Word: taxingly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...most vital industries: imports of used cars from Europe that are then sold in Russia. The end of that trade has put as many as 20,000 locals out of work. The price of utilities has jumped. On top of that, the unpopular governor, a Kremlin-appointed former tax minister from Moscow named Georgy Boos, levied a new tax on drivers. During the worst bout of unemployment and economic decline in a decade, reports of Boos' lavish vacations to Europe have made many locals despise him. (See pictures of Russian police breaking up an anti-Kremlin rally...
These revelations come as the financial meltdown has punched a huge hole in projected revenues for governments, which are suddenly a whole lot less tolerant of tax cheats. That's particularly true in Germany, whose wealthy account for a significant portion (at least 10%) of the $1.8 trillion in Swiss banking assets. That translates into hundreds of millions in lost revenue and is the reason the German Finance Minister recently thundered, "There's no future for bank secrecy. It's finished. Its time has run out." The Swiss are not going to be so easily convinced. The Swiss government...
...That may have been one reason recently retired Manhattan district attorney Robert Morgenthau, who had butted against Swiss bank secrecy repeatedly since the 1960s, was not able to make many cases. The federal government is more earnest than ever, he says, but the resolve comes when the locus of tax evasion has already shifted to other havens. "Switzerland is not the No. 1 problem any more. The Caymans is the biggest problem," he says. (See TIME's complete coverage of the 2010 World Economic Forum...
...Switzerland and suggest how Swiss banks intend to maintain that secrecy for years to come. Credit Suisse, which took a net capital outflow hit of $5.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, reported it had about $100 billion of private, cross-border assets from politically sensitive or tax-sensitive countries. But when stress tested in simulations of widespread tax amnesties, it showed that $25 billion to $35 billion might flee. That sounds huge, but with some $800 billion under management, it's just a couple of quarters of growth, explains Matthew Clark, a Swiss bank-equity analyst with...
Nevertheless, says Clark, if you are planning to stash your millions in the Alps, don't assume you can hide it from the tax man: "There is no doubt that the ability to arbitrage the bank-secrecy laws in Switzerland to avoid paying taxes in your home country is eroding and has been eroding for a long time, and it will continue to erode...