This was originally reported by Bloomberg and then the Boston Globe, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/07/29/business/wealthy-americans-targeted-by-us-panama-tax-fraud-probe/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/07/29/business/wealthy-amer...</a><p>To my knowledge, Bermuda Post is not a real journalistic organization in Bermuda (the major paper is the Royal Gazette). Instead, checking their about page reveals:<p>'BermudaPost is a non-profit, private and self-funded, commonly-created News and info-sharing platform that enables everybody to share valuable content such as local and global news updates.'<p>Besides two suspiciously barebones property listings, there are no references to Bermuda.
This is the actual press release from the DoJ/IRS about these cases: <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/irs-obtains-court-order-authorizing-summonses-records-relating-us-taxpayers-who-used" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/irs-obtains-court-order...</a>
These people use economies of scale AND also have a legal and physical protection against other people stealing their riches.<p>In the old days, the rich would have to hire their own small defense/army just to protect their riches from being stolen. And we're not even talking about the public road/education/health/communications system that allows their products to be made and delivered to customers that pay the money that becomes their profits.<p>From the above you can see that the these people want to "ride free" off the backs of people that pay their share back into the system.<p>It should be treason.
You can avoid this by having your lawyer do the contacting as well as fund transfers from their IOLTA.<p>For you as an individual you have to realize that the state doesn't know who your lawyers are. They might know you have A lawyer, they don't know all the lawyers you have. Piercing a lawyer's records is more expensive for the government to both rationalize and do and use as evidence, and just adds another layer for them to just stick with focusing on the lower hanging fruit.<p>This is more about avoiding scrutiny just because some other business got subpoena'd, actually report/pay your taxes though. There are other ways to shield assets and compliantly reduce taxes domestically.
Mapped: The World’s Biggest Private Tax Havens<p><a href="https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-biggest-private-tax-havens/" rel="nofollow">https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-biggest-private-tax-...</a><p>Panama is the 15th.
We all assume they're avoiding taxes but the funny thing about this is that you can treat this stuff like Roth IRAs, just pay your taxes one year and then just use the post-tax money to create entities offshore and hold assets indefinitely.<p>The IRS doesn't care what you do with post-tax money! There is no prohibition on doing stuff outside the country, there are no capital controls for US citizens.<p>The main difference is the secrecy and lack of scrutiny. Even if you have judgement proof trusts and retirement plans like Roth IRAs, people still get to know about them. And they have withdrawal restrictions.<p>So there is utility in disappearing some of the money that you already paid taxes on into a better jurisdiction for that purpose. The key point is already paid taxes on.<p>Example of utility being when you get charged with something and you get your assets frozen so you can't even pay a lawyer making it difficult to afford your rights as a US citizen. Well, now you can lol because you were still liquid. There are other ways to do it too, this is one way. It takes a pretty weird and creepy level of nationalist hubris to think your money needs to stay in the country, but I would say this brainwashing has been largely successful in creating a stigma at least. Except to people that matter.<p>Pay your taxes though.
I really believe that tax dodging and evasion are the biggest source of social inequality.<p>Less budget for the state or government means less redistribution and less public services, meaning the poor becomes poorer.<p>What's crazy is that as a european, would I talk about taxes on hacker news or reddit, I will always encounter libertarians who are arguing that taxes are bad.