Swiss bankers versus democracy
Konrad Hummler, president of the Swiss private bankers' association has singled out Germany, France and Italy as "illegitimate states", whose citizens had no protection from excessive taxes.
"We are so allergic to the Germans... because the Germans have the feeling that citizens belong to the state. There is a very old, very deep worry of the Swiss people against the Germans - it goes back to history, especially the second world war."
This goes to the core of what TJN has been arguing: these offshore tax tricks are profoundly anti-democratic. Hummler even admits it:
"I admit it is undemocratic," he said. "But I have a feeling that the democratic system went way beyond their legitimate role against the taxpayer. What these states do may be legal, but it is not legitimate."
Hummler is confused. He claims that tax gives people the feeling that citizens belong to the state. Perhaps he hasn't heard the old cry "no taxation without representation." If he thought about it, he'd realise that he's got it the wrong way round: tax is one of the great forces that makes the state belong to its citizens.
This is one of the latest stories in the two-week Guardian's tax investigation. This one's quite a humdinger - he takes a crack at the OECD (a "tax cartel".)
The Guardian also takes up a myth that is regularly propagated:
"Switzerland's bank secrecy law was introduced, in 1934, to stop bank staff helping the French tax authorities - and certainly not, as the Swiss sometimes claim, to help Jewish refugees hide their assets from the Nazis."
Read it. It's full of good stuff.
"We are so allergic to the Germans... because the Germans have the feeling that citizens belong to the state. There is a very old, very deep worry of the Swiss people against the Germans - it goes back to history, especially the second world war."
This goes to the core of what TJN has been arguing: these offshore tax tricks are profoundly anti-democratic. Hummler even admits it:
"I admit it is undemocratic," he said. "But I have a feeling that the democratic system went way beyond their legitimate role against the taxpayer. What these states do may be legal, but it is not legitimate."
Hummler is confused. He claims that tax gives people the feeling that citizens belong to the state. Perhaps he hasn't heard the old cry "no taxation without representation." If he thought about it, he'd realise that he's got it the wrong way round: tax is one of the great forces that makes the state belong to its citizens.
This is one of the latest stories in the two-week Guardian's tax investigation. This one's quite a humdinger - he takes a crack at the OECD (a "tax cartel".)
The Guardian also takes up a myth that is regularly propagated:
"Switzerland's bank secrecy law was introduced, in 1934, to stop bank staff helping the French tax authorities - and certainly not, as the Swiss sometimes claim, to help Jewish refugees hide their assets from the Nazis."
Read it. It's full of good stuff.
posted by TJN at 12:07 am
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