Monday, April 4, 2016

The United States Once Again The World's Banker

Summary

The Panama Papers is the most US positive event of the year.
High probability that many US Stocks will be impacted, mostly for the better.
Investors should research and prepare themselves.
Expect long term real money flows to support the US Dollar.
No US bank was involved in illegal activities.
In case you didn't hear yet, 11 million documents have been leaked in what's being called the largest data leak of all time. It's being called the "Panama Papers" and it makes all other data leaks look like nothing. We're talking heads of state, billionaires, celebrities, drug kingpins, and even Jackie Chan.You can read more about it here, and here. Already it seems a Prime Minister (Iceland) will resign over this, although he says he will not resign. The implications for political corruption are staggering. But what is even more alarming, is the implications for Wall St. We've witnessed the fall of Switzerland as a banking haven, and more specifically a secret private banking haven. We've seen the slow demise of 'offshore' tax havens such as Caymans, Bahamas, and others. But today marks the day when the United States of America is the world's favorite tax haven. Recently, Bloomberg published an article for Business Week based on a presentation by Rothschild, painting a picture that America is "The New Switzerland."
From Bloomberg:
After years of lambasting other countries for helping rich Americans hide their money offshore, the U.S. is emerging as a leading tax and secrecy haven for rich foreigners. By resisting new global disclosure standards, the U.S. is creating a hot new market, becoming the go-to place to stash foreign wealth. Everyone from London lawyers to Swiss trust companies is getting in on the act, helping the world's rich move accounts from places like the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands to Nevada, Wyoming, and South Dakota.
The firm (Rothschild) says its Reno operation caters to international families attracted to the stability of the U.S. and that customers must prove they comply with their home countries' tax laws. Its trusts, moreover, have "not been set up with a view to exploiting that the U.S. has not signed up" for international reporting standards, said Rothschild spokeswoman Emma Rees. Others are also jumping in: Geneva-based Cisa Trust Co. SA, which advises wealthy Latin Americans, is applying to open in Pierre, S.D., to "serve the needs of our foreign clients," said John J. Ryan Jr., Cisa's president.
Trident Trust Co., one of the world's biggest providers of offshore trusts, moved dozens of accounts out of Switzerland, Grand Cayman, and other locales and into Sioux Falls, S.D., in December, ahead of a Jan. 1 disclosure deadline. "Cayman was slammed in December, closing things that people were withdrawing," said Alice Rokahr, the president of Trident in South Dakota, one of several states promoting low taxes and confidentiality in their trust laws. "I was surprised at how many were coming across that were formerly Swiss bank accounts, but they want out of Switzerland."
So how does this impact US Stocks, the markets, and the global financial system as a whole?
It's a coup for USA and for the USD
Markets don't get it yet - but this is a boon for the USD. That means bullish for (NYSEARCA:UUP), (NYSEARCA:USDU), and bearish for (NYSEARCA:UDN). But this is a long term trend - much of it is already priced in. The point is that the US Dollar itself will be supported by real money flows into the United States, as foreigners utilize corporate structures offered in Nevada, Wyoming, and other US states. It's a great kick start to Rothschild's new Nevada office, it's great for US markets (When the money's here, it will invest in US markets), it's great for the US economy, it's just a win-win-win for USA. And through the process, another outlet has been closed for terrorist/criminal financing, and possibly even provided authorities with evidence to close even more black holes.
US markets have undergone many regulatory changes, in parallel to electronic-ization. It's hard to hide money, now that everything is electronic, and connected, and online. Holes needed to be plugged - such as Panama. Those 'in the know' have known for some time that Panama is a CIA trap. Certainly since the Bush Sr. sponsored invasion of Panama, the US has controlled this small banana republic. They use the US dollar in Panama. Anyone who believes otherwise, is an uneducated fool. The release of the Panama papers prove this. For years and years, meticulously information was collected, they patiently waited, for this climatic moment. All in one move, this operation nicely supports the US dollar, ensnares financial criminals, political enemies, and closes yet another outlet not controlled by the mainstream western financial legal/regulatory system. Genius!
The Forex elements of such an operation are explained in great detail in the Forex book "Splitting Pennies", for example - how offshore tax jurisdictions utilize Forex tax rules for legitimate, legal tax savings. Now a real solid argument can be made, to those US entities thinking of going 'offshore' - we can do the same thing for you, in Nevada. Why take all the risk, spend the money, and other hassle associated with offshoring - when all can be done right here at home in USA.
What to watch out for
Banks that were involved in illegal activities, may have penalties. These banks include:
  • HSBC Holdings PLC (NYSE:HSBC)
  • Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE:DB)
  • Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS)
  • UBS Group AG (NYSE:UBS)
  • Commerzbank AG (OTCPK:CRZBF)
  • Societe Generale (OTCPK:SCGLF)
These are the known banks, listed in the Panama Papers - of course there may be others. Of course, these banks are huge global banks involved in almost market in the world. But some of these connections can prove disastrous, without getting into detail. It's hard to prove you didn't know that someone was a terrorist, drug dealer, or human trafficker. If those payments were laundered through your bank, it's not good.
The good news for US banks - there's no US bank on the list. That means as more and more 'dirty laundry' is released, it will be better and better for regulated, US banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS), and other Wall St. banks.
It should be good for the whole US financial sector, so if one wanted to play this, may as well buy a sector ETF such as (NYSEARCA:KBE), (NYSEARCA:XLF), (NYSEARCA:VFH), or (NYSEARCA:KRE). Any boutique bank based in the US that offers wealth management, private trust services, and related services, should benefit from this event, in the short, medium, and long term.
Now, there's few places in the world left to hide money. Investors who for whatever reason would consider going to Panama and other places to operate, may need to consider instead utilizing intelligent structures that are country/jurisdiction independent. Because the only real currency - is intelligence.
Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.
I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Editor's Note: This article discusses one or more securities that do not trade on a major U.S. exchange. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3963026-united-states-worlds-banker
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Sunday, April 3, 2016

"Unprecedented Leak" Exposes The Criminal Financial Dealings Of Some Of The World's Wealthiest People

An unprecedented leak of more than 11 million documents, called the "Panama Papers", has revealed the hidden financial dealings of some of the world's wealthiest people, as well as 12 current and former world leaders and 128 more politicians and public officials around the world.
More than 200,000 companies, foundations and trusts are contained in the leak of information which came from a little-known but powerful law firm based in Panama called Mossack Fonseca, whose files include the offshore holdings of drug dealers, Mafia members, corrupt politicians and tax evaders – and wrongdoing galore.
The law firm is one of the world's top creators of shell companies, which can be legally used to hide the ownership of assets. The data includes emails, contracts, bank records, property deeds, passport copies and other sensitive information dating from 1977 to as recently as December 2015.  
It allows a never-before-seen view inside the offshore world — providing a day-to-day, decade-by-decade look at how dark money flows through the global financial system, breeding crime and stripping national treasuries of tax revenues.
Here is the brief summary of how these documents have been revealed, via the Sueddeutsche Zeitung:
Over a year ago, an anonymous source contacted the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and submitted encrypted internal documents from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm that sells anonymous offshore companies around the world. These shell firms enable their owners to cover up their business dealings, no matter how shady.

In the months that followed, the number of documents continued to grow far beyond the original leak. Ultimately, SZ acquired about 2.6 terabytes of data, making the leak the biggest that journalists had ever worked with. The source wanted neither financial compensation nor anything else in return, apart from a few security measures.

The data provides rare insights into a world that can only exist in the shadows. It proves how a global industry led by major banks, legal firms, and asset management companies secretly manages the estates of the world’s rich and famous: from politicians, Fifa officials, fraudsters and drug smugglers, to celebrities and professional athletes.
A quick snapshot of the scale of the leak in context:
* * *
Mossack Fonseca’s fingers are in Africa’s diamond trade, the international art market and other businesses that thrive on secrecy. The firm has serviced enough Middle East royalty to fill a palace. It’s helped two kings, Mohammed VI of Morocco and King Salman of Saudi Arabia, take to the sea on luxury yachts.
In Iceland, the leaked files show how Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson and his wife secretly owned an offshore firm that held millions of dollars in Icelandic bank bonds during that country’s financial crisis. In the video clip below, PM Gunnlaugsson walks out of an interview with Swedish television company SVT. Gunnlaugsson is asked about a company called Wintris, which he says has been fully declared to the Icelandic tax authority. Gunnlaugsson says he is not prepared to answer such questions and decides to discontinue the interview, saying: ‘What are you trying to make up here? This is totally inappropriate’

The ICIJ records show Sergey Roldugin, a long-time friend of Vladimir Putin, as a behind-the-scenes player in a clandestine network operated by Putin associates that has shuffled at least $2 billion through banks and offshore companies, German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung and other media partners has found. In the documents, Roldugin is listed as the owner of offshore companies that have obtained payments from other companies worth tens of millions of dollars.
The files include a convicted money launderer who claimed he’d arranged a $50,000 illegal campaign contribution used to pay the Watergate burglars, 29 billionaires featured in Forbes Magazine’s list of the world’s 500 richest people and movie star Jackie Chan, who has at least six companies managed through the law firm. The files contain new details about major scandals ranging from England’s most infamous gold heist to the bribery allegations convulsing FIFA, the body that rules international soccer.
In the “Operation Car Wash” case in Brazil, prosecutors allege that Mossack Fonseca employees destroyed and hid documents to mask the law firm’s involvement in money laundering. A police document says that, in one instance, an employee of the firm’s Brazil branch sent an email instructing co-workers to hide records involving a client who may have been the target of a police investigation: “Do not leave anything. I will save them in my car or at my house.”
In Nevada, the leaked files show, Mossack Fonseca employees worked in late 2014 to obscure the links between the law firm’s Las Vegas branch and its headquarters in Panama in anticipation of a U.S. court order requiring it to turn over information on 123 companies incorporated by the law firm. Argentine prosecutors had linked those Nevada-based companies to a corruption scandal involving an associate of former presidents Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Today, Mossack Fonseca is considered one of the world’s five biggest wholesalers of offshore secrecy. It has more than more than 500 employees and collaborators in more than 40 offices around the world, including three in Switzerland and eight in China, and in 2013 had billings of more than $42 million.
An interactive summary of some of the most prominent individuals named: 
The leak also provides details of the hidden financial dealings of 128 more politicians and public officials around the world.
The cache of 11.5 million records shows how a global industry of law firms and big banks sells financial secrecy to politicians, fraudsters and drug traffickers as well as billionaires, celebrities and sports stars. These are among the findings of a yearlong investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other news organizations.
The files expose offshore companies controlled by the prime ministers of Iceland and Pakistan, the king of Saudi Arabia and the children of the president of Azerbaijan.
They also include at least 33 people and companies blacklisted by the U.S. government because of evidence that they’d been involved in wrongdoing, such as doing business with Mexican drug lords, terrorist organizations like Hezbollah or rogue nations like North Korea and Iran.
"These findings show how deeply ingrained harmful practices and criminality are in the offshore world," said Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley and author of “The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens.” Zucman, who was briefed on the media partners’ investigation, said the release of the leaked documents should prompt governments to seek “concrete sanctions” against jurisdictions and institutions that peddle offshore secrecy.
The documents make it clear that major banks are big drivers behind the creation of hard-to-trace companies in the British Virgin Islands, Panama and other offshore havens. The files list nearly 15,600 paper companies that banks set up for clients who want keep their finances under wraps, including thousands created by international giants UBS and HSBC.
An ICIJ analysis of the leaked files found that more than 500 banks, their subsidiaries and branches have worked with Mossack Fonseca since the 1970s to help clients manage offshore companies. UBS set up more than 1,100 offshore companies through Mossack Fonseca. HSBC and its affiliates created more than 2,300.
Some of the key findings summarized via AFR:
* * *
In the largest media collaboration ever undertaken, journalists working in more than 25 languages dug into Mossack Fonseca’s inner workings and traced the secret dealings of the law firm’s customers around the world. They shared information and hunted down leads generated by the leaked files using corporate filings, property records, financial disclosures, court documents and interviews with money laundering experts and law-enforcement officials.
Reporters at Süddeutsche Zeitung obtained millions of records from a confidential source and shared them with ICIJ and other media partners. The news outlets involved in the collaboration did not pay for the documents.
Before Süddeutsche Zeitung obtained the leak, German tax authorities bought a smaller set of Mossack Fonseca documents from a whistleblower, a move that triggered the raids in Germany in early 2015. This smaller set of files has since been offered to tax authorities in the United Kingdom, the United States and other countries, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.
The larger set of files obtained by the news organizations offers more than a snapshot of one law firm’s business methods or a catalog of its more unsavory customers. It allows a far-reaching view into an industry that has worked to keep its practices hidden — and offers clues as to why efforts to reform the system have faltered.
* * *
The year-long investigation was coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), who worked with hundreds of journalists from the world's top media organisations including the ABC's Four Corners program.
What the documents reveal is the inner workings of a global industry of law firms and big banks who sell financial secrecy to those who can afford it.
The ICIJ findings include evidence that:
  • Offshore companies linked to the family of China's top leader, Xi
    Jinping, as well as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who has
    positioned himself as a reformer in a country shaken by corruption
    scandals
  • 29 billionaires featured in Forbes Magazine's list of the world's 500 richest people
  • Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson and his wife secretly owned an offshore firm that held millions of dollars in Icelandic bank bonds during the country's financial crisis
  • Associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin secretly shuffled as much as $2 billion through banks and shadow companies
  • New details of offshore dealings by the late father of British Prime
    Minister David Cameron, a leader in the push for tax-haven reform
  • Offshore companies controlled by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the King of Saudi Arabia and the children of the President of Azerbaijan
  • 33 people and companies blacklisted by the US Government because of evidence that they have done business with Mexican drug lords, terrorist organisations like Hezbollah or rogue nations like North Korea
  • Customers including Ponzi schemers, drug kingpins, tax evaders and at least one jailed sex offender
  • Movie star Jackie Chan, who had at least six companies managed through the law firm
The leaked data allows a never-before-seen view inside the offshore world — providing a day-to-day, decade-by-decade look at how dark money flows through the global financial system, breeding crime and stripping national treasuries of tax revenues.
Most of the services the offshore industry provides are legal if used by the law-abiding. But the documents show the extraordinary lengths individuals will go to in order to hide the true owners of companies.
Mossack Fonseca offers extra services to provide "front people" known as nominees to act as shareholders, directors or even the owners of your company. This can make it extremely difficult for authorities trying to investigate money laundering or follow the money through complex networks of offshore accounts.
Firm worked with more than 14,000 'middlemen' on clients' behalf
An ICIJ analysis of the leaked files found that more than 500 banks, their subsidiaries and branches had worked with Mossack Fonseca since the early 1970s to help clients manage offshore companies.
In all, the files indicate Mossack Fonseca worked with more than 14,000 banks, law firms, company incorporators and other middlemen to set up companies, foundations and trusts for customers.
The documents reveal that these offshore players often failed to follow legal requirements to ensure their clients were not involved in criminal enterprises, tax dodging or political corruption.
Mossack Fonseca says the middlemen are its true clients, not the eventual customers who use offshore companies. The firm says these middlemen provide additional layers of oversight for reviewing new customers. As for its own procedures, Mossack Fonseca says they often exceed "the existing rules and standards to which we and others are bound".
Mossack Fonseca offers backdating of documents
The leaked files also show the firm regularly offered to backdate documents to help its clients gain advantage in their financial affairs. It was so common that an email exchange from 2007 showed firm employees talking about establishing a price structure — clients would pay $8.75 for each month farther back in time that a corporate document would be backdated.
In a written response to questions from ICIJ and its media partners, the firm said it "does not foster or promote illegal acts".
"Your allegations that we provide shareholders with structures supposedly designed to hide the identity of the real owners are completely unsupported and false," the firm said.
The firm added that the backdating of documents "is a well-founded and accepted practice" that is "common in our industry and its aim is not to cover up or hide unlawful acts".
The firm said it could not answer questions about specific customers because of its obligation to maintain client confidentiality.
* * *
There is much more in the full set of releases covered in the ICIJ's website, however we wonder what if any action will be taken against any of these criminals who also happen to be some of the world's wealthiest people and most powerful politicians: after all, it is they who make the rules.
* * *
Finally, for those curious why not a single prominent US name features in the list above, the reason may be found within the snapshot of the non-profit ICIJ's "funding supporters":
Recent ICIJ funders include: Adessium Foundation, Open Society Foundations, The Sigrid Rausing Trust, the Fritt Ord Foundation, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, The Ford Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts and Waterloo Foundation.
And then, at the bottom of the Panama Papers disclosure site we again find Open Society which, as everyone knows, is another name for George Soros.

Finally, let's recall that as Bloomberg reported earlier this year, the world's biggest and "favorite" new tax haven as of this moment, is... the United States itself.
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The World’s Favorite New Tax Haven Is the United States

Last September, at a law firm overlooking San Francisco Bay, Andrew Penney, a managing director at Rothschild & Co., gave a talk on how the world’s wealthy elite can avoid paying taxes.
His message was clear: You can help your clients move their fortunes to the United States, free of taxes and hidden from their governments.
Some are calling it the new Switzerland.
Featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, Feb. 1, 2016. Subscribe now.After years of lambasting other countries for helping rich Americans hide their money offshore, the U.S. is emerging as a leading tax and secrecy haven for rich foreigners. By resisting new global disclosure standards, the U.S. is creating a hot new market, becoming the go-to place to stash foreign wealth. Everyone from London lawyers to Swiss trust companies is getting in on the act, helping the world’s rich move accounts from places like the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands to Nevada, Wyoming, and South Dakota.








“How ironic—no, how perverse—that the USA, which has been so sanctimonious in its condemnation of Swiss banks, has become the banking secrecy jurisdiction du jour,” wrotePeter A. Cotorceanu, a lawyer at Anaford AG, a Zurich law firm, in a recent legal journal. “That ‘giant sucking sound’ you hear? It is the sound of money rushing to the USA.”
Rothschild, the centuries-old European financial institution, has opened a trust company in Reno, Nev., a few blocks from the Harrah’s and Eldorado casinos. It is now moving the fortunes of wealthy foreign clients out of offshore havens such as Bermuda, subject to the new international disclosure requirements, and into Rothschild-run trusts in Nevada, which are exempt.
The firm says its Reno operation caters to international families attracted to the stability of the U.S. and that customers must prove they comply with their home countries’ tax laws. Its trusts, moreover, have “not been set up with a view to exploiting that the U.S. has not signed up” for international reporting standards, said Rothschild spokeswoman Emma Rees.
Others are also jumping in: Geneva-based Cisa Trust Co. SA, which advises wealthy Latin Americans, is applying to open in Pierre, S.D., to “serve the needs of our foreign clients,” said John J. Ryan Jr., Cisa’s president.
Trident Trust Co., one of the world’s biggest providers of offshore trusts, moved dozens of accounts out of Switzerland, Grand Cayman, and other locales and into Sioux Falls, S.D., in December, ahead of a Jan. 1 disclosure deadline.
“Cayman was slammed in December, closing things that people were withdrawing,” said Alice Rokahr, the president of Trident in South Dakota, one of several states promoting low taxes and confidentiality in their trust laws. “I was surprised at how many were coming across that were formerly Swiss bank accounts, but they want out of Switzerland.”
Rokahr and other advisers said there is a legitimate need for secrecy. Confidential accounts that hide wealth, whether in the U.S., Switzerland, or elsewhere, protect against kidnappings or extortion in their owners’ home countries. The rich also often feel safer parking their money in the U.S. rather than some other location perceived as less-sure.
“I do not hear anybody saying, ‘I want to avoid taxes,’ ” Rokahr said. “These are people who are legitimately concerned with their own health and welfare.”
No one expects offshore havens to disappear anytime soon. Swiss banks still hold about $1.9 trillion in assets not reported by account holders in their home countries, according to Gabriel Zucman, an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Nor is it clear how many of the almost 100 countries and other jurisdictions that have signed on will actually enforce the new disclosure standards, issued by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a government-funded international policy group.
There’s nothing illegal about banks luring foreigners to put money in the U.S. with promises of confidentiality as long as they are not intentionally helping to evade taxes abroad. Still, the U.S. is one of the few places left where advisers are actively promoting accounts that will remain secret from overseas authorities.
Illustration: Steph Davidson
Rothschild’s Reno office is at the forefront of that effort. “The Biggest Little City in the World” is not an obvious choice for a global center of capital flight. If you were going to shoot a film set in Las Vegas circa 1971, you would film it in Reno. Its casino hotels tower above the bail bondsmen across the street, available 24/7, as well as pawnshops stocked with an array of firearms. The pink neon lights at casinos like Harrah’s and the Eldorado still burn bright. But these days, their floors are often empty, with travelers preferring to gamble in Las Vegas, an hour’s flight away.
The offices of Rothschild Trust North America LLC aren’t easy to find. They’re on the 12th floor of Porsche’s former North American headquarters building, a few blocks from the casinos. (The U.S. attorney’s office is on the sixth floor.) Yet the lobby directory does not list Rothschild. Instead, visitors must go to the 10th floor, the offices of McDonald Carano Wilson LLP, a politically connected law firm. Several former high-ranking Nevada state officials work there, as well as the owner of some of Reno’s biggest casinos and numerous registered lobbyists. One of the firm’s tax lobbyists is Robert Armstrong, viewed as the state’s top trusts and estates attorney, and a manager of Rothschild Trust North America.
The trust company was set up in 2013 to cater to international families, particularly those with a mix of assets and relatives in the U.S. and abroad, according to Rothschild. It caters to customers attracted to the “stable, regulated environment” of the U.S., said Rees, the Rothschild spokeswoman.
“We do not offer legal structures to clients unless we are absolutely certain that their tax affairs are in order; both clients themselves and independent tax lawyers must actively confirm to us that this is the case,” Rees said.
The managing director of the Nevada trust company is Scott Cripps, an amiable California tax attorney who used to run the trust services for Bank of the West, now part of French financial-services giant BNP Paribas SA. Cripps explained that moving money out of traditional offshore secrecy jurisdictions and into Nevada is a brisk new line of business for Rothschild.
“There’s a lot of people that are going to do it,” said Cripps. “This added layer of privacy is kicking them over the hurdle” to move their assets into the U.S. For wealthy overseas clients, “privacy is huge, especially in countries where there is corruption.”
One wealthy Turkish family is using Rothschild’s trust company to move assets from the Bahamas into the U.S., he said. Another Rothschild client, a family from Asia, is moving assets from Bermuda into Nevada. He said customers are often international families with offspring in the U.S.
For decades, Switzerland has been the global capital of secret bank accounts. That may be changing. In 2007, UBS Group AG banker Bradley Birkenfeld blew the whistle on his firm helping U.S. clients evade taxes with undeclared accounts offshore. Swiss banks eventually paid a price. More than 80 Swiss banks, including UBS and Credit Suisse Group AG, have agreed to pay about $5 billion to the U.S. in penalties and fines.
Those firms also include Rothschild Bank AG, which last June entered into a nonprosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. The bank admitted helping U.S. clients hide income offshore from the Internal Revenue Service and agreed to pay an $11.5 million penalty and shut down nearly 300 accounts belonging to U.S. taxpayers, totaling $794 million in assets.
The U.S. was determined to put an end to such practices. That led to a 2010 law, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or Fatca, that requires financial firms to disclose foreign accounts held by U.S. citizens and report them to the IRS or face steep penalties.
Inspired by Fatca, the OECD drew up even stiffer standards to help other countries ferret out tax dodgers. Since 2014, 97 jurisdictions have agreed to impose new disclosure requirements for bank accounts, trusts, and some other investments held by international customers. Of the nations the OECD asked to sign on, only a handful have declined: Bahrain, Nauru, Vanuatu—and the United States.
“I have a lot of respect for the Obama administration because without their first moves we would not have gotten these reporting standards,” said Sven Giegold, a member of the European Parliament from Germany’s Green Party. “On the other hand, now it’s time for the U.S. to deliver what Europeans are willing to deliver to the U.S.”
The Treasury Department makes no apologies for not agreeing to the OECD standards.
“The U.S. has led the charge in combating international tax evasion using offshore financial accounts,” said Treasury spokesman Ryan Daniels. He said the OECD initiative “builds directly” on the Fatca law.
For financial advisers, the current state of play is simply a good business opportunity. In a draft of his San Francisco presentation, Rothschild’s Penney wrote that the U.S. “is effectively the biggest tax haven in the world.” The U.S., he added in language later excised from his prepared remarks, lacks “the resources to enforce foreign tax laws and has little appetite to do so.”
Firms aren’t wasting time to make the most of the current environment. Bolton Global Capital, a Boston-area financial advisory firm, recently circulated this hypothetical example in an e-mail: A wealthy Mexican opens a U.S. bank account using a company in the British Virgin Islands. As a result, only the company’s name would be sent to the BVI government, while the identity of the person owning the account would not be shared with Mexican authorities.
The U.S. failure to sign onto the OECD information-sharing standard is “proving to be a strong driver of growth for our business,” wrote Bolton’s chief executive officer, Ray Grenier, in a marketing e-mail to bankers. His firm is seeing a spike in accounts moved out of European banks—“Switzerland in particular”—and into the U.S. The new OECD standard “was the beginning of the exodus,” he said in an interview.
The U.S. Treasury is proposing standards similar to the OECD’s for foreign-held accounts in the U.S. But similar proposals in the past have stalled in the face of opposition from the Republican-controlled Congress and the banking industry.
At issue is not just non-U.S. citizens skirting their home countries’ taxes. Treasury also is concerned that massive inflows of capital into secret accounts could become a new channel for criminal money laundering. At least $1.6 trillion in illicit funds are laundered through the global financial system each year, according to a United Nations estimate.
Offering secrecy to clients is not against the law, but U.S. firms are not permitted to knowingly help overseas customers evade foreign taxes, said Scott Michel, a criminal tax defense attorney at Washington, D.C.-based Caplin & Drysdale who has represented Swiss banks and foreign account holders.
“To the extent non-U.S. persons are encouraged to come to the U.S. for what may be our own ‘tax haven’ characteristics, the U.S. government would likely take a dim view of any marketing suggesting that evading home country tax is a legal objective,” he said.
Rothschild says it takes “significant care” to ensure account holders’ assets are fully declared. The bank “adheres to the legal, regulatory, and tax rules wherever we operate,” said Rees, the Rothschild spokeswoman.
Penney, who oversees the Reno business, is a longtime Rothschild lawyer who worked his way up from the firm’s trust operations in the tiny British isle of Guernsey. Penney, 56, is now a managing director based in London for Rothschild Wealth Management & Trust, which handles about $23 billion for 7,000 clients from offices including Milan, Zurich, and Hong Kong. A few years ago he was voted “Trustee of the Year” by an elite group of U.K. wealth advisers.
In his September San Francisco talk, called “Using U.S. Trusts in International Planning: 10 Amazing Feats to Impress Clients and Colleagues,” Penney laid out legal ways to avoid both U.S. taxes and disclosures to clients’ home countries.
In a section originally titled “U.S. Trusts to Preserve Privacy,” he included the hypothetical example of an Internet investor named “Wang, a Hong Kong resident,” originally from the People’s Republic of China, concerned that information about his wealth could be shared with Chinese authorities.
Putting his assets into a Nevada LLC, in turn owned by a Nevada trust, would generate no U.S. tax returns, Penney wrote. Any forms the IRS would receive would result in “no meaningful information to exchange under” agreements between Hong Kong and the U.S., according to Penney’s PowerPoint presentation reviewed by Bloomberg.
Penney offered a disclaimer: At least one government, the U.K., intends to make it a criminal offense for any U.K. firm to facilitate tax evasion.
Rothschild said the PowerPoint was subsequently revised before Penney delivered his presentation. The firm provided what it said was the final version of the talk, which this time excluded several potentially controversial passages. Among them: the U.S. being the “biggest tax haven in the world,” the U.S.’s low appetite for enforcing other countries’ tax laws, and two references to “privacy” offered by the U.S.
“The presentation was drafted in response to a request by the organizers to be controversial and create a lively debate among the experienced, professional audience,” Rees said. “On reviewing the initial draft, these lines were not deemed to represent either Rothschild’s or Mr. Penney’s view. They were therefore removed.”
—With assistance from David Voreacos and Patrick Gower
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Saturday, April 2, 2016

Wikileaks Reveals IMF Plan To "Cause A Credit Event In Greece And Destabilize Europe"

One of the recurring concerns involving Europe's seemingly perpetual economic, financial and social crises, is that these have been largely predetermined, "scripted" and deliberate acts.
This is something the former head of the Bank of England admitted one month ago when Mervyn King said that Europe's economic depression "is the result of "deliberate" policy choices made by EU elites.  It is also what AIG Banque strategist Bernard Connolly said back in 2008 when laying out "What Europe Wants"
To use global issues as excuses to extend its power:
  • environmental issues: increase control over member countries; advance idea of global governance
  • terrorism: use excuse for greater control over police and judicial issues; increase extent of surveillance
  • global financial crisis: kill two birds (free market; Anglo-Saxon economies) with one stone (Europe-wide regulator; attempts at global financial governance)
  • EMU: create a crisis to force introduction of “European economic government”
This morning we got another confirmation of how supernational organizations "plan" European crises in advance to further their goals, when Wikileaks published the transcript of a teleconference that took place on March 19, 2016 between the top two IMF officials in charge of managing the Greek debt crisis - Poul Thomsen, the head of the IMF's European Department, and Delia Velkouleskou, the IMF Mission Chief for Greece.
In the transcript, the IMF staffers are caught on tape planning to tell Germany the organization would abandon the troika if the IMF and the commission fail to reach an agreement on Greek debt relief. 
More to the point, the IMF officials say that a threat of an imminent financial catastrophe as the Guardian puts it, is needed to force other players into accepting its measures such as cutting Greek pensions and working conditions, or as Bloomberg puts it, "considering a plan to cause a credit event in Greece and destabilize Europe."
According to the leaked conversation, the IMF - which has been pushing for a debt haircut for Greece ever since last August's 3rd Greek bailout - believes a credit event as only thing that could trigger a Greek deal; the "event" is hinted as taking place some time around the June 23 Brexit referendum.
As noted by Bloomberg, the leak shows officials linking Greek issue with U.K. referendum risking general political destabilization in Europe.
The leaked transcript reveals how the IMF plans to use Greece as a pawn in its ongoing negotiation with Germany's chancelleor in order to achieve the desired Greek debt reduction which Germany has been pointedly against: in the leak we learn about the intention of IMF to threaten German Chancellor Angela Merkel to force her to accept the IMF's demands at a critical point.
From the transcript:
THOMSEN: Well, I don't know. But this is... I think about it differently. What is going to bring it all to a decision point? In the past there has been only one time when thedecision has been made and then that was when they were about to run out of money seriously and to default. Right?

VELKOULESKOU: Right!

THOMSEN: And possibly this is what is going to happen again. In that case, it drags on until July, and clearly the Europeans are not going to have any discussions for a month before the Brexits and so, at some stage they will want to take a break and then they want to  start again after the European referendum.

VELKOULESKOU: That's right.

THOMSEN: That is one possibility. Another possibility is one that I thought would have happened already and I am surprised that it has not happened, is that, because of the refugee situation, they take a decision... that they want to come to a conclusion. Ok? And the Germans raise the issue of the management... and basically we at that time say "Look, you Mrs. Merkel you face a question, you have to think about what is more costly: to go ahead without the IMF, would the Bundestag say 'The IMF is not on board'? or to pick the debt relief that we think that Greece needs in order to keep us on board?" Right? That is really the issue.

* * *

VELKOULESKOU: I agree that we need an event, but I don't know what that will be. But I think Dijsselbloem is trying not to generate an event, but to jump start this discussion somehow on debt, that essentially is about us being on board or not at the end of the day.

THOMSEN: Yeah, but you know, that discussion of the measures and the discussion of the debt can go on forever, until some high up.. until they hit the July payment or until the leaders decide that we need to come to an agreement. But there is nothing in there that otherwise is going to force a compromise. Right? It is going to go on forever.
The IMF is also shown as continuing to pull the strings of the Greek government which has so far refused to compromise on any major reforms, as has been the case since the first bailout.
As the Guardian notes, Greek finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos has accused the IMF of imposing draconian measures, including on pension reform. The transcript quotes Velculescu as saying: “What is interesting though is that [Greece] did give in … they did give a little bit on both the income tax reform and on the … both on the tax credit and the supplementary pensions”. Thomsen’s view was that the Greeks “are not even getting close [to coming] around to accept our views”. Velculescu argued that “if [the Greek government] get pressured enough, they would … But they don’t have any incentive and they know that the commission is willing to compromise, so that is the problem.”
Below is Paul mason's summary of what is shaping up as the next political scandal.
The International Monetary Fund has been caught, red handed, plotting to stage a “credit event” that forces Greece to the edge of bankruptcy, using the pretext of the Brexit referendum.

No, this is not the plot of the next Bond movie. It is the transcript of a teleconference between the IMF’s chief negotiator, Poul Thomsen and Delia Velculescu, head of the IMF mission to Greece. 

Released by Wikileaks, the discussion took place in Athens just before the IMF walked out of talks aimed at giving Greece the green light for the next stage of its bailout.

The situation is: the IMF does not believe the numbers being used by both Greece and Europe to do the next stage of the deal. It does not want to take part in the bailout. Meanwhile the EU cannot do the deal without the IMF because the German parliament won’t allow it.

* * *

Let me decode. An “event” is a financial crisis bringing Greece close to default. Just like last year, when the banks closed, millions of people faced economic and psychological catastrophe.

Only this time, the IMF wants to inflict that catastrophe on a nation holding tens of thousands of refugees and tasked with one of the most complex and legally dubious international border policing missions in modern history.

The Greek government is furious: “we are not going to let the IMF play with fire,” a source told me.

But the issue is out of Greek hands. In the end, as Thomsen hints in the transcript, only the European Commission and above all the German government can decide to honour the terms of the deal it did to bail Greece out last July.

The transcript, though received with fury and incredulity in Greece, will drop like a bombshell into the Commission and the ECB. It is they who are holding E300bn+ of Greek debt. It is the whole of Europe, in other words, that the IMF is conspiring to hit with the shock doctrine.
The Greeks are understandably angry and confused; As Bloomberg reported earlier, "Greece wants to know whether WikiLeaks report regarding IMF anticipating a Greek default at about the time of the U.K. June 23 referendum on its EU membership is the fund’s official position" government spokeswoman Olga Gerovasili says Saturday in e-mailed statement.  For its part, an IMF spokesman in e-mail Saturday said it doesn’t "comment on leaks or supposed reports of internal discussions."
Two side observations: i) has a "Snowden" leaker now emerged at the IMF; if so we can expect many more such bombshell accounts in the coming weeks; ii) it may be another turbulent summer in Europe.
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Friday, April 1, 2016

Doug Casey Warns "We're Exiting The Eye Of The Giant Financial Hurricane"

Right now, we are exiting the eye of the giant financial hurricane that we entered in 2007, and we’re going into its trailing edge.
It’s going to be much more severe, different, and longer lasting than what we saw in 2008 and 2009.
In a desperate attempt to stave off a day of financial reckoning during the 2008 financial crisis, global central banks began printing trillions of new currency units. The printing continues to this day.
It’s not just the Federal Reserve that’s printing. The Fed is just the leader of the pack. The U.S., Japan, Europe, China… all major central banks… are participating in the biggest increase in global monetary units in history.
These reckless policies have produced not just billions but trillions in malinvestment that will inevitably be liquidated. This will lead us to an economic disaster that will, in many ways, dwarf the Great Depression of 1929–1946. Paper currencies will fall apart, as they have many times throughout history.
This isn’t some vague prediction about the future. It’s happening right now. The Canadian dollar has lost 25% of its value since 2013. The Australian dollar has lost 30% of its value during the same time. The Japanese yen and the euro have crashed in value. And the U.S. dollar is currently just the healthiest horse on its way to the glue factory.
These are gigantic losses for major currencies. After all, we’re not talking about small volatile stocks. We’re talking about the value of money in peoples’ bank accounts. These moves show we’re in the early stages of a currency crisis.
At this point, it’s a lock cinch that the world’s premier paper currency – the U.S. dollar – will lose nearly all its value. I just don’t see any realistic way around it. Since the financial crisis began eight years ago, the U.S. government has created 3.5 trillion new dollars. In that same eight years, the U.S. government has borrowed $9 trillion – as much as it has borrowed in the previous 232-year history of the United States.
Though politicians would like us to believe otherwise, actions have consequences. You simply cannot quadruple the money supply and double the national debt in eight years without catastrophic results.
As this unfolds, your biggest risk isn’t the crashing stock market or the crashing bond market. Your biggest problem, and also the one most people just don’t see, is political. Your government is by far the most serious threat to your money and wellbeing.
Why do I say that? Like any organism, the prime directive of a government is to survive. When faced with a threat to its survival, a broke government will do anything it can to stay alive. President Roosevelt confiscated Americans’ gold in 1933. And in just the last few years, we’ve seen broke governments raid private pensions and confiscate cash directly from people’s bank accounts.
As we head into a currency crisis for the record books, I think currency controls are a lock. Governments have used currency controls since the days of the Roman Empire. A country debases its currency, raises taxes beyond a certain level, and makes regulations too onerous. Naturally, productive people react by getting their capital, and then themselves, out of Dodge.
But the government can’t have that, so it puts on currency controls that prevent people from moving assets outside the country. In effect, currency controls force people to stay with a sinking ship.
I’ll be genuinely surprised if some form of currency controls isn’t instituted within two years. If you don’t get significant assets out of your home country now, you may soon find it costly and very difficult to do so.
I’ve written many times about the importance of internationalizing your assets, your mode of living, and your way of thinking. I suspect most readers have treated those articles as a travelogue to some distant and exotic land: interesting fodder for cocktail party chatter but basically academic and of little immediate personal relevance.
I hope this book will shake you out of that mindset. There’s a very real risk that if you don’t act soon, you may find yourself penned like a sheep and your options extremely limited.
This book will teach you how to move some of your money and investments outside the reach of your home government. You’ll learn how to open a foreign bank account… the best ways to store gold for maximum safety… what you need to know before buying foreign real estate, and much, much more.
We’ve done most of the legwork for you. But it’s up to you to act.
The next few years are going to be quite catastrophic. Hundreds of millions of people will slip into poverty when the currency crisis destroys their savings.
The good news? If you take the steps outlined in this book, you won’t be one of them.
If you’re interested in obtaining this book, you can obtain a hard copy in the mail. Click here for more details or to download the PDF now.
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