’ll concede that abuses happen and then point out that they are hardly common.)
As relates to the case at hand, it would be really easy to torpedo the stolen data in a US court. All the official custodian of the data would have to do is kick up enough dirt about errors in the records that a judge will possibly rule that the contents of that data are not reliable beyond a reasonable doubt.
I have no idea how that would fly with an IRS administrative law judge or in a non-US court.
Midwesterner,
I am not shifting my defense, but bringing up aspects of the case that you seem to have overlooked
The banks in question are doing business outside Liechtenstein, and when they do that they are subject to foreign law. Period.
And I compared them to oil companies. Are oil companies to comply with Islamic law when they distribute the oil in the US? I was under the impression (perhaps false) that Saudi law only applied to the oil companies operations in Saudi Arabia.
These banks are not being prosecuted for crimes they committed within other states. Are they? If they are, then why haven’t you made that part of your argument? The German, etc governments could bring prosecutions against the banks in both their own states and the bank’s state. Have they? What did the courts decide and on what basis do they propose to enforce their ruling?
These banks are being compelled to alter their domestic activity, to give up their internal records in their own sovereign state to the whim of a foreign power. It really is that simple.
The idea that as a matter of principle, states must be compelled to aid and abet other state’s actions against their own subjects is appalling. I am truly astonished that you advocate for it. If East Germany believes itself entitled to the labor output of ‘its’ subjects, let it build a wall! But you would rather compel other states to return the citizens to East Germany and save that infamous state the expense, not to mention embarrassment, of building the wall.
I see only two ways to understand your stance on this. Either you believe that subjects are morally the property of states and therefore all other states must respect them as the property of another state, or you believe that life liberty and property are divisible; that one can truly have liberty while the fruits of one’s efforts are taken, that one can truly have life when one’s liberty is taken.
While states may claim just cause for taking their subjects property, let no other state ever be morally compelled to enforce those state’s claims. To accept that idea is to enable the taking of hostages by states. If someone has loved ones in a totalitarian state, how can it ever be tolerated that we prevent those people from lying to the captors? And who’s court do you propose to decide whether or not a state is ‘just’ or not?
Now, come on!
What has happened to the banks? The German government is prosecuting German citizens who evaded our tax laws and deposited the money with those banks, not the banks themselves.
The real danger to those banks is that German and other citizens won’t have quite such a strong incentive to evade tax laws anymore. That means that they will have to pay taxes on that money, which in turn diminishes the amount that is put into the banks (providing that they want to without the tax angle).
Also, consider this: If the German government knowingly lets rich people break the law without acting while everybody else still has to pay, what then? You can’t just pick and choose which legal norms you want to uphold and which ones not. Rule of law, and respect for it would be diminished, consequently driving up crime in general.
That is not going to happen, and the banks have it coming for putting Germany in a place like that.
Ralf,
At one time I thought you had interesting things to say. I do not think that anymore. I cannot even parody your arguments, they are a parody.
Your most ROTFL line of the whole comment:
Er, riiiigght. At least if you are merely human. But if you are that higher being, a government, mere laws are irrelevancies. Pick and choose all you like.
Since Lichtenstein law is abrogated, it is pretty clear that what you really mean is “Rule of German law, and respect for German authority would be diminished”
I am beyond being astonished. You are defending criminal behavior by governments in order to prevent criminal behavior by humans.
Germany had nothing to do with with the place it is in? I am beginning to think there is something really wrong in you. And it appears Germany is still invading its neighbors by proxy to settle grievances when diplomacy doesn’t compel compliance.
I will not rebut your preposterous statements any further. You are obviously very far from home on this site.
Midwesterner, whatever. Suit yourself.
Over all the discussion of procedure, aren’t we forgetting here that tax dodgers have been doing the wrong thing, and if you just have a deposit in Liechtenstein of taxed funds, they can look it over and nothing will happen to you.
Also, do not forget the German Tax Investigation Police (Steuerfahndung) has special powers as it is. They can come to your house in the middle of the night and take you in for questioning, in pyjamas at two o’clock at night, someone told me once to whom that had happened. Would a murderer go free just because someone sold police the info where the body of a person was who was so far just missing?
Ex-Chancellor Kohl had admitted the CDU had secret Swiss bank accounts since 1972 with funds that, I think, were probably not taxed. This has led to dirty deals with the French after reunification; my land rights in East Berlin went to elf Aquitaine. At the root of the rot were the secret accounts for tax dodging and if they can only be tackled Kieber way, so be it. He is believed to be in Australia and neither German tax dodging politicians nor leather jackets from Moscow will find him here easily. Most people who have become a victim of corruption like me would say Viva Kieber!