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PprPlns
Stranger
Registered: 07/30/08
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Last seen: 12 years, 1 month
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Anonymous banking & the Swiss bank
#10978177 - 09/01/09 09:05 AM (14 years, 8 months ago) |
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So recently the Swiss bank ratted out a bunch of US tax evaders (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/19/swiss-bank-to-id-us-tax-evaders/) It is also my understanding that offshore banks require a valid passport to create an account. Does this mean the end of Bank secrecy?
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fastfred
Old Hand



Registered: 05/17/04
Posts: 6,899
Loc: Dark side of the moon
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Re: Anonymous banking & the Swiss bank [Re: PprPlns]
#11024491 - 09/08/09 10:01 PM (14 years, 8 months ago) |
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They can only rat you out if they know who you are. Get a numbered account.
Also most secret banking nowdays is done with island countries. 
-FF
-------------------- It drinks the alcohol and abstains from the weed or else it gets the hose again. -Chemy The difference between the substances doesn't matter. This is a war on consciousness, on our right to the very essence of what we are. With no control over that, we have no need to speak of freedom or a free society. -fireseed "If we are going to have a war on marijuana, the least we can do is pull the sick and the dying off the battlefield." -Neal Levine (MPP) I find the whole "my drug should be legal but yours should be illegal" mindset disgusting and hypocritical. It's what George Bush and company do when they drink a cocktail and debate the best way to imprison marijuana users. -Diploid
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pazzy
Always Hardcore


Registered: 08/24/07
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Re: Anonymous banking & the Swiss bank [Re: fastfred]
#11036111 - 09/10/09 06:58 PM (14 years, 8 months ago) |
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Anguilla for the win.
-------------------- Are you happy for a miracle?
Absolutely no source checks/discussions.
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Cloke
Stranger
Registered: 09/08/09
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Re: Anonymous banking & the Swiss bank [Re: fastfred]
#11060628 - 09/14/09 09:15 PM (14 years, 8 months ago) |
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You're a little late on the scene. There hasn't been absolute banking secrecy for years and years. Like 1993 or maybe a little earlier, depending on the country.
Don't bank in Switzerland expecting secrecy from anything more than private parties. Their banks have been saturated with criminals due to being famous for banking secrecy. This, in turn, saturated their government with requests and pressure from foreign governments, which they yielded to long ago.
This is the sad state of things now. There are other ways to accomplish financial privacy though. There are also about 40 or so other countries with banking secrecy laws like the Swiss have. Most are just about as bad now though. Some that are better, for now, are (in no particular order) Samoa, Vanuatu, Guatemala, Panama, Andorra, Montserrat, Monaco (barely), Liechtenstein (barely) and some others. This will probably change with time though. Andorra and Panama will probably change some laws within a year, although they will still be better than Switzerland. Monaco and Liechtenstein already changed this year. Gibraltar, Anguilla, and Turks and Caicos Islands are ok, depending on what you need secrecy from. Their secrecy has crumbled considerably in the last year's time though. Mostly we are talking about secrecy for tax evasion purposes. There already is no secrecy for money laundering.
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fastfred said: They can only rat you out if they know who you are. Get a numbered account. Also most secret banking nowdays is done with island countries. 
All bank accounts require ID these days. It has been this way since at least the early 90's. Numbered accounts won't protect you. The bank knows who owns each account, even numbered ones. It's just that the account name is a number instead of a name. They still have your ID on file and you as the "signer" on the account. This is precisely so that they can give you up if the right people come asking.
Numbered accounts are merely a protection from direct knowledge of who owns an account. But even that is evaporating, because since a few years ago Switzerland MUST now reveal the real name of the account holder when sending or receiving wire transfers to/from numbered accounts if they go to or from outside Switzerland's borders. This is due to EU directives, I believe, which Switzerland has agreed to comply with. Numbered account transactions WITHIN Switzerland don't have to do this though. Liechtenstein is in the same boat.
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pazzy said: Anguilla for the win.
No. They are better than Switzerland in some ways, for some people though.
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