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A Buttery Pastry posted:The political implications of bringing to light massive disproportionate systemic tax evasion among the rich in an EU country seems pretty obvious. Much better to just have the Greeks remain a big undefined blob of cheats, rather than have people exactly like the ones celebrated in the rest of Europe stand out as leeches. This sounds pretty far-fetched.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:26
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YF-23 posted:They stay in control. I'm sure that the technocrats of the ECB, IMF and EC like nothing better than having to haggle with greek officials and the EU finance ministers are gleefully looking forward to every new review of the Greek bailout, because that's always fun for them. Friendly Humour posted:I could think of several, but they all operate on the assumption that the Troika wasn't in reality interested in reforming the Greek state as it was in squezing it. Which of course would be an impossibility, right? Heh. More taxes => More money to squeeze out of the Greek state. A Buttery Pastry posted:The political implications of bringing to light massive disproportionate systemic tax evasion among the rich in an EU country seems pretty obvious. Much better to just have the Greeks remain a big undefined blob of cheats, rather than have people exactly like the ones celebrated in the rest of Europe stand out as leeches. Varoufakis mentions 480k tax file numbers, so we are talking about roughly 5% of the Greek population. I'm sure that no one in Europe would mind the top 5% of Greeks paying their taxes.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:27
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A Buttery Pastry posted:The political implications of bringing to light massive disproportionate systemic tax evasion among the rich in an EU country seems pretty obvious. Much better to just have the Greeks remain a big undefined blob of cheats, rather than have people exactly like the ones celebrated in the rest of Europe stand out as leeches. Oh I would really be interested in the details of their operation, but sadly Mr. Varoufakis isn't available for comment. No doubt he's painting a rosy picture of the actual state of the project, and that perhaps they were only owrking on data sets that were already in compatible format, but that hardly matters. The point was that the working group was shut down and not a word of it has been heard ever since from anyone. Which is a rather curious thing, considering the argument that the Troika was really really there to help the Greeks reform their state. And of course, since the Troika isn't talking getting their stated reasons for shutting the project down is rather impossible. GaussianCopula posted:I'm sure that the technocrats of the ECB, IMF and EC like nothing better than having to haggle with greek officials and the EU finance ministers are gleefully looking forward to every new review of the Greek bailout, because that's always fun for them. They do, because it's a good cover for what really happened. As for squezing money from oligarchs, it turns out that rich people have quite a selection of levers to pull to affect politics. And plenty of rich people would and do mind paying taxes, as evidenced by certain papers that got leaked a while ago, so there's that. lollontee fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Jul 1, 2016 |
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Jul 1, 2016 20:28
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Friendly Humour posted:Oh I would really be interested in the details of their operation, but sadly Mr. Varoufakis isn't available for comment. No doubt he's painting a rosy picture of the actual state of the project, and that perhaps they were only owrking on data sets that were already in compatible format, but that hardly matters. The point was that the working group was shut down and not a word of it has been heard ever since from anyone. Which is a rather curious thing, considering the argument that the Troika was really really there to help the Greeks reform their state. Maybe they had a side project that involved accounts and tax file numbers. I don't know what kind of project that could have been. Again, I don't see why the Troika should have any incentive to block Greek tax collection.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:33
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GaussianCopula posted:Again, I don't see why the Troika should have any incentive to block Greek tax collection. Of course you don't.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:36
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GaussianCopula posted:I'm sure that the technocrats of the ECB, IMF and EC like nothing better than having to haggle with greek officials and the EU finance ministers are gleefully looking forward to every new review of the Greek bailout, because that's always fun for them. You misunderstand. These technocrats have a more or less clear idea of what to do with Greece. People like Varoufakis, and most of the Greek government up to when Tsipras gave up, interfered with that vision. So they have to stay in control.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:36
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I am sure Deutsche Bank, BNP, Goldman's etc. jumped at the opportunity to hand over three decades of data over to Varoufakis. And the meticulous Greek book keepers at the Greek banks of course continually digitalized and upgraded there mid 80's & 90's floppy disk and paper data, because that's really what tiny shithole banks like to do with their time and money. (Not a single bank is doing this of course) The IT geniuses in Greece managed to put all these different data formats together in a space of a few months, while at the same time Varoufakis left a cd-rom hand delivered to his finance ministery with the accounts of Greek tax evaders with foreign banks in his drawer because he lacked the resources to pursue it. And none of this leaked out in the press, not like the IT and Finance departements of 40+ banks would have to have been involved. This poo poo is too dumb for words.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:37
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Lagotto posted:I am sure Deutsche Bank, BNP, Goldman's etc. jumped at the opportunity to hand over three decades of data over to Varoufakis. And the meticulous Greek book keepers at the Greek banks of course continually digitalized and upgraded there mid 80's & 90's floppy disk and paper data, because that's really what tiny shithole banks like to do with their time and money. (Not a single bank is doing this of course) I'm glad you're feeling well enough to jump back into the debate!
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Jul 1, 2016 20:39
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Friendly Humour posted:I'm glad you're feeling well enough to jump back into the debate! No worries just waiting for the commercials to finish.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:40
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Also, none of those are Greek banks.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:41
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Friendly Humour posted:Also, none of those are Greek banks. That's kinda the point.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:47
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GaussianCopula posted:Again, I don't see why the Troika should have any incentive to block Greek tax collection. You seem to be under the impression that 90% of rich people got that way through integrity and hard work and would absolutely never lie to anyone or abuse their power, oh left-wing economic policy won't work because the rich would be slightly less obscenely wealthy, oh those thieving foreigners are stealing the hard work of I have unfortunate news for you.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:48
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Lagotto posted:That's kinda the point. Umm... What? Varoufakis said that he got the data from Greek banks, so why are you bringing up banks that aren't Greek? Also, it was in the press. I think it was even posted in the previous incarnation of the thread. This isn't a new thing, it was widely reported back when Varoufakis was the finance minister. I remember hearing about it on the Finnish radio after taking a shower. lollontee fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Jul 1, 2016 |
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Jul 1, 2016 20:49
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Yinlock posted:You seem to be under the impression that 90% of rich people got that way through integrity and hard work and would absolutely never lie to anyone or abuse their power, oh left-wing economic policy won't work because the rich would be slightly less obscenely wealthy, oh those thieving foreigners are stealing the hard work of Are you telling me that the Troika is in the pocket of the Greek upper class? Sorry but that's absurd.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:53
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GaussianCopula posted:Are you telling me that the Troika is in the pocket of the Greek upper class? Sorry but that's absurd. The international capitalist class is a very multicultural one. Hell, you don't even need to be German to be a member!
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Jul 1, 2016 20:55
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Friendly Humour posted:The international capitalist class is a very multicultural one. Hell, you don't even need to be German to be a member! I see and this capitalist class, which controls the Troika and ordered them to protect their Greek members?
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Jul 1, 2016 20:58
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I understand it's a complex question and I too wonder why on Earth would the representatives of the European finance capital be wary towards opening up 30 years of Bank data in an effort to tax the richest. I mean hell, if it worked the people might even ask to do it elsewhere!
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Jul 1, 2016 20:59
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Friendly Humour posted:The international capitalist class is a very multicultural one. Hell, you don't even need to be German to be a member! By its nature, capital is not internationalistic in the way labour strives to be in the Marxist framework. The internationalism (solidarity) of workers is a leverage that is in direct contrast to the competitiveness of capital, which is only moderated by the self-preserving function of the state. Or in less nebulous terms, capitalists do sure exist in all countries, that doesn't mean their interests are aligned, and that they aren't trying to dominate each other.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:59
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GaussianCopula posted:I see and this capitalist class, which controls the Troika and ordered them to protect their Greek members? It doesn't need to order the troika, because the people that are that high up in the hierarchy of their respective institutions are either part of the capitalist class, or so close to it that they parse its interests as their own.
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Jul 1, 2016 21:04
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Also capitalists do have one overall uniting factor: They really, really don't want to pay taxes.
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Jul 1, 2016 21:05
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Yinlock posted:Also capitalists do have one overall uniting factor: They really, really don't want to pay taxes. But they want other capitalists to pay taxes, because it stabilizes yields on government bonds, which is in turn crucial for the banking sector.
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Jul 1, 2016 21:08
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steinrokkan posted:But they want other capitalists to pay taxes, because it stabilizes yields on government bonds, which is in turn crucial for the banking sector. But then they might have to pay taxes as well, and that's a huge no-no. However, there's another way to get the money they would be forced to pay themselves: Poorer people can pay more instead. THE CIRCLE OF LIIIIIFE
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Jul 1, 2016 21:11
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steinrokkan posted:By its nature, capital is not internationalistic in the way labour strives to be in the Marxist framework. The internationalism (solidarity) of workers is a leverage that is in direct contrast to the competitiveness of capital, which is only moderated by the self-preserving function of the state. steinrokkan posted:But they want other capitalists to pay taxes, because it stabilizes yields on government bonds, which is in turn crucial for the banking sector.
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Jul 1, 2016 21:37
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GaussianCopula posted:Let's assume that Varoufakis would be able to create an automated tax collection service in just 8 month, of which he spent 2-3 leaning on the banks to give him access to the data in the first place. Why would the Troika want to protect the rich Greeks? What even remotely believable motive should they have to reduce the amount of taxes the Greek state collects? Because tax evaders are putting their money elsewhere, and this elsewhere quite often is Jean-Fraude Juncker's Luxembourg, the European capital of tax fraud and money laundering. (Well, the capital for the moment is still London but Luxembourg is a close second; largely thanks to Juncker's policies, and absolutely everyone knew it.) Juncker is still 100% behind protecting frauders and criminals, as evidenced by him pushing that directive on trade secrets which is purely aimed at shutting down whistleblowers to avoid further Luxleaks and Panama Papers. The idea that any top-level politician is willing to actually fight corruption is a pleasant and naive dream. These guys are made of corruption. They don't want Greece to fight tax evaders, they want Greece to make up for the money lost to tax fraud by squeezing it out of the poor.
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Jul 1, 2016 22:06
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Friendly Humour posted:Umm... What? Varoufakis said that he got the data from Greek banks, so why are you bringing up banks that aren't Greek? No he hasn't and it would be even more unbelievable if he is just talking about Greek banks. Seriously, what would be the point in evading tax and then putting all that (cash) liquidity neatly in a Greek bank account? That's not really how tax evasion works.
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Jul 1, 2016 22:42
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YF-23 posted:It doesn't need to order the troika, because the people that are that high up in the hierarchy of their respective institutions are either part of the capitalist class, or so close to it that they parse its interests as their own. I'm glad I don't live in your world.
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Jul 1, 2016 22:50
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Lagotto posted:No he hasn't and it would be even more unbelievable if he is just talking about Greek banks. Seriously, what would be the point in evading tax and then putting all that (cash) liquidity neatly in a Greek bank account? That's not really how tax evasion works. Because when you put cash in a bank, you create a trace. Even if you later move that money to another bank, that trace in the records remains unless someone wipes it. So it doesn't matter where money is presently, just where it was at some point in its life. And if you trust that bank secrets will not be revealed, then you probably don't think too hard about what banks you route your money through while it's going out of the country. As for getting data out of international banks, yeah I totally admit that's pretty impossible. But there are plenty of local national level banks that handle the low-level finance in individual states, such as Greece. And when you're the one keeping them afloat through liquidity payments, well then they're at your mercy even if the international banks don't need to give a poo poo about Greek subpoenas.
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Jul 1, 2016 22:53
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Friendly Humour posted:Because when you put cash in a bank, you create a trace. Even if you later move that money to another bank, that trace in the records remains unless someone wipes it. So it doesn't matter where money is presently, just where it was at some point in its life. And if you trust that bank secrets will not be revealed, then you probably don't think too hard about what banks you route your money through while it's going out of the country. This is not true. Sorry to break your bubble, but even the most blundering of tax evaders/cash launderers are very interested in how they structure and transit their funds. Beyond the bank in question, you've also got the question of in whose name the account is held (private, business, trust...), and for international banks/networks the country or even region the branch is in. Then you've got the whole question of bank transfers being only one half of a larger picture. A business puts 10 000 € in a private person's account. Is this business income for a consulting business? Salary, wages or assimilated? Buy-back of shares? A loan? An advance on fees? All of these have different tax implications, so it's pretty useless to just know that the person got 10 000 € unless you also have records of what was supposed to go the "other" way. You'd also need to build a system that perfectly takes into account 30 years of tax laws, but at this point that's hardly the elephant in the room.
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Jul 1, 2016 23:15
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Shazback posted:This is not true. Sorry to break your bubble, but even the most blundering of tax evaders/cash launderers are very interested in how they structure and transit their funds. Beyond the bank in question, you've also got the question of in whose name the account is held (private, business, trust...), and for international banks/networks the country or even region the branch is in. Then you've got the whole question of bank transfers being only one half of a larger picture. A business puts 10 000 € in a private person's account. Is this business income for a consulting business? Salary, wages or assimilated? Buy-back of shares? A loan? An advance on fees? All of these have different tax implications, so it's pretty useless to just know that the person got 10 000 € unless you also have records of what was supposed to go the "other" way. You'd also need to build a system that perfectly takes into account 30 years of tax laws, but at this point that's hardly the elephant in the room. Yeah, but these are all practical problem that only arise when you actually start dragging people into court. And you can find these things out. The whole point of the scheme was to tell rich people "here's how much we think you got according to the bank data, and here's how much you paid in taxes for it. Pay up what you think you owe, or we'll sue you". It's basically telling people to figure all this poo poo out on their own, or the state will do it for them and then take them into court for it. Of course, it didn't get to that point because the working group was shut down. Which is still so say, rather peculiar. Of course, one can just say that it's Varoufakis making this poo poo up whole cloth and just ignore it.
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Jul 1, 2016 23:22
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Preliminary results show 5% of the population (excluding children and considering that many people have joint accounts, that actually means a much higher % of tax filings) have evaded at least 150 000 € over "up to 20 years" (excluding transactions done fully through foreign banks, which wouldn't have been a problem for most of those 20 years), and this is just income/IRS tax fraud, not complex frauds like VAT fraud, tariff fraud, or even the most common ones like cash-in-hand income or sales under-reporting. I'm being generous here and I'll pretend that all the national tax numbers are individuals, despite most tax evasion being structured through companies and other entities which aren't linked to an individual's tax records. If the point was just to set up a website where they could get people who evaded taxes in the past to pay something in exchange for a waiver of prosecution, you just need to pretend that you have the data necessary to prosecute, not actually have it. In fact, he could even have set up the website before the data analysis was complete. It's not like Varoufakis' plan was to have something like a "shame & name" program on the website where people could pay to have their name removed or something, it was just (and I quote) : "instead of going through the process of prosecuting and all that, we would just announce that this is what we’ve done, without any names at all, and we would say, OK, now here is a website. You can go there, and you have a week to pay what you think you owe. And if you do, we will give you tax immunity—immunity from prosecution—and we would turn a blind eye. That was the plan."
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Jul 1, 2016 23:42
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A Buttery Pastry posted:No, they want someone to pay taxes. If those people happen to be the bottom 80% then that's perfectly fine, and means there's no friction between them and their equally wealthy friends over the issue, whether within their native country or abroad. You are assuming that just because they are indifferent to the economic contributions of the lower classes, they are upholding some sort of symbiotic relationship of capitalist subjects in general, when in fact the hierarchy of class relations doesn't preclude the disintegrative effects of capitalist contradictions on relations within the capitalist class itself, which would be destructive without the moderating role of the capitalist state. Just because they pursue a predatory strategy in their relations to one class doesn't mean their predatory behaviour has been sated, and doesn't factor into their relationship with other classes.
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Jul 1, 2016 23:43
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Shazback posted:Preliminary results show 5% of the population (excluding children and considering that many people have joint accounts, that actually means a much higher % of tax filings) have evaded at least 150 000 € over "up to 20 years" (excluding transactions done fully through foreign banks, which wouldn't have been a problem for most of those 20 years), and this is just income/IRS tax fraud, not complex frauds like VAT fraud, tariff fraud, or even the most common ones like cash-in-hand income or sales under-reporting. I'm being generous here and I'll pretend that all the national tax numbers are individuals, despite most tax evasion being structured through companies and other entities which aren't linked to an individual's tax records. Good point! But, you still need some numbers to put there on the website that have to be based in reality. Otherwise you'll just have a bunch of made up numbers that an intelligent person will look and go "this isn't going to hold in court". You don't need to have the data to do this yes, but how do you convince people that you really have the data to sue them without presenting them the data? I mean you could gamble on it I suppose and say that it hasn't been analyzed yet, but you still need to convince the rich that you got their bank accounts.
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Jul 1, 2016 23:50
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You just say "We are compiling data from the following banks (LIST) for the period (1993-2013) into an integrated database, in order to pursue tax fraud. For the next month (START-END) taxpayers who voluntarily pay their back taxes will be exempt from prosecution and a XXX % / XXX XXX € fine on condition that the amount paid corresponds to at least the amount not paid." Varoufakis himself did say that there wouldn't be any names and that the only figures would be "what you think you owe". As for "invented figures", it's not like they would be the basis of any court case. The court cases would come once the data compilation is complete and you can quickly & clearly identify targets. Or even contact them individually with a different tax settlement (hopefully "worse" for the frauder than the inital offer on the website, but hey) to avoid the court case.
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Jul 1, 2016 23:59
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QUINE. I am unable to operate a computer machine as it is too complicated for my delicate childe brain.
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Jul 2, 2016 00:00
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That analysis would literally take years of work on the part of national tax assessors to yield the sort of results it claims to have achieved in a fraction of the time with a fraction of resources.
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Jul 2, 2016 00:03
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Shazback posted:You just say "We are compiling data from the following banks (LIST) for the period (1993-2013) into an integrated database, in order to pursue tax fraud. For the next month (START-END) taxpayers who voluntarily pay their back taxes will be exempt from prosecution and a XXX % / XXX XXX € fine on condition that the amount paid corresponds to at least the amount not paid." Varoufakis himself did say that there wouldn't be any names and that the only figures would be "what you think you owe". As for "invented figures", it's not like they would be the basis of any court case. The court cases would come once the data compilation is complete and you can quickly & clearly identify targets. Or even contact them individually with a different tax settlement (hopefully "worse" for the frauder than the inital offer on the website, but hey) to avoid the court case. Ok, but that still doesn't answer how they would have convinced the rich that the government had their bank data. You still need some basis in reality to determine how much an individual owes, and I don't see how you could determine that without actually having the data. So pursuing this would have ludicrous if they didn't have those bank data sets.
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Jul 2, 2016 00:07
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steinrokkan posted:That analysis would literally take years of work on the part of national tax assessors to yield the sort of results it claims to have achieved in a fraction of the time with a fraction of resources. How so? Varoufakis's process is : Work for a year Create Website Count money Check who paid & who didn't Prosecute people who didn't pay My process would be : Create Website Count money Work for a year Check who paid & who didn't Prosecute people who didn't pay In both cases there's a year of work, except in the second case you've got money in the bank which builds goodwill towards your program in government, and if you want to you still have the option of doing a second version of the website at the end where people can log on and see how much fraud was identified for them (or even a straight shame & name), and pay with a slight penalty. Friendly Humour posted:Ok, but that still doesn't answer how they would have convinced the rich that the government had their bank data. You still need some basis in reality to determine how much an individual owes, and I don't see how you could determine that without actually having the data. So pursuing this would have ludicrous if they didn't have those bank data sets. Perhaps the reason the Troika stopped the program was... Because it didn't have the type of data that Varoufakis is saying it had, and "the rich" knew that the tax evasion methods they used wouldn't be caught by this type of analysis (e.g. by doing international structuring through companies & assets), so they wouldn't have paid in any case, unless tax inspectors spent years on each case individually. So overall this project was a net waste of time and they wanted to cut their losses. Shazback fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Jul 2, 2016 |
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Jul 2, 2016 00:07
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Reminder: This is an idea from the genius who proposed to equip students and tourists with Google Glasses to fight VAT tax evasion. He now had a task force that found at least €67 billion of evaded taxes through a "simple algorithm?"
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Jul 2, 2016 00:13
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Shazback posted:How so? My project for sending man to Mars: Launch a rocket Wait for a year Land the rocket on Mars Return to Earth! How easy! The devil is in details. You have probably never dealt with tax forms if you think it's possible to put together a simple algorithm for collating a report spanning decades and multiple countries. Even collecting and processing tax data for a single year is such a loving endeavor it takes hundreds of people just to sample the data from a single country.
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Jul 2, 2016 00:14
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Shazback posted:Perhaps the reason the Troika stopped the program was... Because it didn't have the type of data that Varoufakis is saying it had, and "the rich" knew that the tax evasion methods they used wouldn't be caught by this type of analysis (e.g. by doing international structuring through companies & assets), so they wouldn't have paid in any case, unless tax inspectors spent years on each case individually. So overall this project was a net waste of time and they wanted to cut their losses. Entirely possible, but I still have a hard time believing that Varoufakis would just openly lie about it. Especially after being out of office, what would be the point? And since everybody in the Troika hated his guts, wouldn't they want to trumpet any deception by Varoufakis up to the high heavens? That's what gets me about it, the fact that there was absolutely no follow up from nobody. That's the thing that doesn't make any sense.
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Jul 2, 2016 00:18
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