Billionaire Tax Records Leaked by ProPublica
As fallout continues to stem from the recent ProPublica leak of private billionaire tax records, the extent of hidden wealth in U.S. western states is becoming harder to ignore.
Not only a haven for American super-rich, the United States
is rapidly becoming the go-to repository for foreign depositors looking to hide
assets from creditors or fraud victims.
The transformation of the United States into a tax and
privacy haven is a fundamental shift unlike any the world has witnessed in
modern times.
As lawmakers scramble to find solutions for taxing wealth
(and overlooking the obvious problems in trying to tax "dark matter"
wealth that has been legally moved out of the estates of taxpayers), creditors
seeking to enforce claims and judgments face new challenges.
For years, the asset recovery field has focused primarily on
European and Caribbean havens but now finds itself behind the curve. Any
high-value asset recovery strategy must at least ask whether a debtor has
sheltered assets in the United States and how those assets can be
identified.
The silver lining is that, once traced, assets in the United
States provide creditors the potential to invoke the jurisdiction of a U.S.
District Court and the powerful enforcement mechanisms available to a sitting
federal judge.
The United States is the weak link in the system right now.
If you’re a Russian oligarch or a Chinese billionaire or you’ve stolen money
from your own people from Latin America, you’re bringing it to the United
States because London isn’t as porous as it used to be.
Comments
Post a Comment