August 2004 Archives

Treasury claims cash laundered in Belarus; Cyprus under suspicion

MINSK, BELARUS - Infobank, a privately owned bank in Belarus, denied U.S. charges it laundered funds for the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, saying it always followed international agreements "to the letter."

The U.S. Treasury said last week that Infobank "laundered funds for the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein that were derived from schemes to circumvent the United Nations oil-for-food program" and it moved to cut them off from the U.S. banking system.

By Jim Dickins -

THE Australian Tax Office will investigate hundreds of secret Swiss bank accounts and exotic tax havens this year in a blitz on offshore tax evasion.

The campaign could affect everyone from retirees earning income from a foreign pension to corporate criminals.

In the wake of scandal surrounding disgraced stockbroker Rene Rivkin's activities in Switzerland, the tax office will analyse transactions with accounts in that country, as well as Singapore, Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg.

By Mike Godfrey -

Republicans in the Californian State Assembly have succeeded in blocking a bill that would force offshore-based US firms to pay full state taxes.

The bill, sponsored by Democratic Assemblywoman Judy Chu, would prohibit expatriate companies with at least 80% of their assets in the United States from using existing tax breaks to reduce taxable income in California.

It has been reported that the measure would have prevented 18 offshore firms from reducing their tax bill in this way.

Designates Two Foreign Banks as "Primary Money Laundering Concerns"

In another step to protect the integrity of the U.S. financial system and identify rogue financial institutions, the U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated two foreign banks – First Merchant Bank of the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" ("TRNC") and Infobank of Belarus – as financial institutions of "primary money laundering concern," pursuant to Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act.

"We continue to use our authority under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act to protect the U.S. financial system from corrupt financial institutions such as these," said Stuart Levey, Treasury's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. "Today's designation alerts the global financial community of the threat posed by these entities. It also serves notice to others that there will be significant consequences for institutions that launder tainted money or engage in similar corruption: we will cut you off from the U.S financial system."

By Lilla Zuill -

A bill from 'Golden State' legislators that aimed to make companies that move offshore to so-called 'tax havens', including Bermuda, pay full California taxes was narrowly shot down last Thursday. But it could come up again this week.

Democratic assemblywoman Judy Chu put forward the bill but it was rejected on a 48-26 roll call. It needed a mere six votes more to pass.

By Mark William -

LAST week I attended an investment market seminar at the GrandWest Casino. The venue was very appropriate, considering the current uncertainty in world markets.

The odds of picking the top performing investment over the next 12 months are similar to those offered by a roulette table. In roulette, gamblers must decide on a number out of 35 on which the little white ball is likely to come to rest. They can either place all their bets on one number, or spread their bets across a range of numbers. By spreading the bets, they increase their chances of winning, but decrease the potential pay-out.

By Bill Cara for the Trader Wizard -

In the first three parts of this series, I organized the 34 Brazilian stocks that trade on the New York Stock Exchange, first in order of their market capitalization, then in their industry sector group. Then I gave you some brief comments to say that the stock cycle in Brazil was topping out as in New York.

Since then, crude oil prices have risen sharply to $47 so the commodity price sensitive Brazilian market has continued to rally. The market has gone higher, higher and higher. I am now waiting for a sharp correction, linked to a pullback in the Brazilian Real versus the U.S. Dollar. Put options are favored at this point.

By Phillip Morton -

Whilst optimistic on growth and performance prospects, many European hedge fund managers remain concerned over regulatory issues surrounding the industry in the region, according to a new report.

The report by research firm Datamonitor, found that around 39% of wealth managers in Europe cite regulatory issues as a likely obstacle to hedge fund investment in the next couple of years.

By Jeff Fleischer -

Since the 2000 presidential election, both parties have stressed the notion that every vote counts. As a result, get-out-the-vote efforts have stretched beyond America’s borders, targeting U.S. citizens living overseas.

Reaching out to expatriate voters is an inexact science. Without census data, the number of American citizens living overseas is estimated anywhere from four million to ten million. While the largest ex-pat communities reside in Mexico, Canada and Great Britain, there are no hard statistics about the expat population’s demographic breakdown or how many are eligible to vote.

By Lee Walczak and Richard S. Dunham -

The notion of replacing the current code with a national sales tax is worth a hard look, the President says

Normally, "Ask President Bush" campaign events are rather sedate affairs, thanks to the White House advance staff's skill at packing the hall with GOP partisans who coo and boo on command. But a spark of the unexpected rippled across the room on Aug. 10, when the President journeyed to Niceville, Fla., for some nice give-and-take with a nice crowd of nice Republican-type people.

By Matthew Cella -

The failed effort to put a $500 million gambling hall in Northeast was the latest setback for an offshore firm whose associates have been unsuccessfully pushing gambling ventures nationwide in the past year.

The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics ruled Thursday that backers of an initiative supporting the proposed casino had legally collected only 14,587 of the 17,599 signatures needed to put the issue on the Nov. 2 ballot.

By Amanda Banks -

The leading global multi-media news agency, Reuters, is to enter into a mutual information-sharing relationship with the Bahamas International Securities Exchange.

According to a BISX statement, Reuters has recently made the decision to firmly establish and broaden its presence in the Bahamas through the provision of various financial and news media data services. Therefore, as part of this local business drive, the news agency has decided to work closely with BISX to acquire its market data and to disseminate it throughout the world.

Financialwire.net via COMTEX -- Dave Patch, the founder of InvestigatetheSEC.com, has become increasingly frustrated at what appears to be a growing state of confusion between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the NASD over the status of the NASD's proposals to squelch illegal naked short selling.

StockGate has not only confused most within the industry, due to the roots and tentacles running widely through every aspect of the financial community, it has also cost hundreds of thousands of investors millions of dollars, hundreds of companies their market cap and ability to raise money and embroiled dozens of broker-dealers and market makers such as Bank of America's (BAC) Banc of America Securities LLC, A.G. Edwards, Inc. (AGE), Ameritrade Holding Corp. (AMTD), and Deutsche Bank AG (DB).

By Raul Diaz -

GIBRALTAR - For 300 years, the people on this rock at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula — Spanish, Portuguese, Italians and some Britons — have been subjects of a monarch in London.

Colonies the world over have shrugged off faraway masters, but on Wednesday the people of Gibraltar made clear they like things as they are, celebrating the anniversary of British rule in a festive linking of hands.

The annoyance of neighboring Spain appeared to be of less concern than the benefits of life in a sunny, laid-back Mediterranean tax haven.

By Andy Vuong -

A federal judge has granted the Internal Revenue Service the right to seek information from First Data Corp. about certain credit-card transactions the company has processed.

The IRS wants the information as part of its crackdown on tax evaders.

Specifically, the IRS wants information about holders of American Express, Visa and MasterCard credit cards that were issued by or on behalf of certain offshore financial institutions.

AMSTERDAM — As the US Democratic party gathers for its convention in Boston, Diana Kerry, the sister of presidential nominee John Kerry, has launched a website she claims will "revolutionise" the system of registration and absentee ballot requests for US citizens living abroad.

Diana Kerry — chair of Americans Overseas for Kerry (AOK) — claimed the site, OverseasVote2004.com, will help the group register several thousand more votes before the election.

"OverseasVote2004.com will launch in time for US citizens living overseas who have never voted or not voted in decades to meet the September 15th deadline to register to vote and request their absentee ballots," said Kerry, who has lived outside the US for most of her life.

In a bizarre version of the offshore tax haven, Germany has revived the idea of camps for refugees heading for Europe to be set up outside the territory of the Union.

The suggestion originally came from Britain last year but was alleged by the United Nations to be illegal. Describing the camps as “safe zones”, Germany’s interior minister, Otto Schilly, said such centres would enable ships containing refugees to be diverted before they reached the shores of the European Union.

A commission spokesman was quick to pass the parcel to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, whose area of responsibility he claimed it was. Diedrik Kramer, spokesman for the UNCHR, said that the main objection was that the members of the EU have signed the Geneva Convention that binds them to offer asylum, “so it would be a very bad example if European countries started saying ‘Well, we won’t apply the convention in our part of the world. Let’s have that done in another part of the world’.”