Re:Secret Files Expose Offshore’s Global Impact
by bd_at_rivenhill on Thursday April 04, 2013 @10:33AM
(#5492871)
I expect that "insolvent governments" refers to the likelihood that a government in financial difficulties will eventually resort to confiscating the assets which its citizens hold in foreign accounts in addition to the confiscation of of domestic accounts, which has already occurred in Argentina in 2001 and in other places. In terms of the rate at which these events happen, I would consider 'once in a lifetime' to be a very high rate given that they can significantly reduce the wealth that you have managed to accumulate from a lifetime of hard work.
People living in countries with poorly managed economies, such as Italy and Spain, should be in the habit of keeping significant portions of their savings in foreign accounts; once the corralito hits, you're already done for.
Re:Secret Files Expose Offshore’s Global Impact
by frankydp on Thursday April 04, 2013 @11:54AM
(#5493337)
You could also group volatile taxation policy into the insolvent government bracket. It could be difficult to justify not diversifying if taxation on savings change by large amounts every time the political landscape changes.
[citation needed]
And what does this actually mean? How do you define insolvent governments?
If you are thinking of one-off cuts when the state is actually going bankrupt (latest cyprus thingie, italy's cut in '92 etc) these don't seem to offer a different security from keeping money in a foreign non-offshore bank.
And these events don't seem so common to me.
Or are you considering governments insolvent in the sense that they just waste money and taxing is stealing etc ?
I am unsure how the situation is in these specific cases, but way way way often offshore accounts get found out in my country (italy) related to _massively illegal_ activities.
This is not a case of avoiding messing up a tax form, it's accounts used to pay bribes for falsified trial witnesses with money laundered from drug smuggling.