Smokey Diamond, our intrepid reporter, came back from her visit to the bank angered and dismayed today. Smokey has been working on a series of monoprints, which she calls paw-prints, and hopes to sell them at the local galleries and arts festivals. She recently learned that she will have to pay income tax on profits exceeding $400. It’s not the tax that bothers her, but the fact that she will need to fill out another 20 or 30 forms, and if she should make a mistake the IRS will certainly call.
Smokey learned by reading the CDT that the private Swiss Bank HSBC had helped some 100,000 people with assets totally more than 100 billion dollars avoid taxes and launder money. Many of the world’s leading dictators, arms dealers and power brokers are on the list. Armed with that story, Smokey asked at our local branch if she might speak to the vice-president for money laundering and tax evasion, only to be told that our bank had no such position.
Smokey, who is inclined to think of the have and have-nots as occupying two different worlds in any event, could only sputter, “Not only can the rich now get away with murder, but they can also write off the cost of their hired killers on their tax returns.”
In its defense, HSBC spokesperson, Blode Diamod, said, “This is ancient history—nearly 8 years have passed since we inadvertently overhelped our clients. We have since put new rules in place that may possibly prevent us from doing this sort of this again. Moreover, these rules will certainly make sure we are never detected again, which is pretty much the same thing.”