What measures should countries take to protect themselves against tax evasion?
An appeal court in Paris has confirmed that Swiss bank UBS is guilty of having assisted French tax evaders – but reduced the penalty from €4.5 billion (CHF4.7 billion) to €1.8 billion.
A former UBS employee-turned whistleblower, whose testimony sparked the French investigation, thinks this sends a mixed message.
Media leaks, such as the Pandora Papers and Panama Papers, suggest that tax evasion and money laundering has not yet been defeated.
Should countries get tougher on banks and other enablers of financial malpractice?
From the article UBS fails to overturn guilty verdict in French tax evasion case
Unfortunately money has no smell but dirty money has a rotten smell. On the other hand, bankers are far from being angels and have no sense of smell at all. I don't know of any banker in Switzerland who has been put in jail for money laundering. In Geneva,
the Mecca of money laundering, they put in jail free riders on public transport but they don't touch bankers. Long live Switzerland!!!
Malheureusement l'argent n'a pas d'odeur mais l'argent sale a une odeur de pourri. Par contre les banquiers étant loin d’entre des anges, manquent totalement d'odorat. Je ne connais pas en Suisse de banquier qui a été mis en prison pour blanchiment. A Genève,
haut lieu du blanchiment on met en prison des resquilleurs des transports publics mais les banquiers on ne les touche pas. Vive la Suisse!!!
Eliminate direct taxes.
Supprimer les impôts directs.
Use only electronic money for currency and collect taxes at the same time as transactions are made.
Electronic money that does not work would be erased and appear only when needed.
通貨を電子マネーだけにして、売買と同時に税金を徴収する。
動かない電子マネーは消去し、必要な時だけ現れる。
What actions would the public allow their states to take? None. One third prefers the banks to their own government; another third wants to protect prosperity at all costs. Only external pressure, hated by the majority, can change things (remember 2009).
Of course, the 2015 amendment to Article 47 of the Banking Act (SR 952) is absurd. Of course it favors crime and impunity. But I myself was proud of banking secrecy, so I have few illusions. The right wing will accuse anyone who tries to change the situation of wanting to raise taxes, of damaging Switzerland's prosperity and of subjecting us to the vile European Union.
The population does not want to be tougher, the population wants to enjoy the crumbs out of pragmatism. Switzerland does not want to let go of a formula that has been successful for a century.
Quelles mesures la population autoriserait leurs États à prendre ? Aucune. Un tiers préfère les banques à leur propre gouvernement ; un autre tiers veut protéger la prospérité à tout prix. Seule la pression extérieure, honnie par la majorité, peut changer les choses (on se rappellera 2009).
Bien sûr que la modification en 2015 de l'article 47 de la loi bancaire (RS 952) est absurde. Bien sûr qu'elle favorise le crime et l'impunité. Mais moi-même j'étais fier du secret bancaire, alors je me fais peu d'illusions. La droite accusera quiconque chercherait à changer la situation de vouloir augmenter les impôts, de nuire à la prospérité de la Suisse et de nous soumettre à la vile Union Européenne.
La population ne veut pas se montrer plus sévère, la population veut par pragmatisme profiter des miettes. La Suisse ne veut pas lâcher une formule qui lui a réussi pendant un siècle.
I have an idea:
Switzerland changes to having only one bank and that is the only bank it requires for EVERYONE and this includes Businesses!
The Customer produces all the right documents and opens their main account.
You get a card to transact on and the fees on each transaction are then used to replace al the taxes we currently have. No one escapes this.
The account is free but fees are like the current bank system charges on transactions and this includes paying invoices, bills, purchases at Migros etc., Even a Credit card is issued.
If you want a secondary, third.. account to hold you money in.. then that is allowed... there will be basically no interest.
If you want to invest to earn money then that is where the private bank is used. Let them take the risk and if you want to take a risk you are then free and the TaxPayer does not bail out these banks... it is RISK... but the private banks cannot do every day transacting for groceries etc., etc., that is always through the ONE SWISS BANK.. because the fees are used for things that the current taxes are used INSTEAD of making shareholders rich or CEO's rich...
Maybe over simple but it is a start.
It is only political slackness that lets the UBS get away with tax avoidance... because under my thinking and fantasy... they must have an account for daily transaction with the ONE SWISS BANK... and if a private bank is caught Cheating... they get fined.. then two more hits and if on the forth they are caught.. and charged.. they are shut down and any accounts etc., are moved to another private bank...
Tax evasion happens because a lot of taxes are just plain stupid and are in place to allow someones ego to think they are more important than the normal everyday citizen who is just trying to live a simple life...
Why not eliminate most taxes altogether??
Most politicians spend our tax money like their own private piggy bank.
What measures should countries take to protect themselves against tax evasion?
Make taxes as low as possible.
Should countries get tougher on banks?
Go and check trader-mgagazine.com to find out more before we judge.
Yes some one from UBS should be sent to jail. When the bonuses are paid, there is nothing left unclaimed. When responsibility for illegal practices needs to be shared, there is no one in the room.
All these high end Porsches, Mercedes - they are owned by the Financial Advisors who parade their tax evasion.
The rich got richer, someone from ubs should go to jail, someone from the top of the company. They earn more from money laundaring compare to what they pay back in fines and only rich can use such services, everyone else pays their tax as supposed to because they are not bringing big momey to bank.
Holding top executives accountable for their company's misdeeds is notoriously difficult. It has to be proved that they not only knew what was going on but encouraged it.
The default option is to prosecute some "rogue" employee who acted alone without management's knowledge.
Well i already read it in other comments, i dont care that it is hard, change the system, make everyone right everything on paper or get approval for everything, without some change the system will stay where people who are not rich get their money stolen by bank with negative interests while rich get help to cover their profits from law. I am as a poor have to prove to cantpn that i indeed dont earn that much and it is my family who helps me so i dont have to pay a tax of more than 20000 thousand for money i never earned and ot is an ongoing night mare for me while the rich have tax evasion cases.... i dont use ba, only to get my salary and imidiately take it off theur books. If company flops i will lose all of them.
Easier process to declare the profits, for example we subbmited the form but they did not believe we are supported by our parents and charged us as if we earned more than 100'000 chf a year, number taken out of thin air. The tax should be a dialog and not some random guy imagining numbers even when people cant pay them because they did not earn them. When tax system becomes more userfriendly and we could complain about the person who did the calculation, that would make income statememts more accurate and promote us tax payers to treat the system with less anger.
Monetary penalties are not sufficient. Putting people in jail will help. Seriously.
Countries should cut down the taxbills, in France as an example taxes are wasted, government is incompetent. The people get poor value for the money.
But the French government are great at getting free monies from banks and other additional source of income...
To the likes of UBS and Credit Suisse...the amount is like 'pocket change' and no deterrent.
You over estimated the Banks. 2Bil CHF is not small change.
But to the banks it seems like small change...they keep incurring penalties up and down.
It is called cost of services. It is paid out of the profits made by the banks.
Someone should instead ask this alternative question.
How can we stop countries from drawing free money from big banks by crying Fraud and Money Laundering?
At the very, very bottom line...it is our money. Pay us interest on our deposits instead of 'fooling' around.
If a bank has 0 or even -% interest, it means it needs to profit from us as much as it could so they can pay thous bills for momey laundaring wich will go not to the bank but will be devided between the top managent in their personla pockets. i hate all the system and wont use their "services" for any of my investments or money keeping.
Since no interest is paid on money deposited at a bank...might as well keep the money at home in a safe place. In Canada there are what is called 'Credit Unions' and these are fairly safe.
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