The World’s Favorite New Tax Haven Is the United States

Moving money out of the usual offshore secrecy havens and into the U.S. is a brisk new business.

 Last September, at a law firm overlooking San Francisco Bay, Andrew Penney, a managing director at Rothschild & Co., gave a talk on how the world’s wealthy elite can avoid paying taxes.

His message was clear: You can help your clients move their fortunes to the United States, free of taxes and hidden from their governments.

Some are calling it the new Switzerland. 

 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-27/the-world-s-favorite-new-tax-haven-is-the-united-states 

 

 

Jesse Drucker JesseDrucker

The police "stole" his house over $40

Civil forfeiture has been around as long as the US has been in existence, but it was rarely used until 1984. That year, Congress enacted a law that introduced the concept of “adoption.” Under this process, when local or state police seize property, they may turn it over to the DOJ for process­ing under federal law. Once the forfeiture is finalized under federal law, the police agency that made the seizure receives up to 80% of the proceeds as a kickback. The DOJ calls this “equitable sharing.”

This process bypasses provisions in state law that would otherwise provide a legal barrier against loss of property without a criminal conviction. It also sidesteps state laws that say forfeited assets be used for specific purposes not related to law enforcement; education for example.
And from a law enforcement standpoint, it’s been uber-successful. According to the Institute for Justice:

• In 1986, the AFF took in $93.7 million in revenue from federal forfeitures. By 2014, annual deposits had reached $4.5 billion—a 4,667% increase.

• The forfeiture funds of the DOJ and Treasury Department together took in nearly $29 billion from 2001 to 2014, and combined annual revenue grew 1,000% over the period. 

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In 41 states, police and prosecutors can keep up to 100% of the assets they seize in civil forfeitures, without getting the feds involved. This is “policing for profit” in its purest form—and its use is exploding in these days of budget cutbacks. While there’s no nationwide tally of how much property state, local, and county police authorities seize each year, Washington, D.C. alone confiscated assets worth $254 million in 2012.

To understand how civil forfeiture works, consider the case of Chris Sourovelis, who has never been arrested, accused, or convicted of any crime. Yet in 2014, the City of Philadelphia confiscated his home.

Chris’s problems began when his son was caught selling $40 worth of illegal drugs outside the family home. Since his son had no arrest record, the court didn’t sentence him to prison—it sent him to rehab.

But the arrest put Philadelphia’s civil forfeiture machine in motion. Not long after the arrest, and with no notice, armed Philadelphia police barged into the family home, evicted Chris’s family, and confiscated the house. This was possible because civil forfeiture laws allow the government to forfeit property that “facilitate” a crime, no matter how tenuous the connection between the property and the crime.

Police alleged that since Chris’s son lived in the home, the property itself facilitated his drug offense. Even though police charged neither Chris nor his son with any crime, the city confiscated his home. He only got it back with the help of the Institute for Justice, a libertarian-oriented organization that litigates on behalf of individuals and companies trampled by the government.
Since the DOJ has ended equitable sharing, a big chunk of the loot that cities and states seize under local or state forfeiture laws won’t be coming back to the seizing agency. They can still seize property for processing under federal law, but at least for the time being, they won’t get any of it back.

Here’s how it happened: As part of the last-minute budget deal cobbled together last month, Congress withdrew more than $1.2 billion from the AFF. It used the money to pay for spending increases elsewhere in the budget.
Keep in mind that until 1984, all assets forfeited by the feds were deposited with the US Treasury and not used to reward seizing agencies. But the sums of money raised through forfeiture are so vast that the DOJ’s decision to end equitable sharing set off an orgy of recriminations and outrage…not unlike bullies squaring off in the schoolyard over a handful of cookies.

The National Sherriff’s Association was one of the first organizations to weigh in against the new policy. It released a statement that it was:
“...shocked and disappointed by the [DOJ’s] decision to suspend the equitable sharing of Asset Forfeiture Program funds to state, local, and tribal law enforcement. This is yet another blow to those who work every day to prevent terrorism and crime in our communities… The protective capabilities of our nation are being downgraded at every level in never ending attacks on law enforcement.”

Right. Just like Chris Sourovelis was a criminal or a terrorist.

 The US is almost unique in the world with its civil forfeiture laws. Almost every other country equates the confiscation of property as punishment. And their laws require that a person who’s being punished should first be arrested, tried, and convicted of an actual crime.

But not the US. Here, civil forfeiture, in all its malodorous varieties, is an essential part of policing at every level of law enforcement—local, state, and federal.

In the end, the suspension of equitable sharing probably won’t make much of an impact. The DOJ is under immense pressure to resume it, although seizing agencies might not get back 80% of the loot they confiscate. And states can always amend their laws to make them more forfeiture friendly, so the cops can keep 100% of what they seize.

How can you prevent police “forfeiture squads” from confiscating your wealth? Keep property away from government bullies by keeping the largest portion of it in an irrevocable trust. With the civil forfeiture racket booming, I can’t think of a better reason for NOT OWNING IT.

Source: The Nestmann Group

Half a Million Bank Jobs Have Vanished Since 2008 Crisis: Chart

Staff reductions at some of the world’s biggest banks are far from over. Deutsche Bank AG, which has held employment close to its 2010 peak, plans to slash 26,000 positions by 2018, following a trend that began with the financial crisis.

Announced cuts in the fourth quarter total at least 47,000, following 52,000 lost jobs in the first nine months of 2015. That would bring the aggregate figure since 2008 to about 600,000. UniCredit SpA says it will eliminate about 18,200 positions. Citigroup Inc., which has reduced its workforce by more than a third, plans to eliminate at least 2,000 more jobs next year.

Source-Bloomberg Business

This Economic Indicator Has Never Been More Bearish

A key measure of global trade just hit an all-time low…

The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) measures the price of shipping materials such as iron, coal, and grains. It accounts for 23 different shipping routes and four ship sizes. It’s one of the most closely watched indicators for the global economy…

On Friday, the BDI closed at 498. It was the first time the index has closed below 500 in its twenty-year history.

The BDI hit an all-time record high in May 2008. It’s been falling ever since. The index is now down 96% from that point. It’s plummeted an incredible 59% since August alone.

Two things determine shipping rates: the number of ships and demand for shipping...

Shipping rates soared from 2002 to 2008. The BDI rose more than 12-fold during this period. Shipping companies thought the boom times would last, so they built more ships…

Then shipping rates collapsed in 2008. The industry built too many new ships, and global trade slowed dramatically. (As Casey readers know, oil tankers are the one exception to the bloodbath in shipping. The oil shipping business is booming right now.)

On Friday, Forbes reported that the global shipping industry still has 30% more capacity than it needs.

• The global economy is slowing...

Shipping giant A.P. Møller-Mærsk A/S (AMKAF) recently reported a 15% drop in sales during the third quarter. It was the fourth quarter in a row that sales dropped from the previous year.

Mærsk is the world’s largest shipping company. It moves about 15% of all manufactured goods shipped worldwide. If Mærsk is struggling, it’s because global trade is slowing.

Last month, the company also announced plans to lay off 4,000 workers. This will cut the company’s global workforce by 17%.

Mærsk’s CEO, Nils Smedegaard Andersen, said he’s cutting jobs because the global economy is slowing faster than people think.

We believe that global growth is slowing down...Trade is currently significantly weaker than it normally would be under the growth forecasts we see.

Last month, the International Monetary Fund cut its global GDP forecast from 3.3% to 3.1%. The organization also lowered its growth forecast for 2016 from 3.8% to 3.6%. According to Andersen, these new projections are still too optimistic.

•  Meanwhile, the price of copper hit a new six-year low on Friday...

Copper has been falling all year. Now it’s plummeting. Copper is down 14% in the past month alone. It’s now down 56% from its 2011 all-time high.

Plunging copper prices are another sign of a slowing global economy…

Copper is used to make smartphones, televisions, laptops, and other electronics. It’s used in plumbing and roofing parts. Copper is also waterproof, so it’s used in shipbuilding. When the price of copper drops, it means a wide range of companies are making fewer products.

•  Global machinery maker Caterpillar (CAT) just had its worst monthly sales decline in five years...

In October, Caterpillar’s global machine sales fell 16% from the year before. It was the company’s biggest sales decline since February 2010. Caterpillar’s machine sales have now declined 35 months in a row.

The chart below shows how Caterpillar is experiencing its longest streak of declining monthly sales since the Great Recession.

Caterpillar is the world’s largest publicly traded equipment and machinery manufacturer. Its customers are the companies that build houses, office buildings, bridges, and the rest of the “real” economy. This is why many investors consider Caterpillar a “canary in the coalmine” for the global economy.

It’s unlikely Caterpillar’s sales drought will end anytime soon...

Management expects annual revenues to drop 5% in 2016. If that happens, it will mark the fourth year in a row the company’s annual sales have dropped. That’s never happened in Caterpillar’s 90-year history.

•  Like Caterpillar, Europe’s weak economic data is pointing to a slowing global economy...

Europe is experiencing its weakest economic recovery in decades. During the second quarter, Europe’s economy grew half as fast as the U.S. economy. And at 10%, Europe’s unemployment rate is double the U.S. unemployment rate.

On Friday, European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi described the current recovery as “the weakest euro area rebound since 1998”...

The ECB has tried (and failed) to jumpstart Europe’s economy by cutting interest rates to zero. In March, the ECB went one step further and launched its first quantitative easing (QE) program. QE is when a central bank creates money from nothing and pumps it into the financial system. It’s basically another word for money printing.

Every month, the ECB’s QE program pumps €60 billion ($65 billion) into the Eurozone’s financial system. It’s scheduled to run “at least until September 2016.” At that point, the program will have pumped at least €1.14 trillion into Europe’s financial system.

•  Yet the ECB probably won’t stop at €1.14 trillion...

On Friday, Draghi said that the ECB will do whatever it thinks is necessary to boost economic growth “as quickly as possible.” He added that the ECB “will act by using all the instruments available within our mandate.”

Draghi already hinted the ECB might increase its QE program last month. His statements on Friday went much further. He’s essentially saying, “Get ready for more money printing.”

Source, Casey Research

Next financial crash is coming – and before we've fixed flaws from last one

The next financial crisis is coming, it’s a just a matter of time – and we haven’t finished fixing the flaws in the global system that were so brutally exposed by the last one.

That is the message from the International Monetary Fund’s latest Global Financial Stability report, which will make sobering reading for the finance ministers and central bankers gathered in Lima, Peru, for its annual meeting.

Massive monetary policy stimulus has rekindled growth in developed economies since the deep recession that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008; but what the IMF calls the “handover” to a more sustainable recovery – without the extra prop of ultra-low borrowing costs – has so far failed to materialise.

Meanwhile, the cheap money created to rescue the developed economies has flooded out into emerging markets, inflating asset bubbles, and encouraging companies and governments to take advantage of unusually low borrowing costs and load up on debt.

“Balance sheets have become stretched thinner in many emerging market companies and banks. These firms have become more susceptible to financial stress,” the IMF says.

Meanwhile, the failure to patch up the international financial system after the last crash, by ensuring that banks in emerging markets hold enough capital, and constraining risky borrowing, for example, means that a new Lehman Brothers-type shock could spark another global panic.

“Shocks may originate in advanced or emerging markets and, combined with unaddressed system vulnerabilities, could lead to a global asset market disruption and a sudden drying up of market liquidity in many asset classes,” the IMF says, warning that some markets appear to be “brittle”.

So as the US Federal Reserve lays the groundwork for a return to peacetime interest rates, from the emergency levels of the past seven years, financial markets face what the IMF calls an “unprecedented adjustment”; and the world looks woefully underprepared.

The IMF’s warning echoes a chorus of others. The Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, has argued that the world is entering the latest episode of a “three-part crisis trilogy”. Unctad, the UN’s trade and development arm, would like to see advanced economies boost public spending to offset the downturn in emerging economies. The Bank for International Settlements believes interest rates have been too low for too long, encouraging too much risk-taking in financial markets. All of them fear that the global financial system is primed for a crisis.

The IMF has not given up hope of what it calls a “successful normalisation” – it lays out a series of conditions that would need to be met, from a successful rebalancing of growth in China, to “safeguarding against market illiquidity” in financial markets.

Yet the failure of the world’s policymakers to get to grips with the shortcomings of the international financial system over the past seven years, despite the long shadow cast by Lehman and its aftermath, suggests that any measures enacted now are likely to be too little, too late. The message many may take home from Lima is, “batten down the hatches”.

Source; http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/07/next-financial-crash-is-coming-imf-global-stability-report

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/07/risk-global-financial-crash-increased-imf-emerging-economies-eurozone-stability-report

2015 Financial Secrecy Index

Here’s a table of the top 50 jurisdictions in this year’s rankings with Switzerland (once again) topping the list.

Like clockwork, the Swiss come in first thanks to its tough bank secrecy laws and push to build “market share in some of the world’s more vulnerable and badly governed developing countries, which will therefore continue to suffer Swiss-sanctioned élite looting.”

Problems with the USA and the United Kingdom

Surprisingly enough, the USA moved up three spots in this year’s rankings, making it to the podium and receiving a bronze medal for its secretive financial system and lack of reciprocity.

According to the Tax Justice Network, despite the US confronting American tax evaders head-on via the implementation of FATCA and likeminded regulations, it fails when it comes to providing other jurisdictions with information on their citizens’ accounts in the US.

About the US the organization says, “It is more of a cause for concern than any other individual country – because of both the size of its offshore sector, and also its rather recalcitrant attitude to international co-operation and reform.”

John Christensen, Tax Justice Network’s Executive Director, adds, “The United States dealt global financial secrecy a devastating blow by forcing strongholds such as Switzerland to open up. But after this blistering start in efforts to protect itself, it is backsliding by failing to provide information in the other direction: refusing to participate directly in global transparency initiatives such as the multilateral automatic information exchange and, inexcusably, lobbying to block public country by country corporate reporting. The USA must finally overcome its historically rooted opposition to reasonable tax data sharing with its trade and investment partners.”

The United Kingdom does not fare much better.

In fact, if the Financial Secrecy Index combined the UK with its Overseas Territories or Crown Dependencies such as the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands and Bermuda, it would go home with a shiny gold medal. Even though the British government has pushed automatic exchange of information onto its territories, it “has failed to force them to create public registries of beneficial ownership, despite having the power to do so.”

Singapore and Hong Kong — No Interest in Common Reporting Standard

Both Hong Kong and Singapore earn high rankings as a result of their dislike for CRS and any sort of exchange of information.

Hong Kong, for instance, “hasn’t signed the multilateral agreement to initiate automatic information exchange via the CRS; it has a problematic record on corporate transparency; and unlike European countries it appears to have little appetite for country-by-country reporting or for creating registers of beneficial ownership.”

Luxembourg: Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Luxembourg, referred to as “Death Star of financial secrecy inside Europe” by the organization, improved its ranking in 2015, dropping four spots to number six.

What explains this improvement?

Tax Justice Network says it’s a combination of “the evolving international climate on transparency… with high-profile global scandals that have cast the tax haven in a highly negative light. These changes also coincide with the departure of Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, arguably the most important architect of the secretive modern tax haven. “

Source  Tax Justice Network - TaxLinked - by Mateo Jarrin

Outpost Provisioning Receives 2015 Best of Cheyenne Award

Cheyenne Award Program Honors the Achievement

CHEYENNE October 21, 2015 -- Outpost Provisioning has been selected for the 2015 Best of Cheyenne Award in the Investment Management category by the Cheyenne Award Program.

Each year, the Cheyenne Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Cheyenne area a great place to live, work and play.
Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2015 Cheyenne Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Cheyenne Award Program and data provided by third parties.

About Cheyenne Award Program

The Cheyenne Award Program is an annual awards program honoring the achievements and accomplishments of local businesses throughout the Cheyenne area. Recognition is given to those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value.

The Cheyenne Award Program was established to recognize the best of local businesses in our community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to recognize the small business community's contributions to the U.S. economy.

SOURCE: Cheyenne Award Program

CONTACT:
Cheyenne Award Program
Email: PublicRelations@local-best.com