CorpWatch: Details Of Tax Avoidance Schemes For Wealthy HSBC Clients Revealed

Stunning excerpt below from CorpWatch, worth reading in its entirety!

Details Of Tax Avoidance Schemes For Wealthy HSBC Clients Revealed by Mayu Chang, CorpWatch blog February 27th, 2015

HSBC in Switzerland. Photo: Beat Strasser. Used under Creative Commons License. A cache of secret documents has thrust HSBC, the world’s second largest bank, into the limelight for helping international clients dodge taxes. A series of articles published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is finally pushing reluctant governments to act almost eight years after the original leaks. The scandal began when Hervé Falciani, a Swiss employee of HSBC, blew the whistle in 2007 and handed over a stack of files on the bank's clients to French government authorities, who later shared the files with officials in Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, among other countries.   The files, which cover the period from 2005 to 2007, shed light on some 30,000 account holders with almost $120 billion in assets. They show that HSBC’s Swiss bank staff routinely doled out bundles of untraceable cash and advised clients how to circumvent domestic tax regulations. “I think they were a tax avoidance and tax evasion service. I think that is what they were offering,” Richard Brooks, a former UK tax inspector told BBC television. “They knew full well that people come to them to dodge their tax liabilities.” WHAT'S NEW ON CORPWATCH: Holding Corporations Accountable http://www.corpwatch.org See http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=16014 Please feel free to write to me directly with story ideas, comments or just to say hello. My address is "pratap@corpwatch.org" Thanks for holding corporations accountable for their actions! Pratap Chatterjee Managing Editor DONATE TO CORPWATCH! https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1442917 (Just click on the link and then scroll down to pick CorpWatch from the list of projects) Support CorpWatch's work to hold corporations accountable on human rights,labor rights and environmental justice issues through education and activism.Help us bring the critical information and resources that tens of thousands access every month by making a contribution to CorpWatch. Follow CorpWatch on Twitter at http://twitter.com/corpwatch and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CorpWatch.Org