--- On Sat, 5/9/09, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: SECURITY COUNCIL SHOULD IMPOSE SANCTION AGAINST SWISS GOVERNMENT. To: [email protected] Cc: "Her Excellency President of India Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil" <[email protected]>, [email protected], "Hon’ble Chief Justice of India Mr K G Balakrishanan <[email protected]> Vice-President of IndiaShri Mohammad Hamid Ansari" <[email protected]>, "Hon'ble Prime Miister of India Dr. Man Mohan Singh" <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], "Home Minister of India Shri P. Chidambaram" <[email protected]>, "Law Minister of India Shri Hansraj Bhardwaj" <[email protected]>, "Swami Ramdev Ji" <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], "Chief Minister of GujratShri Narendra Modi" <[email protected]>, [email protected], "Advisor to Hon. GCMShri S.K. Shelat" <[email protected]>, "Advisor to Hon. GCMShri B.N. Navalawala" <[email protected]>, "Smt. Sonia Gandhi" <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected], "Jairam Ramesh" <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], "Serious Fraud Investigation Office" <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], "Share Market Ombudsman" <[email protected]>, [email protected], "the Commissioner of Delhi PoliceShri Y. S. Dadwal" <[email protected]>, [email protected], "vishwa. mohan" <[email protected]>, "The Editor Times of India" <[email protected]>, "Help Ministry of Law & Justice" <[email protected]>, "Chairperson NHRC" <[email protected]>, "The Statesman Calcutta" <[email protected]>, "The Statesman" <[email protected]>, "Editor The Telegraph" <[email protected]> Date: Saturday, May 9, 2009, 8:30 AM In June, 2005, I submitted a Petition to the then Secretary-General of UNO His Excellency Mr. Kofi A. Annan, praying therein that "SECURITY COUNCIL SHOULD IMPOSE SANCTION AGAINST SWISS GOVERNMENT FOR BANKING SECRECY WHICH PROVIDING OPEN PROTECTIONS TO ILLEGAL MONEY OF TERRORISTS, CORRUPT POLITICIANS ETC., FROM DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, CAUSING SEVERE THREATS TO ITS LEGITIMATE DEVELOPMENTS". Complete petition is posted at: http://www.petitiononline.com/milap/petition.html This petition was very much inactive earlier. While, in view of the attitude of Swiss Government, which appears from the following News Items, my petition is still very much relevant. Although this is addressed to the then Secretary-General of UNO His Excellency Mr. Kofi A. Annan. It not make any difference. We will forward our Petition to present Secretary-General of UNO, giving the original date of the Petition and would also forward to heads of different Countries to support our demand. Therefore, my humble request that this should be signed maximum number of the people. Milap Choraria US judge orders U.S. to respond in UBS tax case Reuters, May 8, 2009 MIAMI, May 7 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday ordered U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to respond to Switzerland's objections to a high-profile tax evasion case pitting the Internal Revenue Service against UBS AG. The order from U.S. District Judge Alan Gold in Miami came a week after Switzerland urged him to block IRS legal maneuvers aimed at forcing UBS (UBSN.VX) (UBS.N) to reveal the identities of about 52,000 Americans suspected of using accounts at the bank to hide about $14.8 billion of assets and evade U.S. taxes. In a brief filed with Gold's court on April 30, the Swiss government, which is not part of the case, said disclosure of the confidential client information could violate its sovereignty and trample over both Swiss and international law. It also warned that the threatened enforcement of an IRS summons against UBS could scuttle negotiations, which began last week, over a new Swiss tax accord with Washington . Tax Havens/Bank Secrecy Steinbruek Presses Switzerland on Tax Dodge Talks Reuters, May 8, 2009 BERLIN, May 7 (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck pressed Switzerland on Thursday to enter "concrete" talks on loosening its bank secrecy rules, saying the country's laws actively encouraged Germans to avoid paying taxes at home. In a speech to the Bundestag lower house of parliament, Steinbrueck renewed his criticism of Germany's southern neighbour, saying it had not yet taken the steps necessary to convince him it was serious about combating tax cheaters. " Luxembourg and Austria are already in talks with us and we are having the dialogue with them we were seeking. In these cases the problem has been taken care of," Steinbrueck said. "I am waiting in the case of Switzerland that we move on from preliminary exchanges towards concrete negotiations. This should not last years but come to a conclusion soon." He said Switzerland and Liechtenstein had laws that actively encouraged Germans to dodge taxes, estimating the annual loss to government coffers from tax evasion at 100 billion euros. Switzerland said on Wednesday it wanted to clinch 12 new bilateral tax deals by the end of 2009 to be removed from a tax haven "grey list". Singapore Stands Set to Defend Bank Secrecy, to a Point Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2009 Singapore has declined to give overseas authorities information on foreigners' bank-deposit interest or investment gains on the ground that the government can't gather this information under domestic tax law. The government this year plans to end this "domestic interest" restriction on the data it can provide, a Finance Ministry spokesman said. But even then, Singapore will be willing to investigate income that isn't taxed locally only if there are documented suspicions of tax evasion and proof the foreign authority requesting the information can't get it directly from the foreign investor or deposit-holder, according to people familiar with the situation. The pressure on Singapore comes as U.S. and European authorities are broadening their attack beyond Switzerland , Luxembourg , Liechtenstein and Andorra . The tax regimes in those countries came under intense scrutiny at last month's summit of the Group of 20 industrial and developing powers. "Frankly, Singapore believes it can withstand the pressure from the EU," said the person familiar the Singapore government's thinking. "But pressure from the U.S. is a different matter. Washington can push very hard, the way they did with UBS." Swiss bank UBS AG, hit by a U.S. tax-fraud investigation into services it offered to hundreds of wealthy American clients, agreed in February to pay a $780 million fine and disclose the identity of some clients. Hong Kong, another popular Asian destination for private-banking clients, is moving swiftly to avoid such a clash. Government officials said in February they would draw up legislation this year that would make Hong Kong 's policies on sharing tax information adhere to international standards. At least $300 billion of foreign cash is managed in Singapore , and that could double in the next five years, private bankers and wealth managers estimate. The vast majority of the money belongs to wealthy Indonesians, Malaysians, Chinese and other Asians. Some 40 institutions in Singapore offer private banking, an industry that grew rapidly along with Asian wealth in 2005 and 2006. Singapore encouraged Western banks to expand here, promoting the city-state as a financial center through corporate tax cuts and other business-friendly measures. Alternate Shelter For now, Singapore appears to be benefiting as the spotlight on European havens has some investors seeking other shelters. "At least $13 billion has landed here in the past few months, much more than the average of previous months, and a surprisingly high sum came from Europe," said a private banker in Singapore . "This money could be perfectly legal, but with the climate of fear in Europe many depositors want out. They want peace of mind." Such inflows to Singapore might not last, however, especially when the U.S. turns its attention to the island's tax practices. In 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama cosponsored a bill to clamp down on tax havens, including Singapore , which is on a U.S. "blacklist" of 34 "offshore secrecy jurisdictions." The bill failed under the Bush administration, but a stronger version, backed by President Obama's administration, was introduced to Congress in March. Praise, Recommendations for President Obama's Plan for "Curbing Tax Havens" from Global Financial Integrity Washington, DC - Global Financial Integrity (GFI) applauds the Obama Administration's efforts to fix the broken tax system that enables corporations to game the system to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. The Administration's focus on tax havens, and the way that U.S. corporations utilize those opaque financial centers, is an important step toward full transparency in the global financial system. In addition to those efforts GFI urges the Administration and Congress to: · Require all U.S.-based multinational corporations to report the names and locations of all subsidiaries, holding companies, and other entities owned or controlled by the corporation and, · Require all U.S. -based multinational corporations to report the income and tax paid by each of those entities "Lack of transparency lies at the heart of the current worldwide economic crisis," said GFI director Raymond Baker. "Making the beneficial ownership of subsidiaries, holding companies, and other entities related to a multinational corporation publically available will make it much more difficult for these companies to avoid paying their fair share of taxes." GFI recommends that Congress direct multinational corporations to make this beneficial ownership and tax payment information available on their Web sites and in their SEC 10-K filings to ensure that data is current and readily accessible to the general public. Congressional efforts on tax haven abuse have included the introduction of the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act by Senator Carl Levin (S. 506) and Congressman Lloyd Doggett (H.R. 1265) in March into the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees, respectively. Similar legislation is expected to be introduced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus this month. "The President has called on Congress to act and we hope that they will heed this call," said Baker. "In the midst of an historic economic crisis the U.S. cannot afford to ignore illicit financial practices which cost the Treasury hundreds of billions of dollars every year." TRUTH SHALL ALWAYS PREVAIL Milap Choraria Editor: Suchna Ka Adhikar / RTI TIMES National Convenor : Movement for Accountability to Public (MAP) http://milapchoraria.tripod.com/msp http://rtitimes.net
