Friday, October 29, 2010

Standard bank says it does not encourage tax evasion

Tineyi Mawocha, Managing Director of Standard Bank in Swaziland, is encouraging wealthy locals to put their money offshore.

"Being a user of such a service myself, I highly recommend it because you’re also able to transfer money without any tax regulations involved as you would have already complied with these in your home country.

Is that so? Would you necessarily continue to comply, once your money was offshore, and in secret? And the secrecy is definitely there, as another Standard Bank official, Richard Bray, stresses:

"He said there were many reasons why people should consider offshore financial services, including the security and confidentiality which the premier offshore jurisdictions offered. “We do not share client information with say the South African Revenue Services (SARS). However, we do not encourage tax evasion."

So these bankers are encouraging people to move their money offshore, reassuring them about security and confidentiality and the fact that they won't let the tax authorities know what their money is up to - and then saying they do not encourage tax evasion?

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