Singapore plans to classify
tax evasion and abetting tax evasion as money-laundering predicate offences so
that the powers used to investigate and prosecute money laundering will be
available to seize the proceeds of tax crimes. Foreign jurisdictions may also make requests for legal assistance to pursue tax evaders and their proceeds. The proposals are out for consultation until 9 December and will become law in July 2013.
If you have Unreported Income from Switzerland, Singapore or Other Foreign Banks, contact the Tax Lawyers at Marini & Associates, P.A. for a FREE Tax Consultation at www.TaxAid.us orwww.TaxLaw.ms or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888 882-9243).Source:
Asian Investor
Singapore Business Times
Monetary Authority of Singapore
This is something I've mentioned as a risk. Five years ago I cited cases in which tax evasion was pursued on the basis of common-law fraud, money-laundering, and other extraditable crimes instead of a public-law offense that might fall under the so-called Lord Mansfield Rule (actually a dictum). http://works.bepress.com/andrew_grossman/1/ The Singapore consultation paper is here: http://www.mas.gov.sg/~/media/resource/publications/consult_papers/2012/9%20October%202012%20Designation%20of%20Tax%20Crimes%20as%20Money%20Laundering%20Predicate%20Offences%20in%20Singapore.pdf
ReplyDeleteThe proposals cited in the referenced Singapore legislation concern financial intermediaries, however, and not tax evaders themselves: "Any person who wilfully with intent to evade or to assist any other person to evade tax"
One wonders how far Singapore or any other government will go in regards US law which imposes tax ("Expatriation to avoid tax") on, for example, their own citizens who happen to have had a green card or long-term US residence and then abandoned it. Or who deny being a US citizen (because, for example, they were expatriated prior to 1986 and never took any action to reclaim it after the Supreme Court invalidated their expatriation.
To the extent that tax evasion is lumped with terrorism and drug-trafficking we are likely to see use and misuse of extradition treaties that were never thought, when ratified, to be relevant to income tax offenses. Already there is public clamor in the UK over perceived unfairness and one-sidedness of the UK-US treaty http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/britain-deals-blow-to-us-extradition-treaty/2012/10/16/39c123b8-1792-11e2-a346-f24efc680b8d_story.html Most objectionable, to UK lawyers, is the US practice of plea bargaining with the threat of multi-decade sentences being used to extract a guilty plea. And extradition to a foreign country when the crime, if it occurred, was committed in the UK.
I can envisage another source of grief: US states claiming income tax on the basis of domicile of a nonresident living abroad (a number of states make such claims) and using the threat of prosecution and extradition to extract payment. Mac Rich, though pardoned by Bill Clinton, remains civilly liable to the IRS and apparently civilly and criminally liable to New York State if their tax claims are pursued.
Posted by Andrew Grossman