Labels: cabal, elites, greed, income gap, inequality, offshore economy, poverty, Russia Today, super-rich, tax evasion, tax havens
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posted by profmarcus at
7/23/2012
A global super-rich elite has exploited gaps in cross-border tax rules to hide an extraordinary £13 trillion ($21tn) of wealth offshore – as much as the American and Japanese GDPs put together – according to research commissioned by the campaign group Tax Justice Network.
James Henry, former chief economist at consultancy McKinsey and an expert on tax havens, has compiled the most detailed estimates yet of the size of the offshore economy in a new report, The Price of Offshore Revisited, released exclusively to the Observer.
He shows that at least £13tn – perhaps up to £20tn – has leaked out of scores of countries into secretive jurisdictions such as Switzerland and the Cayman Islands with the help of private banks, which vie to attract the assets of so-called high net-worth individuals. Their wealth is, as Henry puts it, "protected by a highly paid, industrious bevy of professional enablers in the private banking, legal, accounting and investment industries taking advantage of the increasingly borderless, frictionless global economy". According to Henry's research, the top 10 private banks, which include UBS and Credit Suisse in Switzerland, as well as the US investment bank Goldman Sachs, managed more than £4tn in 2010, a sharp rise from £1.5tn five years earlier.
The detailed analysis in the report, compiled using data from a range of sources, including the Bank of International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund, suggests that for many developing countries the cumulative value of the capital that has flowed out of their economies since the 1970s would be more than enough to pay off their debts to the rest of the world.
Oil-rich states with an internationally mobile elite have been especially prone to watching their wealth disappear into offshore bank accounts instead of being invested at home, the research suggests. Once the returns on investing the hidden assets is included, almost £500bn has left Russia since the early 1990s when its economy was opened up. Saudi Arabia has seen £197bn flood out since the mid-1970s, and Nigeria £196bn.
"The problem here is that the assets of these countries are held by a small number of wealthy individuals while the debts are shouldered by the ordinary people of these countries through their governments," the report says.
The sheer size of the cash pile sitting out of reach of tax authorities is so great that it suggests standard measures of inequality radically underestimate the true gap between rich and poor. According to Henry's calculations, £6.3tn of assets is owned by only 92,000 people, or 0.001% of the world's population – a tiny class of the mega-rich who have more in common with each other than those at the bottom of the income scale in their own societies.
"These estimates reveal a staggering failure: inequality is much, much worse than official statistics show, but politicians are still relying on trickle-down to transfer wealth to poorer people," said John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network. "People on the street have no illusions about how unfair the situation has become."
Labels: cabal, elites, greed, Guardian, income gap, inequality, offshore economy, poverty, super-rich, tax evasion, Tax Justice Network
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
7/22/2012
House Republicans Whittle Down $447 Billion American Jobs Act to $11 Billion
S&P’s Chambers Sees One-in-Three Chance of Another U.S. Credit Downgrade
Obama: All Americans must pay fair share to cut deficit
Labels: American Jobs Act, banksters, Barack Obama, corporate military industrial government complex, credit rating agencies, elites, high desert, super-rich, tax evasion, taxpayers
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
9/17/2011
Twenty-five major US firms paid more to their chief executives than to federal tax collectors in 2010, with most of the companies receiving tax refunds, a liberal-leaning think tank said Wednesday.
The study by the Institute for Policy Studies comes ahead of another expected round of fierce partisan bickering over whether the debt-laden United States should raise taxes on the wealthy and close loopholes to boost revenues.
The 25 CEOs -- many from well-known companies like General Electric, Verizon, Boeing and eBay -- were among the 100 highest paid chief executives in the United States, with 2010 pay averaging $16.7 million, the report said.
And 22 of the 25 had received pay increases that year.
The 25 firms reported average global profits of $1.9 billion, and 18 of them operated subsidiaries in offshore tax havens, the report said.
"Corporations don't dodge taxes. The people who run corporations do. And these people -- America's CEOs -- are reaping awesomely lavish rewards for the tax dodging they have their corporations do," the institute said.
Labels: corporatocracy, elites, executive compensation, greed, income gap, super-rich, tax evasion
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
8/31/2011
A former senior Swiss bank executive said on Monday that he had given the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, details of more than 2,000 prominent individuals and companies that he contends engaged in tax evasion and other possible criminal activity.
Rudolf M. Elmer, the former head of the Cayman Islands office of the prominent Swiss bank Julius Baer, refused to identify any of the individuals or companies, but told reporters at a press conference that about 40 politicians and “pillars of society” worldwide are among them.
He told The Observer newspaper over the weekend that those named in the documents come from “the U.S., Britain, Germany, Austria and Asia — from all over,” and include “business people, politicians, people who have made their living in the arts and multinational conglomerates — from both sides of the Atlantic.”
Mr. Assange said that WikiLeaks would verify and release the information, including the names, in as little as two weeks. He suggested possible partnerships with financial news organizations and said he would consider turning the information over to Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, a government agency that investigates financial corruption.
Labels: corruption, elites, Jesse Ventura, Julian Assange, Julius Baer, Rudolk Elmer, super-rich, tax evasion, Wikileaks
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/17/2011
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