Thursday, October 29, 2009

Switzerland needs to apologise to Italy

From the AP:

"Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey summoned Italy's ambassador in Bern to explain why financial police's largely targeted Italian branches of Swiss banks Tuesday as part of their crackdown on cross-border tax evasion. . . Italian authorities had acted in a "discriminatory" fashion."

We've got a suggestion for Calmy-Rey. It would be more appropriate to summon Italy's ambassador, then prostrate yourself and beg forgiveness for the abusive behaviour of Swiss banks on Italian territory, for Swiss banks' roles in assisting rich Italians to get poor Italians to pay their taxes for them, for Swiss banks' handling of the proceds of crime, and for their general contempt for Italy. Then, perhaps, summon the German ambassador and do the same. Then the French ambassador.

Better still, a world tour.

5 Comments:

Anonymous web desiging said...

I would say the Switzerland is a very decent country i am doing some Web Designing projects from Switzerland.i have some close relations with the Swiss people and they are very kind and gentle people so hopefully Swiss should apologize on their mistake!

12:28 am  
Anonymous TJN said...

Indeed, Swiss people are usually lovely on a personal basis - polite, kind and all that, and a very significant portion of the Swiss population, in fact, is horrified by what the banks are doing. Unfortunately Swiss bankers have largely captured Swiss politics, and even though Calmy-Rey belongs to the Social Democratic Party, which is the most left-wing on the Swiss Federal Council and whose members are generally not supportive of bank secrecy, the tradition of "concordance" in Swiss politics means that she is obliged to represent the dominant position on these issues, and this position is dictated by Swiss bankers.

1:40 am  
Anonymous HenriqueV. said...

Bullshit! In fact Italy has a lot to thank from Switzerland. Your simplistic views are biased and limited, because you consider any tax system as legitimate and always economically sound. Italy, as many other countries, Germany including, has excessive taxation, no transparency and lots of waste. In fact, economically speaking, they destroy savings, promote corruption and state abuse, things you ignore. If any employer in Italy or, for that matter, almost anywhere else, follows the letter of law strictly, they will go bankrupt and economy as whole suffers. The typical evader pays lots of taxes (and not as you affirm, lets the poor ones to pay for it, instead many poorer people also evade taxes by not declaring revenues from services due. A plumber who does not declare revenues harms other plumbers more ) Typically they evade extra revenues (less than 10% of whole wealth) and bring the money back to their economy as investments. There are lots of studies about capital flight that can sustain this view. Worse of all, Italians have no say on the taxes they pay. They cannot choose how much taxes they pay and to which purpose they are taxed. The only choice they have is between two cleptocracies, one nominally from left, the other nominally from the right, who mismanage their savings. Of course you will be shocked by this view, you are a true believer that taxes are the way for a more just society, even if France, Italy or countries like Brazil have high tax rates and fare badly (in the case of Brazil, very badly) in social justice. It would be better if you would be less dogmatic and present your case with solid arguments and not with selective research

5:30 pm  
Blogger Unknown said...

i know a persons, they are husband(italian)and wife(asian), who lived for a long time together in northern italy. the husband is working in swiss company and the wife too.but the wife i think is working in black.
in fact the husband is paying a taxes there in swiss while living here in italy. they said they don't want to pay taxes here in italy because the taxes are so high.
then..only a past few months ago they change their home to switzerland.
they said the salary in switzerland is very good compare in italy, and the more important they paying a low taxes than in italy.
therefore in switzerland the cost of foods are more expensive, so they always going to italy to buy some foods.

3:31 pm  
Anonymous Argus said...

Tax and Justice..

I have been living in Italy for the last 8 years, tried to build up a company here since 2004. I must unfortunatelly conclude that due to governmental stimulus the Italian business has become an insignificant navelgazing bunch of liars and thieves. During the recent 'extra' recession, this is compensated by a rise in neo-fascism so gratefully people are becoming more defensive and hard so they don't have to feel the result of their own mistakes and semi-stylish indifference.

As HenriqueV said, i was unfortunatelly doing.. as a foreigner working on an international level, one cannot join the pathetic Italian game. Paying 65% in taxes is NOT efficient, no matter how hard every Italian thinks you're cheating and beating "the" system. While earning nearly a million euro's in 5 years, i couldn't even stop working for 1 month because of the pressure of taxes and other obligations. The Italian system is a wonderful design to keep out non-status quo, competition and any kind of innovation, with the problematic detail that in an international context this system collapses in on itself.. which may be the only solution for what is indeed a cleptocracy.

Thank God for Switzerland.

5:33 am  

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