Ramanisblog

Tag: Pound sterling

  • US,Europe Tax Evasion Corruption Money Laundering

    Many Indians ,especially the younger generation including and especially my son, is never tired of telling me how bad India is and how good, orderly and Citizens are in the US and Europe.

    I have agreed to the extent that India is corrupt and needs a Clean up and at the same time The West is not a Puritan either.

    If the scams in India are in crores of Indian Rupees it is in Millions of US Dollars and Pound Sterling abroad.

    This post is an eye opener for those who praise the citizens abroad for their Dutiful citizenship.

    You dot evaluate a culture by mere standing in Queues and cleanliness on the road.

    I have my brother’s Grand son living in Sweden for quite a few years now.

    He used to tell me how responsible and helpful the Swedes are in helping out citizens in need of Government assistance, be it a form filling even.

    Yes .

    I agreed and informed him that he would find, in the course of time, how corrupt and morally decaying a Society Sweden is in terms of personal Life style and how it ruins family life over there.

    Now,though he still appreciates the good things over there, he has realized that a Culture needs to be evaluated on the over all aspects of Life.

    Having said this,let me add that if only we develop the Industriousness, attention to Detail, Public Spirit and  responsible citizenship…!

    The following information is not to justify our corrupt practices but to point out that the West is decaying excepting in a material comforts  which is contributing to it s decay.

    Corruption
    Corruption

    “Tax evasion poses an acute challenge to developing and developed countries. From 2000 to 2010, illicit financial flows deprived developing countries of US$5.86 trillion. Tax evasion is not a victimless crime – for people in the developing world, the consequences of tax evasion can be a matter of life and death. If developing countries could recover this untaxed wealth, it could mobilise enormous resources for improving their public services and their citizens’ lives.

    The new Eurodad report “Secret structures, hidden crimes” finds that the hidden ownership of companies and other legal structures facilitates tax evasion, corruption and related crimes. It outlines the different ways that individuals abuse companies, trusts and other vehicles in order to evade taxes.

    It argues that better information about who owns and controls these companies and other set-ups is key to bringing trillions of dollars of offshore wealth back into the tax net and helping to prevent capital flight in the future.

    It argues that all forms of tax evasion can be more effectively fought where they are recognized as a “predicate offence” of money laundering as this makes it a criminal offence to help someone to hide and shift tax-evaded money. For some countries tax evasion is already a predicate offence, but only in a limited set of circumstances”…

    According Oxfam, tax evasion by
    individuals costs developing countries
    US$124 billion. Christian Aid has found that,
    even using a very conservative estimate,
    developing countries lose the equivalent of
    US$160 billion per year to tax evasion by
    multinational companies using false invoicing
    and blatant transfer mispricing. If this sum
    were channelled to developing countries’
    budgets, with allocation unchanged it
    would be enough to save the lives of 1,000
    children every day. Over the past decades,
    tax evasion by individuals has led to the
    accumulation of US$21–32 trillion of untaxed
    offshore wealth, according to recent research
    by the Tax Justice Network (TJN). About
    25-30% of this (US$5.3–9.6 trillion) is from
    developing countries.
    Money laundering is the process of
    concealing the source of money obtained
    by illegal means. It can be easier to hide
    tax-evaded income because, unlike other
    criminal proceeds, the money generally
    comes from a legitimate source initially. This
    money only becomes illegal later on, when
    the full amount of tax due is not paid. This
    generally involves the taxpayer concealing
    or under-declaring their income. Tax evasion
    and money laundering therefore go hand”..

    Hidden ownership facilitates
    corruption and crime
    Beneficial ownership transparency would
    also help address illicit capital flight, which
    cost developing countries an estimated
    US$859 billion in 2010. These flows comprise
    proceeds of corruption, crime and tax
    evasion. The United Nations Office on Drugs
    and Crime (UNODOC) estimated the total
    value of money laundering to be around
    US$2.1 trillion in 2009 – equivalent to 3.6% of
    global GDP.
    The UN and World Bank STAR (Stolen Asset
    Recovery Initiative) published some 150
    corruption cases involving hidden ownership
    of a corporate vehicle either to launder
    money or as part of the initial scam. Global
    Witness has produced a number of case
    studies on corrupt officials laundering their
    money abroad, while researchers have found
    that sub-Saharan Africa has lost US$700
    billion to illicit capital flight since 1970,
    dwarfing its outstanding debt of US$175
    billion. Corruption could also be curbed with
    strong AML rules.
    Hidden ownership masks
    accountability for human rights and
    environmental violations
    When a human rights violation takes place,
    those affected can find it difficult to take
    a case to court if the parent company or
    management further up the ownership chain
    cannot be identified. The same goes for
    environmental violations.”…

    Use of complex structures to
    circumvent financial regulation
    Before the financial crisis, many banks
    used complex and even illegal structures to
    hide losses that would later be bailed out
    by taxpayers. UK bank Northern Rock did
    this using an investment vehicle based in

    Guernsey registered in the name of a real
    charity, without the charity’s knowledge. If
    ownership information was made publically
    available online people and organisations
    would be able to check if their identity was
    being abused in this way.
    Tax avoidance
    Greater organisational transparency and
    beneficial ownership disclosure would
    make it easier to understand aggressive tax
    planning and avoidance schemes that exploit
    legal loopholes when transactions take
    place between jurisdictions with different
    rules. Many of these schemes exist in a
    contested grey area between what is legal
    and illegal. One telling example of the impact
    of tax avoidance in developing countries
    is ActionAid’s case study of UK brewing
    giant SABMiller.”

    http://eurodad.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Secret-structures-hidden-crimes_summary-online.pdf

    http://www.financialtaskforce.org/2013/01/14/secret-structures-hidden-crimes-urgent-steps-to-address-hidden-ownership-money-laundering-and-tax-evasion-from-developing-countries/

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  • The U.S. Dollar Needs To Be Replaced As The World Reserve Currency.

    US economy has been on the slide for quite sometime now.

    High inflation,printing of paper currency indiscriminately to fight inflation,living on plastic money, unnecessary military expenses,unmanageable imports and living beyond means through credit cards are some of the reasons for this stste of affairs.

    Read my blogs under economy and US for more.

    The IMF is trying to move the world away from the U.S. dollar and towards a global currency once again.  In a new report entitled “Enhancing International Monetary Stability—A Role for the SDR“, the IMF details the “problems” with having the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency of the globe and the IMF discusses the potential for a larger role for SDRs (Special Drawing Rights).  But the IMF certainly does not view SDRs as the “final solution” to global currency problems.  Rather, the IMF considers SDRs to be a transitional phase between what we have now and a new world currency.  In this newly published report, the IMF makes this point very clearly: “In the even longer run, if there were political willingness to do so, these securities could constitute an embryo of global currency.”  Yes, you read that correctly.  The SDR is supposed to be “an embryo” from which a global currency will one day develop.  So what about the U.S. dollar and other national currencies?  Well, they would just end up fading away.

    CNN clearly understands what the IMF is trying to accomplish with this new report.  The following is how CNN’s recent story about the new IMF report begins….

    “The International Monetary Fund issued a report Thursday on a possible replacement for the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.”

    That is exactly what the IMF intends to do.

    They intend to have SDRs replace the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency.

    So exactly what are SDRs?

    Well, “SDR” is short for Special Drawing Rights.  It is a synthetic currency unit that is made up of a basket of currencies.  SDRs have actually been around for many years, but now they are being heavily promoted as an alternative to the dollar.

    The following is how Wikipedia defines SDRs….

    Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) are international foreign exchange reserve assets. Allocated to nations by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a SDR represents a claim to foreign currencies for which it may be exchanged in times of need.

    The SDR is a hybrid.  SDRs are part U.S. dollar, part euro, part yen and part British pound.  In particular, the following is how each SDR currently breaks down….

    U.S. Dollar: 41.9%

    Euro: 37.4%

    Yen: 9.4%

    British Pound: 11.3%

    Now there are calls for other national currencies to be included in the basket.

    Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has publicly called for the national currencies of Brazil, Russia, India and China to be included in the SDR.

    In January, the Obama administration said that it fully supports the eventual inclusion of the yuan in the SDR.

    So yes, it looks like we are definitely moving in the direction of the SDR becoming a true global currency.

    But is this a good idea?

    Globalist organizations such as the IMF say that having a true global currency would facilitate world trade, it would make currency wars less likely, it would stabilize the global economy and it would make the rest of the globe less reliant on what is going on in the United States.

    In fact, there is a lot of discussion in international financial circles that oilshould be traded in SDRs rather than in U.S. dollars.

    In a recent interview, IMF Deputy Managing Director Naoyuki Shinohara even suggested that the IMF may actually consider issuing bonds that are denominated in SDRs.  Apparently the goal would be to promote the use of the new “currency”.

    But once again, it is important to remember that the IMF does not see SDRs lasting forever either.  Rather, the IMF considers the SDR to be an “embryo” from which a true global currency could emerge.

    An IMF paper entitled “Reserve Accumulation and International Monetary Stability” that was published last year even proposed that a future global currency be called the “Bancor” and that a future global central bank could be put in charge of issuing it….

    “A global currency, bancor, issued by a global central bank (see Supplement 1, section V) would be designed as a stable store of value that is not tied exclusively to the conditions of any particular economy. As trade and finance continue to grow rapidly and global integration increases, the importance of this broader perspective is expected to continue growing.”

    In fact, at one point the IMF report from last year specifically compares the proposed global central bank to the Federal Reserve….

    “The global central bank could serve as a lender of last resort, providing needed systemic liquidity in the event of adverse shocks and more automatically than at present. Such liquidity was provided in the most recent crisis mainly by the U.S. Federal Reserve, which however may not always provide such liquidity.”

    Yes, unfortunately this is what the IMF really has in mind for all of us.  A one-world economic system with a one-world currency and a one-world central bank.

    Is that what we really need?

    A “global Federal Reserve” that dominates the currency and the economy of the entire planet?

    At least with the U.S. Federal Reserve there is hope that someday the American people can convince Congress to shut it down.

    A “global Federal Reserve” would not answer to anyone.  Individual nations could attempt to pull out, but then they would potentially be isolated from the rest of the globe and potentially cut off from world trade.

    That may sound very far-fetched now, but that is the direction we are headed.

    And shifting away from the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency of the world would be disastrous for the U.S. economy.

    Right now the fact that the U.S. dollar is the primary reserve currency of the world is one of the only things holding it up.  If you took that support away the U.S. dollar could end up collapsing quite quickly.

    Let us hope that the American people wake up and start insisting that we want no part in a global currency.  If we ever allow a world currency to start replacing the U.S. dollar to a large extent, we will lose a great deal of our economic sovereignty.  Not that we haven’t lost most of it already, but at least if we are still using our own national currency there is a greater chance that we can reclaim it.

    What the IMF is proposing right now may seem very innocent, but the long-term consequences of going down the road they want to put us on could potentially be absolutely catastrophic.

    The American people need to send a very clear message to their representatives in Washington D.C…..

    #1 We do not want a one-world economy.

    #2 We do not want a one-world currency.

    #3 We do not want a one-world central bank.

    http://current.com/1s5gh4c