BREAKING NEWS: Obama To Sponsor Plan To Curb International Tax Scheming, Treasury Secretary Tells Panel
The Obama administration said today that it will crack down on international tax cheats and people using tax havens to evade U.S. regulators.
In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Obama will propose new rules to curtail international scheming.
“The budget also seeks to close the ‘tax gap’ by tackling tax shelters and other efforts to abuse our tax laws, including international tax-evasion efforts,” Geithner said. “The budget addresses the use of offshore structures and accounts by U.S. corporations and individuals to avoid and evade U.S. taxes. Over the next several months, the President will propose a series of legislative and enforcement measures to reduce such U.S. tax evasion and avoidance.”
Geithner’s remarks couldn’t have come at a worse time for some AdSurfDaily members. Some members Surf’s Up, a Pro-ASD forum, are engaging in a letter-writing campaign to have the government investigate the prosecutors and federal judge involved in the case.
Members have sent letters to Obama, Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and other politicians.
In August, prosecutors alleged that ASD was a wire-fraud and money-laundering operation whose central component was an international, $100 million Ponzi scheme. ASD had more than $1 million on deposit in Antigua, which later became ground zero in the alleged multibillion-dollar Allen Stanford Ponzi scheme.
Robert Garner, an ASD attorney who advertised his international financial services in a magazine in 2003, was named a defendant in a RICO lawsuit in January. His co-defendants include ASD President Andy Bowdoin and Golden Panda Ad Builder President Clarence Busby. Assets tied to Golden Panda were seized in the ASD case.
Promoter say Busby now is involved with another surf — BizAdSplash — which promotes itself as an offshore business.
Bowdoin’s stepson, George Harris, and two former ASD employees, Gary Talbert and Chuck Osmin, are associated with yet another offshore surf — AdViewGlobal.
Three autosurfs with ties to ASD sprouted up in the aftermath of the government’s seizure of ASD funds, all touting the benefits of their “offshore” locations in countries such as Panama and Uruguay. One of the surfs, BizAdSplash, is having trouble with a bank in Panama and a payment processor in Panama. The surf announced the trouble after the SEC charged Stanford with fraud.
Meanwhile, AdGateWorld positioned itself as an attractive option after what happened to ASD. Promoters said AdGateWorld provided protection from the SEC, the IRS and state attorneys general.
For its part, AdViewGlobal now says it is forming a private association.
This financial crisis is producing some interesting results. The closure of tax loop holes will very likely to gain international co-operation.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7917456.stm
[the £4b tax recovered] “would be enough for the government to meet its target to halve child poverty by 2010.”
Great article from the BBC site. One item that the tax deniers always miss is the use the taxes can be put to,if they are paid – citizen security, anti fraud, emergency services, education, health care etc.
The ponzi promoters seem to think they have an entitlement to it all, in exchange for nothing. But what can you expect from people who belittle the working man and those who earn their bread honestly doing a “J.O.B.”