TheAgitator.com
We Are the World
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008Dan Mitchell and Richard Rahn write on the federal government’s continuing efforts to assert U.S. jurisdiction all over the world. They’ve moved beyond gambling to now pressuring Swiss bankers to break Swiss law in order to comply with U.S. law. Federal officials charge that the Swiss’ famous secrecy is helping U.S. citizens skirt federal taxes.
This is almost certainly going to backfire.
so us law extends to foreign (sovereign) countries … but not to US offshore property (gitmo)
sounds fair
I have to agree: Disrespecting jurisdictional issues will lead to chaos. If the U.S. government pursues this policy (and we’ve seen this before outside the financial arena with the U.S. claiming the ability to arrest people in the UK), what moral authority will it have to argue against people “hiding” income here or even violating other laws of countries that, for instance, don’t have freedom of speech and so on?
I don’t know if this is scarier than the proposal to have all electronic transactions reported to the central government, but it is scary nonetheless.
As an aside, if the U.S. government is claiming civil authority around the globe, doesn’t that sort of weaken the argument that constitutional restrictions on the government only apply to U.S. citizens while they are in the U.S? If the government’s ability to tax people, to regulate people, to arrest people, etc. extends beyond the border, then it’s tough to argue that the constitution ends there…
Great, the U.S. is the Mississippi of the world. I’m from Texas and even I think that it might be a good idea to not elect anybody else from Texas president for a while.
The key result will be that noone travels to the US to do business for any reason at all in case they suddenly get arrested because their company are ‘breaking’ a US law they didn’t know about.
Whether or not that actually causes problems I’m not sure, as there are plenty of ways to do business remotely these days.
It could also make life tough for US housed investment banks due to the perceived political risk for foreign firms of putting your money where the US government can get it.
Essentially there’s a trade-off between what hoops foreigners have to jump through to deal with you and how much they deal with you. Given how global markets work, I suspect the US government (of this flavour or the next) will realise that once the recession starts to bite harder.
Spread our gambling laws to the ends of the earth? That’s fine. But grant foreigners habeas corpus? THE END OF THE FUCKING WORLD!
I understand, via various sources which include an economics news/blog site written by a person whose mindset I admire, that UBS has had to request and have been granted US permission to operate as a business within US jurisdiction.
UBS has been accused of using its businesses within the US to help many (hundreds?) wealthy clients evade taxes for which the clients are presumably liable.
My complete disgust with the IRS and taxes in general aside, there is the matter of equal protection under the law. Enforce the law equally, or abolish it.
Thus, from my point of view, this is less about the US trying to impose its will upon foreign businesses and more about investigating a business operating in the US helping US citizens break laws.
#6 Can you link me that company? It’s always been my dream to get a pile of money and then put it in a Swiss bank account away from greedy, greasy fingers. Hopefully, the Swiss won’t cave before I can make that a reality!
Are the Caymans still holding strong?
This may hurt efforts to track terrorist finance. The Swiss have cooperated in that, but there was a lot of political wrangling within Switzerland about how that would lead to the US trying to get inside Swiss banking secrecy.
This has now proven to be accurate. I forget which stance the Swiss People’s Party adopted on the issue, but I can’t imagine them going along with this, and they are the most popular party in Switzerland.
This comic is starting to look prophetic.
The Swiss banks stopped with their “famous privacy” decades ago. Perhaps you’ve been watching too many old movies? Last I looked, small island nations were in vogue, but it’s been a while.
Matt: International law states we’re allowed to summarily execute ununiformed irregular combatants engaging in conflict with our troops. Not granting them trials is the least of these cats problems.
Edintally, I’d love to do the same, as soon as I scrape together my own pile of money.
However, the impression is that a sizable percentage of the US citizens in question here are members of or connected to members of Congress, with the implication that the very same people who wrote and passed the laws in question are breaking them.
If so, I say put the screws to them! (And abolish the damned laws.)
#10
Got a link?
#11
I often wonder what it would take to move to a poor island or a relatively safe S. American country.
How safe is safe? People are generally safe in most places in the US. Broadly speaking, safety and liberty are diametrically opposed. ;)
I was thinking; drinks in coconut shells and half naked native girls safe ;)