How to move offshore your cash in six steps

No one know for sure how much of the planet's private wealth is parked in tax havens. One estimate is that there's $32 trillion deposited offshore; a more conservative calculation puts it a minimum of $8 trillion.
It is easy to understand why 2.5 million files covering 120,000 offshore entities was 'accidentally' leaked to the media.
Governments realize that they are running out of options fast and putting pressure on off-shore accounts is the second front of a coordinated effort to start converting private wealth to a public one.

ICIJ issued the following simple six-step process guide to off-shore stashing; from 'Choosing a haven' to creating a 'secret identity' and from opening the 'right' bank account to how to 'move' the money; this picturesque guide may be indispensable to many Europeans now that the EU is adamant on who will pay the next banking crisis.

For a full interactive tour visit:  http://www.icij.org/offshore/interactive-stash-your-cash 

After Cyprus levy; are Italy and Spain next?

Cyprus crisis is reaching his climax this weekend but regardless of how it will develop served well in distracting the media and the EU population from the bigger fishes frying in the EU pan, Italy and Spain.
So despite dimmed lights on the Italian political disaster and the Spanish banking Armageddon it is worth highlighting the following news:

Via El Pais (Via Google Translate),
The Minister of Finance and Public Administration, Cristobal Montoro, has advanced on Tuesday that the government will impose a type "moderate" to bank deposits to compensate communities that saw their tax autonomy canceled after the Executive created a state tax 0% rate.  This tax on bank deposits, which has nothing to do with Cyprus, does not affect savers but requires credit institutions to pay for that capture deposits. 

"The autonomous communities receive timely and therefore financially compensation shall implement a moderate rate in the state tax on bank deposits," said the minister, adding that this kind "will not be much higher than 0%" . 

The Minister of Finance has clarified that such "moderate" will have no tax collection effort, "but that these regions serve to offset the revenue loss to see."  So, he assured that the amount will correspond to the amount "exact has been undermined by the cancellation of regional taxes". 

Subsequently the Spanish Minister of Finance & Public Administration announced a tax or bank levy (probably 0.2%) to be imposed on bank deposits, without details on which deposits will be affected or timing.

and on Italy:

In an article on Handelsblatt the chief economist of Commerzbank says: Italy should bring a unique wealth tax.

It is a myth to talk of crisis-strapped states. Even the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) and the chief economist of Commerzbank, Joerg Kraemer says the numbers suggest a different view.

Kramer relies on surveys of the European Central Bank. Net financial assets of the Italians are 173 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). This is significantly more than the net financial assets of the Germans, which corresponds to 124 percent of GDP, said Kramer for Handelsblatt Online.

"So it would make sense, in Italy for a one-time property tax levy," suggested the Bank economist. "A tax rate of 15 percent on financial assets would probably be enough to push the Italian government debt to below the critical level of 100 percent of gross domestic product."

Tax collectors steal 100 million euro from the Italian Government

Employees protesting not being paid since 5 months

Another day another colossal fraud in Italy!
Today Mr. Saggese, the boss of Tributi Italia, a tax collection agency has been arrested for pocketing 100 million euro from taxes collected on behalf of over 400 Italian cities.
Mr. Saggese had been arrested twice in 2001 and 2009 nonetheless he become the director of Tributi Italia which was until recently the biggest collection agency in Italy with a revenue of 280 millions in 2008 and thousand of employees who have lost their job.
The agency is currently filing for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, while the government has been considering a bailout of the firm.
His former administrator Mr. Cali' had been arrested in 2007 for a 93 million euro fraud against Banca di Roma while many of the auditors were not even qualified.
It did help of course to enrol government auditors and pay lavishly some inspectors to join the company, furthermore city administrators and councillors were granted luxury holidays and gifts to cooperate.
Tributi Italia was paid a commission of 30% of the amount collected and in some cases the commission went up to 75%.
According to investigators the amounts stolen were used in part to pay debts contracted with banks and more than 20 million euro were pocketed by Mr. Saggese.
Of course having control of so much money meant a lot of leverage power for Tributi Italia who was also able to dictate to municipalities to hire friends and relatives.
The 400 cities which took advantage of Tributi Italia services are either broke or in deep trouble and the final price is being paid by the citizens who are losing services and jobs.
The money has vanished and so far has not been traced yet.
Municipalities, regulation authorities, Ministry of Finance, government and regions were either blind, pretending to be blind or useless in controlling the largest tax collection agency in Italy.
This is again not an isolate case, many more scandals like this will rock Italy soon, let us not forget that Tributi Italia started to fail when austerity started to bite and reduced tax figures.
Corruption is surfacing because the economic crisis is stalling its engine.
Be prepared to enjoy soon more colourful tales from Douche Land!

Top Tax Evaders

British accountant Richard Murphy estimates global tax evasion at 5% of the global economy. He found the following ten countries to have the largest absolute levels of evasion.