Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

http://www.icij.org/project/swiss-leaks/explore-swiss-leaks-data/

by anigbrowl • 11 years ago

212 139 11 years ago

linux_devil2• 11 years ago

Cannot see full list somehow . But thanks for uploading . Why not give full raw data . Headline is little misleading .

kshatrea• 11 years ago

This is a big story in Indian news today. The current prime minister, Narendra Modi was elected partly because he promised to bring black money that was stashed abroad, back to the country. A Herculean task and one that he hasn't done much about so far. It interests me how this information can be used against the relevant people. Will it be a mere name-and-shame or can they use a leaked source in a court of law? I don't think so. People in many countries avoid taxes and in India this is especially egregious since close to 97% of the population does not pay any income taxes[1]. For a population of 1.25 billion with 400m below the poverty line, this is not good. [1] http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-11-04/news...

bottled_poe• 11 years ago

Can leaked documents constitute probable cause? If so, further warrants could be obtained to investigate account holders.

chkuendig• 11 years ago

Most client & account data from 1988-2007; amounts from 2006-07.

Seems like this is the same dataset which Falciani leaked to the french authorities 5 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herv%C3%A9_Falciani

Edit: See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagarde_list - this list has already a quite interesting history.

junto• 11 years ago

It is the Hervé Falciani leak. See the Guardian coverage: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/08/hsbc-files-e...

  The origin of the leak The HSBC files were obtained through an international 
  collaboration of news outlets, including the Guardian, Le Monde, BBC Panorama 
  and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

   1 In late 2007, Hervé Falciani, an IT expert at HSBC's Swiss bank, hacked into 
     its customer files. He fled to France with police on his trail for breaching 
     Switzerland's rigid bank secrecy laws.
   2 The French authorities detained him, but refused to extradite him when they 
     realised the data could identify thousands of French tax evaders. Falciani now 
     lives in France under protection.
   3 In early 2010, under finance minister Christine Lagarde, France prepared 
     confidential lists of the leaked names for other countries. The so-called 
     "Lagarde list" led to scandal and arrests in Greece, Spain, the US, Belgium and 
     Argentina.
   4 Britain's tax authority, HMRC, received a list in 2010 from which it identified 
     more than 1,000 tax evaders. More than £135m ($206m) was quietly recovered in 
     repayments, but only one person was prosecuted. There has been no UK legal action 
     against HSBC. Names were never revealed.

tormeh5• 11 years ago

Why so few prosecuted in Britain? Wouldn't this be a good opportunity to get some assholes who thought they could shift the tax burden to others? Six month prison sentences sounds reasonable. British prisons suck, but given that this is partly the dodgers fault that's just poetic.

gadders• 11 years ago

So does any of this relate to current offences, or is it all historical?

LunaSea2• 11 years ago

Is there any raw data that can be downloaded ?

linux_devil2• 11 years ago

Raw data will be helpful , I tried to explore couldn't find it.

LunaSea2• 11 years ago

Wasn't able to find anything either.

xrjn• 11 years ago

It would be interesting to see if they will release it, I guess there would be concerns with privacy for people who weren't in the alleged 70% [1] who's accounts got closed. I guess it's more of an ethical question.

[1] http://www.icij.org/project/swiss-leaks/banking-giant-hsbc-s...

jsprogrammer2• 11 years ago

This doesn't appear to be the leaked data, but rather curated profiles of some of the people referenced in the supposedly leaked data.

Am I missing something?

raverbashing• 11 years ago

This seems to be biased journalists trying to push their agenda through exposure of private information of selected individuals.

saiya-jin5• 11 years ago

journalism is too much flattery in this case

VMG3• 11 years ago

Badly presented as well -- all the info is in a tiny rectangle in the center of the screen, with a uneven background that makes the text hard to read.

callum85• 11 years ago

The complete list isn't public. Limited parts of the list have been given to relevant tax organisations in different countries. (Look up Hervé Falciani, the whistleblower, for more details.)

This feature probably shouldn't be called "Explore the Swiss Leaks Data".

20kleagues• 11 years ago

Did the dataset get released as well?

EDIT: Is the raw dataset out as well? It will be interesting to see all the names.

unimportant3• 11 years ago

You can find a dataset of a previous banking leak if that kind of stuff interests you. Just google Cayman banking leak.

zzleeper• 11 years ago

Tried to find it but the top google matches are just links to your comment =/

mammmamia• 11 years ago

Looks worthless, only selected people who they think are worthy enough to publish. Why not all the names or raw data?

Totoradio• 11 years ago

The raw data contains phone numbers, adresses and other personal data (source http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2015/02/09/qui-s... ). I can see why it's not published as is.

ptaipale12• 11 years ago

Doesn't explain selecting names and sums, though.

saiya-jin5• 11 years ago

The pattern is apparent - once you become rich, you don't want to donate millions to governments in taxes. Anyway you do, but trying to minimize it. Be it for their lack of any transparency how cash will be used (mostly wasted in very ineffective way). It doesn't matter if it's famous or unknown rich.

Now what to do with this situation... There are too many tax havens out there (Suisse, Monaco, Channel islands, Luxemburg, Malta etc. - this is just good ol' europe). There will always be rich, powerful people no matter what system you come up with (sheep/wolf human nature responsible here). If you tax them too much, they will flee (ie Tina Turner) and you lose all the money for good. Those are clever people, having best financial advisors out there.

Heck, if I had hard earned/inherited millions or more, I wouldn't want to support some war efforts/failing eu social policies either. If feeling generous, you can always give back more directly ie by building some school, avoiding bureaucrats that eat away most of cash. YOu know, the richest man in the world style. There is a good reason why he didn't donate all his money to something existing, but managing investments by himself (maybe not exact description, but you get the point).

All in all, nothing new...

jakobegger2• 11 years ago

Paying taxes is not "donating money". You are required by law to pay them. You get certain things in exchange, like laws that protect your property.

If you think that you shouldn't be forced to pay taxes, why do you think that other laws should be enforced? If rich people steal from the state, why shouldn't poor people just take what they want from the rich?

If you avoid taxes, you are stealing from everybody.

saiya-jin5• 11 years ago

Nice textbook phrases, now let's get back to the real world out there for a while.

Do you even understand the simple truth, that most of the times no law is broken in tax optimalizations? Only when it does, it gets highly publitized. Usually, tax systems are full of loopholes and accountants just need to be creative enough (and yes, they are...). Without breaking any specific law, by logic "what is not explicitly forbidden is allowed".

Personally, I do believe in minimal and fair taxation. If you have system where successful people have over 50% tax burden (quite common in progressive tax systems), you can expect many attempts to get away from it. Just human nature. Your textbook phrases won't help much, do they.

Just look at Switzerland itself - most democratic country in the world, one of the richest (and their wealth ain't based on banking secrecy - whole banking industry brings roughly 12% into GDP... tourism and high quality exports are primes here). Low personal and corporate taxation, and the country and system just works. Why cannot rest of europe work this way? How much tax evasion is within Switzerand? Almost none...

j42• 11 years ago

Perhaps the issue isn't so much in "forcing" people, as it is in recognizing that the perceived unfairness of the tax system itself is causing systemic dysfunction.

Because taxes are perceived to be so unfairly high in certain economies, many devote significant time and effort into "innovating" around policy which is completely legal. Transfer pricing, long-term capital gains distinctions and LLC/Trust configurations, to name a few.

It makes sense to do this, because the disincentives of NOT pursuing legal tax minimization strategies are severe. You'll lose almost half your income. The more money you have, the more strategies you get--meaning they are formed in the ranks of industry leaders like Apple or Google, and eventually trickle down throughout private industry (though in the interim this only serves to widen the disparity & narrow the concentration of wealth).

This won't change unless the common psychology changes. If the tax system were more balanced and fair (a more moderate/halfway implementation of a "flat tax?") then less energy would be devoted into the legal arms race that is out-maneuvering the tax code.

... but obviously that's a pipe dream.

sambe• 11 years ago

Paying more than you are legally obliged to could be considered donating though. I'm not commenting on the specific cases linked to but as I'm sure you're aware there is a massive grey area around tax law. You can't simply claim that not paying is stealing any more than the parent can claim not paying is ok (it didn't). The details are all about the amounts, which methods are legal and which methods are of untested legality. I think parent's claim is that money is both more willingly and better spent elsewhere (perhaps regardless of legality).

Significant numbers of rich people/corporations use methods that are legal to reduce their taxes. Most people consider this wrong despite its legality (probably they also mistakenly believe it to be illegal - because journalism).

There's certainly an argument that this is - in part - a of problem for the creator of a complex tax system, who should respond by reducing complexity (increasing enforcement tends not to go well - complexity also hinders that). It also seems likely that the people who consider it morally wrong would do likewise if their tax bill were 100x larger (in Switzerland, it is not a criminal offence to make an incorrect tax declaration. Many non-rich Swiss compete with the tax office to lower their bill).

It also seems that you are saying laws are by definition correct. Many laws are not uniformly enforced and many laws are changed as a result of disobedience. Perhaps such people are indeed paying proportionally way too little now but perhaps their actions also affect positive change in future (more efficient system overall, but resource allocation, fewer unintended loopholes). This may not even be their intention, but it doesn't matter.

charlesdm6• 11 years ago

That's ridiculous (the second part, not the "donating money" part)

If you avoid taxes, you are following the law. No one should pay more than is required of him to pay. If you can structure certain transactions in different ways (e.g. 25% tax vs 50% tax), why would one choose the more expensive option?

If you evade taxes, yes, then you are stealing from everybody. That I do not condone. But, there is a clear difference.

VMG3• 11 years ago

You get certain things in exchange, like laws that protect your property.

With the important difference that the price is non-negotiable, and set by the service provider alone. The people highlighted on the website chose to park their property elsewhere, so the government had zero cost in protecting that.

The price is not in proportion to the quality of service at all, it's proportional to the income of the citizen. Which is consistent with what most people understand taxes to be: a wealth redistribution mechanism, rather than a service fee.

If you avoid taxes, you are stealing from everybody.

If all the people which avoid some taxes currently (basically every large corporation) close down operations in the US and move to a country with more favorable conditions, the theft (under your definition) would stop. Do you think the net gain would be positive?

easytiger4• 11 years ago

The problem is one i can sympathise with to some degree. For standard wage levels taxation (whilst still to much in UK) makes sense. Scale that up to millions and it really is out of wack. There is no moral reason why a government deserves 50% of everything you have made.

Its like when you order a more expensive bottle of wine, and the restaurant's service charge is a percentage of it... its ridiculous to charge $100 to open a bottle of wine.

vidarh4• 11 years ago

There is no moral reason why a government deserves 50% of everything you have made.

Why? Personally I think the marginal tax rate should be much higher on the highest earners, for the simple reason that the impact of exact additional percentage point tax is far lower for a higher earner. To me the actual percentage is irrelevant. The relative impact is far more important.

If I had to pay 1 percentage points more tax, I wouldn't notice. I spend more than that on comics and takeaways, and also set aside 15-20 times more than that in savings and investments.

If I had to pay 5 percentage points it would begin to sting a bit, but I could still easily afford it. 10 percentage points more would start to be painful but still doable.

In fact, while I'd be complaining and whining about it at that point, I could manage 50% tax quite easily (I actually pay about 32% combined income tax and national insurance, despite being far into the 40% income tax threshold, and earning enough to be in the top 10% UK earners or so)

Meanwhile I have neighbours that would have to cut down on their food budget if their tax rate went up 1%, despite paying at least 10 percentage points less than I do, and many people in the UK would struggle to keep modest accommodation and food if they paid more than 20%.

I don't find it at all unfair that I pay more than them, not least because the only reason I can make what I do is that there is a functioning society around me that can afford my services.

anigbrowl5• 11 years ago

Its like when you order a more expensive bottle of wine, and the restaurant's service charge is a percentage of it... its ridiculous to charge $100 to open a bottle of wine.

Chances are you would be perfectly happy if there were no service charges or tipping, but the prices were all increased by 18% (or whatever the service charge is), and the receipts distributed in identical fashion. When I'm in a restaurant I don't look at the service charge as something additional I pay, it's just information about the split between the restaurant owners and the employees. Admittedly this makes pre-calculating the bill more difficult, but if you're ordering $500 bottles of wine then chances are you're making enough money that that you don't care very much about the actual total amount.

I find it curious that you resent the wait staff getting a chunk of the cash you've decided to spend on a fancy meal/wine selection, even though you presumably have no problem with the restaurant owner making a similar profit.

agounaris• 11 years ago

It's those damn Greeks again who tax avoid...look at all those righteous Europeans honoring their obligations...

moonfern• 11 years ago

Presentation of data is hard/art. The obvious: Bahamas, $7B, population 320 000 versus US $13.4 Less obvious (I suppose) Israel (6) , $10B, pop 8,2 million and 6554 clients; Belgium (10), $6.3B, pop 11,1 million and 3002 clients India (16), $4.1B pop > 1200 million and 1668 clients

It's perhaps not a coincidence that those countries are active in the diamond trade. Perhaps it is. But that information is in the data.

arca_vorago• 11 years ago

Are all the "clients" listed as persons or are some of the corporations? I know for a fact that the Bahamas is used massively as an endpoint for many tax evasion schemes, going through shell company after shell company and ending up there, which is then spent there (which is why the Bahamian gov doesn't really do anything to stop it.)

stefantalpalaru• 11 years ago

No URL fragments, no party. It doesn't matter how fancy your js navigation is, if each view doesn't have its own URL that can be used to recreate it, it can't be bookmarked or shared.

giis• 11 years ago

The link doesn't disclose all names,only selected few are there. I hope they will disclose all soon.

andy_ppp• 11 years ago

A flat taxation system (with say the starting point for tax at £25,000) seems like a good plan?

I also think taxes on business and taxes on individuals should also be harmonised.

Add in a general tax avoidance rule and you are good to go.

ptaipale12• 11 years ago

What is a "general tax avoidance rule"?

Generally, tax evasion is a crime that can and should be prosecuted. Everyone agrees with that.

Tax avoidance, or tax planning, is in Wikipedia terms "the legal usage of the tax regime to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law."

So, tax avoidance is the kind of behaviour that is explicitly and clearly legal. Now someone wants to make a "rule", apparently to somehow punish for it?

Of course there are loopholes and quirks in any tax system, and people are exploiting them. Particularly the rich. But the solution is to close loopholes and make the tax system simpler and clearer, not have a "general tax avoidance rule" which I take to mean arbitrary confiscation and punishment according to political whims.

charlesdm6• 11 years ago

Often, the purpose of a GAAR is to stop people from setting up artificial arrangements just for the purpose to avoid tax.

Let's say you sell something in the UK, and then route the money around the world to make use of loopholes in the laws of various countries, only to have the profit end up in the UK again.

Transactions for business purposes are generally accepted.

charlesdm6• 11 years ago

That means shareholders will be taxed twice, once at the corporate level, and once at the individual level, leading to double taxation (unless a tax credit is given).

But, like you, I'm a big fan of a simple flat tax, with relatively little deductions.

JoshTriplett4• 11 years ago

As long as the flat tax applies to profit rather than revenue (for both individuals and companies), that wouldn't lead to double taxation. Salaries are an expense.

anonu• 11 years ago

The Lebanon aspect of this story has been under reported in my opinion. The guy who leaked these files was trying to sell them to the big Lebanese banks before he realized he wasn't going to profit from that. I bet he was chased out of the country and had no choice but to hand the files over to the French. But realistically, what would Lebanese banks benefit from purchasing stolen data? Nothing... If they had used the data it would have undermined their credibility... Something that many people in the region would be happy to see.

known• 11 years ago

How Hitler Defied The Bankers? http://open.salon.com/blog/gordon_wagner/2010/05/11/how_hitl...

shiven• 11 years ago

Now that was truly eye opening! Thanks for posting it.

ptaipale12• 11 years ago

That article has some rather strange claims, and there's more than a hint of the traditional anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. No point in starting to refute things point by point, but just to pick a few:

At that point the German government thwarted the international banking cartels by issuing its own money.

As if the Weimar Republic didn't have its own money, which it printed with lots of zeroes after a non-zero.

World Jewry responded by declaring a global boycott against Germany.

Oh, there's a declaration by World Jewry?

Hitler began a national credit program ... All these were paid for with money that no longer came from the private international bankers.

Except, of course, where money came by confiscating the property of racial and political enemies [edit] that happened to be bankers [/edit].

Under the National Socialists, Germany’s money wasn't backed by gold

That was no news, exactly. The Weimar Reichsmark wouldn't get you much gold, either.

drzaiusapelord• 11 years ago

Wow, this is a crazy article.

World Jewry responded by declaring a global boycott against Germany.

So we're using "World Jewry" in casual conversation now? Like that's a thing and it gave out declarations? Wow.

All these were paid for with money that no longer came from the private international bankers.

How many billions were generated by the nationalization of wealth from Jews and minorities? Killing people and taking their wealth shouldn't be applauded.

Germany even managed to restore foreign trade, despite the international bankers’ denial of foreign credit to Germany, and despite the global boycott by Jewish-owned industries.

Uh, it wasn't just Jews boycotting Hitler, it was a good chunk of the world. Turns out not everyone loves a sociopathic mass murderer who declares war on his neighbors.

Canadian researcher Dr. Henry Makow (who is Jewish himself)

Is this how we write now? We mention who and who isn't a Jew? Wow.

Please keep this pro-Hitler bullshit crap off HN, thanks pal. I find it amusing and unsurprising that the "OMG THE FED IS THE WORST THING EVER" crowd obsessed with Rand/Ron Paul also turn out to be historical revisionists and straight-up racists.

innguest5• 11 years ago

I find it amusing and unsurprising that the "OMG THE FED IS THE WORST THING EVER" crowd obsessed with Rand/Ron Paul also turn out to be historical revisionists and straight-up racists.

I don't think it's OK for you to generalize like that. Because one article exists on the internet, and is wrong about Hitler and the banks, therefore all Fed haters are racist?

When one makes generalization about the Jews they are roundly chided and rightly so. Consider yourself equally roundly chided. I hate the Fed (it's not an acronym). There's no reason to hate Jews as an ethnicity. The reason to hate the Fed is simple, they have a machine that prints money. Nothing to do with Jews, nothing to do with ethnicity. If the Fed wasn't run by people but only machines I'd still hate it, like I hate High Frequency Trading. Because HFT lied to us about bringing liquidity to the market even though it's not a person but a machine. A lot of people want to derail the discussion from money to race because it's easier. But this is to do only with money and no one wants to talk about it. That's the taboo. Money and machines should not mingle. Do Jews use currency? Yes. Then they are victims of the Fed like every other person is, that doesn't control that machine.

Oh, I also hate when things are passed off as Science when they aren't falsifiable, like Keynesian Economics. Mixing things with machines or formulae that shouldn't be mixed is scientificism. Fed haters want to talk about money but there's a group of people that keep derailing the conversation to non-money issues. You seem to be part of that despicable group. Why? Why worship the money machine? People like you really want for there to be a Science that can predict the future. Well guess what. No such thing.

Thiz• 11 years ago

Torrent?

There are more than 100.000 names in that list and plenty of people would like to know them all. All of them.

pacalleri• 11 years ago

Can someone clarify why is nobody publishing the complete list of names or the raw data files?

spikels• 11 years ago

A crappy website (iOS not recommended) is not nearly as useful as the actual data which might be really interesting.

Why are news organizations so often barriers to getting information? Please release the source documents.

myth_buster• 11 years ago

Ranked countries by the money per client. CSV: http://pastebin.com/jvkapPT4

justizin• 11 years ago

Wait, reading the wrong article. Thought this was about Swizz Beats.

Explore the Swiss Leaks Data

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