Cool, cool - so are we gonna tax it or what? Folks hiding the money should be penalized for avoiding taxes, right?
The bank paying a penalty of $122.9M is more than double the taxes they would have paid otherwise ($50M). That seems appropriate.
The extra tax revenue will be used to build schools, roads, needed infrastructure? Probably not!
Edit: reworded for clarity
Well it says in the article that one of the terms of the settlement is the bank has to cooperate with the justice department on further investigations of the accounts they helped shelter. So it sounds like the US is going after those individuals, in addition to the cash penalties levied on the bank. And part of the reason for increased funding of the IRS was to assist with carrying out investigations of "big fish" tax evaders like this. It's also a deferred criminal prosecution, so if the bank goes back on their agreement to assist with investigations or pay penalties the justice department could reopen a criminal case against individuals at the bank itself.
Confused by the second half of the comment. It's not hard to find out where US tax revenue goes, you don't have to guess (well except for what's actually inside the defense spending chunk, see: pentagon audits):
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58888
And yes infrastructure is one portion of that, would be in that discretionary non-defense slice. Most of our federal spending is on things like medicare, unemployment, and social security (there's a large chunk in the 2022 chart for student loan forgiveness, I think that represents at least some what was unfortunately struck down by the supreme court though). The 2021 infrastructure act and other on-going infrastructure projects is something this revenue will go towards, though it would be a small percent overall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_Jobs_Act
Here's more details on the discretionary budget in particular:
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58890
Out of the $910 billion yearly in non-defense discretionary spending, about $132 billion goes toward education, about $112 billion toward transportation. Lots more details. Found it interesting that our defense budget has sunk as a % of gdp somewhat since 2010. Not by nearly enough imo though. There's still almost as much defense discretionary spending as non-defense discretionary spending (~$750 billion defense, ~$910 billion non defense discretionary spending).
In general it's not like they take every little tax collection or penalty and set it aside for one specific purpose (don't attack me, I know there's exceptions). So use the charts and you can tell for yourself about what % of that money is spent on what.
Got it, thanks!
... when did Swiss banks become honest?
edit: Maybe this is why repubs were going after the IRS so hard recently? Just to prevent this from proceeding? Still surprised to see banks cooperating though.
This is why they have been attacking the IRs for decades. They have had to step up their attacks because under Biden they actually got more funding to go after tax dodgers. And it looks like they are starting at the big ticket ones from the looks of their records.
... best piece of ammo to land in our lap since they took down Roe. Everyone hates corruption. And I mean everyone. Even the most corrupt people often rely on exhausting mental gymnastics just to avoid this one, singular idea, that they might be more corrupt than other people.
But another piece of evidence is just that. And this one's pretty big, "Swiss bank account" is common day language.
Since banking secrecy has been abolished, so basically 2009
Right? I feel like a Swiss bank account being dishonest for billionaires is like..... the ONLY thing they're known for
A community for discussing events around the World
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/