http://www.wired.com/news/print_version/politics/story/20355.html?wnpg=all Some of the testimony warned of the dangers posed to governments by uncontrolled technology, a common complaint in the nation's capital. Specifically, presenters here at William and Mary College fretted that encryption technology, combined with the ability to buy and sell anywhere in the world, could allow consumers to skirt sales taxes. Maintaining taxes at current levels poses "an increasingly difficult problem for tax administrators as a result of new technologies," said Joseph Guttentag of the US Treasury Department. He warned that Americans may seek to evade high income taxes by moving online and offshore. "We are going to closely monitor the relationship of tax havens to electronic commerce... Encrypted [communications] create opportunities for untraceable transfer of assets and other activities that will hinder audits" Guttentag, who appeared in Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin's stead, is a senior adviser in the department's Office of Tax Policy and chairman of an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development tax committee. He said the OECD should become more involved in eliminating "other forms of harmful tax competition."
