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Low Tax Haven Jurisdictions Under Scrutiny

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Submitted by Not Taken
Tony Merchant, top Canadian lawyer and his family among those leaked on offshore list
Tony Merchant, top Canadian lawyer and his family among those leaked on offshore list

Unlike the mainstream media in Barbados which seems disinclined to report on the financial shenanigans of its politicians/public figures (except the $75,000.00 cheque), the media in Canada has no such hesitation, as seen at the attached link (see related articles) to CBC website.  Other major media in Canada are running with the story. While 38 media outlets around the world are probing the data leaks reported in the material reported in Canada by CBC, I do not expect to read about it in the Barbados papers

While Barbados does not figure prominently in this and related CBC articles, I think Barbados authorities should be concerned. Barbados is the third largest recipient of Canadian outward Foreign Direct Investment, after the USA and the UK; with the principal industry being “financial services”, which I expect is mainly in “offshore” accounts. Canadians are believed to to be the largest depositors in Barbados offshore bank accounts. It may well be the case that all of those a legal.

Notwithstanding, with the spotlight being shone on the issue of  “offshore accounts” and “tax havens”, and Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s pledge in last week’s budget the government will bolster its efforts to fight offshore tax evasion, including launching a new whistleblower line that pays rewards for tips, improving compliance programs and demanding more information on certain financial transactions; it seems likely that some Canadians “investors” will choose to repatriate their foreign direct investments to Canada rather than face the scrutiny for Canada Revenue Agency

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74 responses to “Low Tax Haven Jurisdictions Under Scrutiny”

  1. David Avatar
    David

  2. Crusoe Avatar
    Crusoe

    David,

    Information is that in the past couple of weeks, a Canadian film crew has been in seeking to interview local people connected with international business, doing a story on the Canadian interests here.

    Obviously, they are unlikely to get any takers, not because there is anything to hide, but because with editing, whatever one says can be twisted.

    On a connected point, why do you think the Canadian Revenue people are so interested in getting tax money?

    The Canadian economy in the past few years has been bolstered by consumer debt, the chicken is coming to roost and the Canadian government is trying to get tax revenue to soften the landing.

    THAT is the real reason. Wealthy people have investments all over the world and this revenue thing is just a football.

    The problem is, one always has to find a scapegoat for a flagging economy, just as the North Korean nutcase, on his economy falling apart, has to blame someone to deflect his own people from his inadequacy and the failure of the North Korean economy.

    The thing is, Canada is generally a decent economy, export oriented, but the US and other trading nations are not importing as much, thus the Canadian economy is feeling the effects. Also, when the recession began, consumer debt was low, now it is astronomical.

    Hence, you will see a flagging Canadian economy over the next three years.

    Let us hope in their quest to grab tax money they do not kill the golden goose.

  3. Crusoe Avatar
    Crusoe

    http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21574481-disappointing-exports-stalled-investment-and-fiscal-austerity-leave-overstretched-consumer

  4. David Avatar
    David

    @Crusoe

    Please explain to the lowly BU household if Barbados has TIEAs in position what is the problem?

  5. Crusoe Avatar
    Crusoe

    @David,

    Firstly, the BU household is not lowly and I am not ‘highly’ 😀

    The thing is, going back to the primary issue, to my knowledge in simple terms, Canadian tax legislation allows Canadian companies to invest overseas, such as in Barbados (and other countries), for the purposes of international trade at beneficial tax rates, depending on structure, thus assisting Canadian owned entities to be competitive internationally.

    This legislation is supported by Barbados’s own legislation, allowing international business companies competitive tax rates to encourage them to operate here. And yes, competitive because Bermuda, Bahamas, Lichtenstein etc have been doing this for years. Vermont and Delaware are also heavily into this, allegedly in Delaware, with a simple suitcase of cash and little else, you will be able to set up a ‘company’.

    The Canadian ability to set up here is a given and is simply what the Canadian tax legislation allows, albeit it seemed originally intended mainly for research and development.

    Now, it has been argued that some individuals and entities have used the legislation to their advantage, but really are not operating a company here, but a shell and are thus merely window dressing their activity, to ‘seem’ to allow them to take advantage of the legislation, but no do ‘activity’ per se.

    If that is the case…for those companies, the Canadian authorities have a case…for those companies.

    However, there are other operations that fully comply and run their business out of Barbados, fully staffed and in accordance with the Canadian legislation.

    To paint those companies operating from here, with the same brush, would be both against the available legislation and simply, wrong in principle, they are not the same.

    With those facts stated, now to the ‘popular factors’.

    As per the OCED attacks in the past few years, the large governments see the use of tax legislation internationally as having being used to arbitrage individuals and entities tax charges and liabilities, thus minimizing the tax paid into those countries.

    Although this would easily have been foreseen at the time of the creation of legislation, tax dollars have become more valuable in times of shrinking tax revenues and expanding fiscal deficits.

    That has obviously attracted attention of the governments who seek to claw back or create additional revenues.

    Also, the ‘rich man avoiding tax’ is obviously an easy football and fodder for newspapers and the ‘average man in the street’.

    So, we have now rising a ‘populist movement’ geared at attacking jurisdictions with competitive tax rates.

    That is the current scenario and not a healthy one.

    I have a question, should all products, wherever produced, be priced the same? Should corn flakes and televisions wherever produced, be priced at the same rate internationally? Should lawyer fees be priced the same in every jurisdiction?

    In principle, by arguing for standardized tax rates, that is what the OECD is saying, because taxation is part and parcel of international trade and fairly open to competitive action. By taking a position of equivalence, then all international trade should also be equivalent.

    That said, back to the tax ‘avoidance’. Yes, there will be some who will be caught by anti avoidance action. But, remember these people are residents and owners of firms in their native country.

    By hammering them, one may collect funds for the government treasury in those native countries, BUT government does not run business nor invest i.e. by cutting into those who do, one will merely cut into the ability of those individuals and entities to invest and create business and at a time when recession is already upon you.

    Unfortunately, that is no consolation to Barbados and we must push the real issue, that we are a competitive centre for international business, not a ‘tax haven’.

    There is a distinct difference.

  6. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    Dog bite it Crusoe…

    …if you ain’t a teacher you short hanging this world….

  7. Crusoe Avatar
    Crusoe

    @Bushie,

    Ha. You give me too much credit…. thanks anyway.. 😀

  8. David Avatar
    David

    @Crusoe

    Appreciated!

    It seems such as you have described some ‘inspectorate’ system needs to be implemented to filter the shells. Not in an unrelated matter FATCHA is being implemented. It seems the good days of free flow of North South capital is over.

  9. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    The media cannot publish the names of companies who honestly do business in these jurisdictions, they can only publish the names of the shell companies who are hiding tax money. the government would do well to make sure companies are actually doing business and are not just a set up (shell) hiding tax dollars from their countries. Government must do it’s due diligence so as not to lose the businesses currently operating and employing people.

  10. Buy Low Avatar
    Buy Low

    There are riches beyond riches right here in Barbados thanks to one such Canadian company. When the pretend-Bajan Melnyk was found guilty and fined but not jailed for of being on the wrong side of Canadian and US securities regulators, he was forced out of the company Biovail which then merged with Montreal based Valeant. Valeant shortly thereafter set up in a brand new seaside headquarters building near Oistins. Smart money investors who bought Valeant stock on April 4, 2009 at US 10.75/share which is on April 4, 2013 nearly US 75.00/share have a nice tidy profit. Much better return than say the worthless (all) Banks Holdings, Almond, or GEMS. All that glitters is not gold with Canadian businesses who domicile here, but there sure is some shine to some of them. And good or bad, they all spend money. The sword of Damocles threatens both tourism and off shore investment in Barbados. Yet it seems as if we want to bite any hand that feeds.

  11. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    Don’t see what the small economies can do to restrain Revenue Canada from hauling in tax evaders. I registered a company in Canada and within two months got my tax forms………..did not even start doing business yet. So the politicians in the Caribbean need to start using brain power and see that every country is in self-preservation mode and act accordingly……….that is what they are being paid for.

    When large countries lose tax dollars it is in the billions.

  12. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    Financial Secrecy Index

    2011 Results
    1 Switzerland
    2 Cayman Islands
    3 Luxembourg
    4 Hong Kong
    5 USA
    6 Singapore
    7 Jersey
    8 Japan
    9 Germany
    10 Bahrain
    11 British Virgin Islands
    12 Bermuda

    http://www.financialsecrecyindex.com/2011results.html

  13. Kiki Avatar
    Kiki

    BU/Bajans can wash money for anyone for a cut

  14. David Avatar
    David

    @Buy Low

    There is obviously a shift in the way offshore business will get done in domicles like ours now and in the future. The thing is how is/will Barbados respond(ing0 to optimally position itself.

  15. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    Caribbean Go-Between Provided Shelter for Far-Away Frauds, Documents Show

    In early 2008, lawyers working for a London-based hedge fund scrambled to prove that their client had been the victim of a corporate heist.

    A gang of mobsters, the lawyers believed, had quietly transferred ownership of three Russian businesses belonging to the hedge fund to a secrecy-cloaked company in the Caribbean.

    The offshore company had been established by Commonwealth Trust Limited, a firm in the British Virgin Islands that sets up overseas companies and trusts for clients around the world.

    Lawyers for the hedge fund’s owner, Hermitage Capital Management Limited, contacted CTL and demanded answers.

    Who, they wanted to know, was behind the mystery company?

    But there was a problem: CTL had no idea.

    As far as CTL knew, the owners were two unlikely characters from a small Russian city near the Black Sea — a vocational instructor and a 70-year-old pensioner
    http://www.icij.org/offshore/caribbean-go-between-provided-shelter-far-away-frauds-documents-show

  16. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    Meet the Queen of Nevis

    British woman living on goat-tramped Caribbean outcropping listed as director for more than 1,200 companies.

    At the age of 38, Bradford-born Sarah Petre-Mears is running one of the biggest business empires on earth. Or so it would appear.

    Official records show her controlling more than 1,200 companies across the Caribbean, the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand and the UK itself. Her business partner, Edward Petre-Mears, is listed as a director of at least another 1,100 international firms.

    But the true location of this major businesswoman is mysterious.

    The UK companies register lists 12 different addresses for her, several in London. But none are real homes: several are Post Office boxes, collecting mail for hundreds of different locations, while others merely house the offices of incorporation agencies.

    Only one listed address, a cottage on Sark, seems genuinely residential. Sark is a remote self-governing tax haven in the Channel Isles, a 9-mile ferry-ride off Guernsey.

    Sark indeed turns out to have once been the Petre-Mearses’ family home. But inquiries reveal that the Petre-Mearses left town more than a decade ago. Neighbours and schoolmates in the local offshore financial industry all scattered across the globe, and the couple moved on.
    http://www.icij.org/offshore/sarah-petre-mears-queen-nevis

  17. David Weekes Avatar
    David Weekes

    In 1996 I recall going into the Corporate Affairs Department and giving them a schema that would profile all of the stakeholders within the (non-homogeneous) grouping of established and emerging business entities (EEBs)

    The EEBVR would also catalogue all required operational activities of EEBs and among several other functions, ensure compliance and effective and efficient monitoring of the sector.

    In simple talk, if you registered your company, in addition to providing standard director profiles, company addresses and that base data that CAIPO mines via Forms 3, 4 etc., the system would securely integrate (currently) independent, yet related activities of specific government agencies e.g. how many women are working, is the employer paying NIS you know, things that employees only find out when the boss has fired them and they apply for benefits.

    So for any given company enrolled at the “enhanced” CAIPO various data would be queryable and the Ministry of Finance or other regulatory agency could easily ascertain if a company is compliant or just a shell corporation.

    In fact, the system would auto flag when International Business Company X, which applied for and was granted some tax exemption status, is still employing or has ever employed y people!!

    That was 1996 and we are, in 2013, still conducting manual labour force surveys and conducting manual censii that are 3 years late.

  18. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    ‘Fatal Blow’ Against Sham Corporate Directors Not So Fatal After All

    UK’s crackdown on Channel island ‘Sark Lark’ simply scattered key players to other tax havens.

    Many Britons who make a living from ‘the signing’ as they call it, originate from the tiny Channel island of Sark, a notorious British tax haven. Following scandals a decade ago about the “Sark Lark,” the group scattered, often setting up residence in far-flung jurisdictions such as Cyprus, Dubai, Vanuatu, Mauritius, or Nevis in the Caribbean. Many still keep in touch on Facebook.

    http://www.icij.org/offshore/nominee-directors

  19. Not Taken Avatar
    Not Taken

    @ Buy Low
    The point of the original post was to bring to the attention of the BU readership, and by extension, to Barbados authorities the accelerating movement to crack down on the evaders and avoiders using “shell” companies. And while giving credit where credit is due, do not forget Canadian Paul Doyle, who employs hundreds of people at The Crane; which gives Barbados tourism positive global exposure through various media, including Trip Advisor etc.

    @ Well Well
    You are correct.
    “Government must do it’s due diligence so as not to lose the businesses currently operating and employing people.”
    Like Harlequin/Merricks?

  20. Kiki Avatar
    Kiki

    Reporting V Customer Privilege
    Full banking/business disclosures should be made to deem eligibility of business and investing schemes and scams

  21. Not Taken Avatar
    Not Taken

    See Globe and Mail article ” Whistleblowers in line for rewards as Ottawa cracks down on tax cheats”

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/budget/whistleblowers-in-line-for-rewards-as-ottawa-cracks-down-on-tax-cheats/article10083229/

    When the word of this rewards program gets out, it won’t be long before sound of whistles will be heard in the streets of Barbados as some lawyers and tax “consultants” in Barbados line up for the rewards.

  22. David Avatar
    David

    @David Weekes

    Have you tried reaching out to one of the movers in the sector like Trevor Carmichael.

  23. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ David
    …don’t mek joke!!!
    You understand what that man Weekes want to do…?
    Wunna serious?!!!

    That would expose all the interlocking directorships, all the secret ownership held through companies, all the lawyers who own things that they would prefer not to be public knowledge; all the doctors who own hospitals, medical labs, drug stores, etc…..
    ….all the husbands and wives who have assets hidden from prying eyes….
    …and then the politicians….. LORD HAVIS MERCY!!!!
    …why he feel Arthur and them pass that new Company’s Act in the first place….for transparency…?

    Shiite man, next thing he want is to list the shareholders…..

    Wunna Davids like wunna mad yuh!!!

  24. David Avatar
    David

    @Bushie

    The not too subtle point made to David W is that his proposal will never be implemented if a Trevor Carmichael is not onbobard. It is what is it, it is what it is:-).

  25. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    Are you saying that there is a lawyer in Barbados that would publicly champion such a cause?
    LOL
    ….not even Amused! 🙂

  26. Not Taken Avatar
    Not Taken

    @ David
    Do you mean SENATOR Tevor Carmichael?
    Now dat he in de Upper Chamber he can mek it happen

  27. David Avatar
    David

    @NoT Taken

    Yes but why would he want to?

  28. Not Taken Avatar
    Not Taken

    @Buy Low

    From recent Globe and Mail article

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/how-valeant-became-canadas-hottest-stock/article8889241/?page=2

    As Valeant was struggling to redefine itself, Biovail was heading into its own crisis. Entrepreneur Eugene Melnyk had turned the fledgling company into a success by applying its patented time-release technology to create once-daily formulations of popular drugs that previously had to be taken multiple times a day. Biovail’s first hit was Tiazac, an angina treatment approved by the FDA in 1995. It helped make Melnyk a jet-setting billionaire, with racehorses and a spread in Barbados.

    In fact, merging with a non-American drug company—or more precisely, engineering a reverse takeover whereby Valeant would be folded into the foreign entity but retain Pearson and his plan—“was certainly a key part of the strategy,” says Ingram. Freed from the limits of the U.S. taxation regime, a foreign-based Valeant would be able to take advantage of the more flexible and tax-lowering rules in a country like Canada that allowed companies to move their intellectual property and profit centres to low-tax jurisdictions and then repatriate their profits without further taxation. Biovail had practically made an art form out of this practice, using a Barbados-domiciled subsidiary to cut its taxes.

    Once you have read the full article you may want to Sell High and get out

  29. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    From what I understand Carmichael’s firm has the monopoly on these off shore companies, does anyone think he will be honest enough to give a list of shell companies to the authorities?

  30. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    David Weekes’ ideas certainly are revolutionary……….talk about swift change if any of them are implemented.

  31. David Weekes Avatar
    David Weekes

    @ Bush Tea

    Smiling at your remark.

    You are so very correct about what the outputs of a system such as this will do, on-the-fly, it shows all of the (incestuous) relationships that these paper based files only reveal post careful interrogation (hyphenated names, maiden name, sister-in-law and all of the cross pollination currently being employed so effectively.

    I blame the international funding agencies though.

    When these same entities fund these local ICT projects with government entities, it becomes apparent that the system requirement specifications (SRSes) that they MUST adhere to in their respective developed capitals/countries, SRSes which must meet all of the ISO requirements, compliances re data security, encryption, anti-trusts observances, Intellectual Property protection and anti-corruption monitoring mechanisms, they conveniently let them slide when they fund regional initiatives.

    We are what we are, what we are.

  32. Not Taken Avatar
    Not Taken

    This is from a 2003 Globe & Mail article at,

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/lure-of-tax-havens-proving-irresistible/article1016908/

    Between 1988 and 2001, the amount Canadians invested in tax haven countries has jumped almost tenfold. The countries of choice are the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Cayman Islands and Panama.

    Barbados was at the top of the list with $23.3 billion in 2001, up from $628 million in 1998

    April 5, 2013 Globe and Mail article shows Barbados at the top of list in 2011 again, with $53.3 billion. The next highest is Cayman Islands at $25.8 billion.

    In 2003, the Canadian government had a budget surplus of about $10 billion, and was paying down its debt. Paul Martin, whose family’s Canada Steamship Lines was domiciled in Barbados, became Prime Minister in December 2003. No need to pursue tax-havens in those days to ensure everyone paid their fair share.

    In 2013, the Canadian government has a budget deficit of $18.7 billion.

    Now it needs to find money wherever it can – including from cheaters who are not paying their fair share – and that could include those with money stashed in “tax-havens”.

    Whether Barbados is in fact a “tax-haven” is open to question. It is certainly a low tax domicile for Canadian “investors”; if not for regular Bajan folks. The point is that Barbados is being branded as a “tax-haven”.

    Being at the top of the list it will be at the centre of the target in Canada’s new measures in a program called Stop International Tax Evasion, designed to ensure that all taxpayers contribute their fair share to government coffers.

    Barbados be prepared

  33. David Avatar
    David

    @Not Taken

    If Barbados is the biggest target read attracting the most money, it stands to reason Revenue Canada will be all eyes 13 degrees North.

  34. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    Before the can begin to expose the shell companies on the island, there will have to be a local clean up, people are taking corruption very seriously worldwide. See articles:

    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/bloomberg-public-rise-fight-wave-corruption-article-1.1308549

    http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/fundamentally-lousy-article-1.130814

  35. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    Glitch in second link……………will try sending again.

  36. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    Fundamentally lousy
    New York’s top elected leaders are shamefully enabling rampant corruption
    Comments (4)
    NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
    Published: Friday, April 5, 2013, 4:05 AM
    Updated: Friday, April 5, 2013, 4:05 AM

    27

    10

    0

    Print
    State Sen. Malcolm Smith’s loss of the majority leader post was “the collapse of his soul,” the former aide said.
    Adrees Latif/REUTERS

    State Sen. Malcolm Smith, a Democrat, was charged with conspiring to bribe GOP leaders to help him get on the Republican mayoral ballot.
    Related Stories

    Death by a thousand cuts
    The kids be damned
    Hammond: On ethics, don’t trust but do verify
    Oh, what a year it’s going to be

    Powered by Inform

    Judging by his resigned acceptance of political corruption in New York, Gov. Cuomo is being swallowed by the dark side. He chalked up state Sen. Malcolm Smith’s plot to buy a spot on the mayoral election ballot to the ebb and flow of inevitable personal frailties.

    “People do stupid things, frankly. People do illegal things. People in power abuse power. It’s part of the human condition,” the governor said, employing a cliche to divert attention from the seamy truth that surrounds him.

    It’s the Albany condition. It’s the New York City condition. It’s the New York State condition.

    RELATED: SEN. IN BRIBE CASE DESPERATE FOR POWER: EX-AIDE

    The arrest Thursday of Bronx Assemblyman Eric Stevenson in a naked bribery case, in which fellow Bronx Assemblyman Nelson Castro wore a wire after secretly taking his own criminal fall, brought to 40 the number of state or city officeholders convicted, arrested, penalized or booted for serious wrongdoing since 2003.
    In the second political corruption case in less than a week, Bronx Democratic Assemblyman Eric Stevenson was arrested for taking $20,000 in bribes.
    BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS
    In the second political corruption case in less than a week, Bronx Democratic Assemblyman Eric Stevenson was arrested for taking $20,000 in bribes.

    On tape, Stevenson declared:

    “Bottom line . . . if half the people up here in Albany were ever caught for what they do . . . they . . . would probably be (in jail). So who are they bulls—-ing?”

    RELATED: ASSEMBLYMAN ERIC STEVENSON ARRESTED IN BRIBERY PLOT

    His words were a variation on the theme enunciated on tape by Queens City Councilman Dan Halloran, who was busted in the Smith case.

    “That’s politics, that’s politics, it’s all about how much, not about whether or will, it’s about how much, and that’s our politicians in New York, they’re all like that, all like that,” Halloran allegedly said, adding: “You can’t get anything without the f–king money.”
    Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver earns fees working with a trial lawyers firm while protecting the legislative interests of trial lawyers.
    Pennink/AP
    Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver earns fees working with a trial lawyers firm while protecting the legislative interests of trial lawyers.

    New York is ruled by a criminal class whose motto is, “Where’s mine?” and whose members expect the answer in cash. They betray the public trust because they harbor cancered souls and because to be elected in New York is to plunge into a culture where power begets money begets power begets cynicism begets an outstretched hand.

    RELATED: NELSON CASTO’S PAST CRIMES PREPPED HIM FOR POLITICS

    Hey, if Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver can legally earn fees working with a trial lawyers firm while protecting the legislative interests of trial lawyers, why should Stevenson think twice about getting paid for doing the bidding of businessmen who run a senior citizens day care center?

    Hey, if Mayor Bloomberg can legally pour $400,000 into the Independence Party, plus $650,000 into causes beloved by the party’s cultlike leaders, after they gave him their ballot line, why should Smith shy from paying off Republican Party leaders for essentially the same favor?

    The respected and the rotten go hand-in-hand.
    Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos leads his members to sell out principles to public employee unions and other deep-pocketed interests.
    Lori Van Buren / Times Union
    Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos leads his members to sell out principles to public employee unions and other deep-pocketed interests.

    RELATED: SCANDALIZED STEVENSON WORKED IN CHRISTINE QUINN’S OFFICE

    Silver has lowered the Assembly into a house worthy of a banana republic. Operating almost entirely behind closed doors, he demands dronelike fealty from his Democratic majority.

    They vote with him, their paychecks get bigger and they get to deliver taxpayer-funded pork to their districts. He’ll also conceal their offenses when they run into trouble. They break ranks, their incomes fall and their districts starve. In organized crime, this would be called extortion. In Albany, it’s called the system.

    State Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos has practiced the same boss rule — leading his members to sell out principles to public employee unions and other deep-pocketed interests.

    RELATED: NELSON CASTRO’S REVELATION SHOCKS STATE POLS
    City Council Speaker Christine Quinn doles out more than a half-billion annually to members who stand with her — and has withheld funding from members who cross her.
    James Keivom/New York Daily News
    City Council Speaker Christine Quinn doles out more than a half-billion annually to members who stand with her — and has withheld funding from members who cross her.

    It was Skelos who cut a deal with Pedro Espada in the notorious Senate coup of 2009. It was Skelos who served obediently under former Majority Leader Joe Bruno, saying nothing as Bruno enriched himself with “consulting fees” from favor seekers.

    Silver and Skelos are now Cuomo’s partners in governing. After vowing to clean up Albany, the governor set aside a threat to establish a powerful anti-corruption investigating panel, caved to creation of a hogtied Joint Commission on Public Integrity — which has done virtually nothing — and retreated into the backrooms with Silver and Skelos.

    Casting transparency to the wind, the governor has demonstrated that the private deal is the foundation of public business. He takes consolation in having secured on-time budgets and legislative accomplishments, but he did no one a favor by describing his working group as “the best legislative body in the nation.”

    RELATED: BIG APPLE AT CORE OF NEW YORK’S POLITICAL ROT

    Here in the city, Council Speaker Christine Quinn enforces her authority with money — more than a half-billion doled out annually to members who stand with her. She also has withheld funding if a member has so much as issued an unauthorized press release that omitted Quinn’s name.
    While in the City Council, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio also dipped into the slush fund and doled out more than $7 million.
    Anthony DelMundo/New York Daily News
    While in the City Council, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio also dipped into the slush fund and doled out more than $7 million.

    Public Advocate Bill De Blasio , who slams Quinn over the so-called member item system as the two vie for mayor, dipped into the slush fund while in the Council. He doled out more than $7 million. He funneled $439,000 to six groups and reaped $90,000 in campaign contributions from people associated with the organizations.

    Controller John Liu presided over a campaign that used straw donors to get public funding from the Campaign Finance Board.

    RELATED: BILL DE BLASIO, CHRISTINE QUINN BUTT HEADS OVER COUNCIL PORK

    Currying favor with the Republican leaders allegedly bribed by Smith, billionaire Republican mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis poured more than $100,000 into the city’s GOP.

    Catsimatidis also hired Queens Republican Vice Chairman Vincent Tabone as a $100,000-a-year counsel for his supermarket firm. Tabone is charged with taking $25,000 in Smith’s plot.

    Announcing Stevenson’s arrest, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “The people of New York should be more than just disappointed. They should be angry. . . . When it is more likely for a New York state senator to be arrested by the authorities than to be defeated at the polls, they should be angry.”

    The fury should extend far beyond those led away in handcuffs, to those who created the climate for the handcuffing.

    Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/fundamentally-l
    article-1.1308145#ixzz2PcCE7tsS

    Fundamentally lousy
    New York’s top elected leaders are shamefully enabling rampant corruption
    Comments (4)
    NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
    Published: Friday, April 5, 2013, 4:05 AM
    Updated: Friday, April 5, 2013, 4:05 AM

    27

    10

    0

    Print
    State Sen. Malcolm Smith’s loss of the majority leader post was “the collapse of his soul,” the former aide said.
    Adrees Latif/REUTERS

    State Sen. Malcolm Smith, a Democrat, was charged with conspiring to bribe GOP leaders to help him get on the Republican mayoral ballot.
    Related Stories

    Death by a thousand cuts
    The kids be damned
    Hammond: On ethics, don’t trust but do verify
    Oh, what a year it’s going to be

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    Judging by his resigned acceptance of political corruption in New York, Gov. Cuomo is being swallowed by the dark side. He chalked up state Sen. Malcolm Smith’s plot to buy a spot on the mayoral election ballot to the ebb and flow of inevitable personal frailties.

    “People do stupid things, frankly. People do illegal things. People in power abuse power. It’s part of the human condition,” the governor said, employing a cliche to divert attention from the seamy truth that surrounds him.

    It’s the Albany condition. It’s the New York City condition. It’s the New York State condition.

    RELATED: SEN. IN BRIBE CASE DESPERATE FOR POWER: EX-AIDE

    The arrest Thursday of Bronx Assemblyman Eric Stevenson in a naked bribery case, in which fellow Bronx Assemblyman Nelson Castro wore a wire after secretly taking his own criminal fall, brought to 40 the number of state or city officeholders convicted, arrested, penalized or booted for serious wrongdoing since 2003.
    In the second political corruption case in less than a week, Bronx Democratic Assemblyman Eric Stevenson was arrested for taking $20,000 in bribes.
    BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS
    In the second political corruption case in less than a week, Bronx Democratic Assemblyman Eric Stevenson was arrested for taking $20,000 in bribes.

    On tape, Stevenson declared:

    “Bottom line . . . if half the people up here in Albany were ever caught for what they do . . . they . . . would probably be (in jail). So who are they bulls—-ing?”

    RELATED: ASSEMBLYMAN ERIC STEVENSON ARRESTED IN BRIBERY PLOT

    His words were a variation on the theme enunciated on tape by Queens City Councilman Dan Halloran, who was busted in the Smith case.

    “That’s politics, that’s politics, it’s all about how much, not about whether or will, it’s about how much, and that’s our politicians in New York, they’re all like that, all like that,” Halloran allegedly said, adding: “You can’t get anything without the f–king money.”
    Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver earns fees working with a trial lawyers firm while protecting the legislative interests of trial lawyers.
    Pennink/AP
    Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver earns fees working with a trial lawyers firm while protecting the legislative interests of trial lawyers.

    New York is ruled by a criminal class whose motto is, “Where’s mine?” and whose members expect the answer in cash. They betray the public trust because they harbor cancered souls and because to be elected in New York is to plunge into a culture where power begets money begets power begets cynicism begets an outstretched hand.

    RELATED: NELSON CASTO’S PAST CRIMES PREPPED HIM FOR POLITICS

    Hey, if Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver can legally earn fees working with a trial lawyers firm while protecting the legislative interests of trial lawyers, why should Stevenson think twice about getting paid for doing the bidding of businessmen who run a senior citizens day care center?

    Hey, if Mayor Bloomberg can legally pour $400,000 into the Independence Party, plus $650,000 into causes beloved by the party’s cultlike leaders, after they gave him their ballot line, why should Smith shy from paying off Republican Party leaders for essentially the same favor?

    The respected and the rotten go hand-in-hand.
    Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos leads his members to sell out principles to public employee unions and other deep-pocketed interests.
    Lori Van Buren / Times Union
    Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos leads his members to sell out principles to public employee unions and other deep-pocketed interests.

    RELATED: SCANDALIZED STEVENSON WORKED IN CHRISTINE QUINN’S OFFICE

    Silver has lowered the Assembly into a house worthy of a banana republic. Operating almost entirely behind closed doors, he demands dronelike fealty from his Democratic majority.

    They vote with him, their paychecks get bigger and they get to deliver taxpayer-funded pork to their districts. He’ll also conceal their offenses when they run into trouble. They break ranks, their incomes fall and their districts starve. In organized crime, this would be called extortion. In Albany, it’s called the system.

    State Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos has practiced the same boss rule — leading his members to sell out principles to public employee unions and other deep-pocketed interests.

    RELATED: NELSON CASTRO’S REVELATION SHOCKS STATE POLS
    City Council Speaker Christine Quinn doles out more than a half-billion annually to members who stand with her — and has withheld funding from members who cross her.
    James Keivom/New York Daily News
    City Council Speaker Christine Quinn doles out more than a half-billion annually to members who stand with her — and has withheld funding from members who cross her.

    It was Skelos who cut a deal with Pedro Espada in the notorious Senate coup of 2009. It was Skelos who served obediently under former Majority Leader Joe Bruno, saying nothing as Bruno enriched himself with “consulting fees” from favor seekers.

    Silver and Skelos are now Cuomo’s partners in governing. After vowing to clean up Albany, the governor set aside a threat to establish a powerful anti-corruption investigating panel, caved to creation of a hogtied Joint Commission on Public Integrity — which has done virtually nothing — and retreated into the backrooms with Silver and Skelos.

    Casting transparency to the wind, the governor has demonstrated that the private deal is the foundation of public business. He takes consolation in having secured on-time budgets and legislative accomplishments, but he did no one a favor by describing his working group as “the best legislative body in the nation.”

    RELATED: BIG APPLE AT CORE OF NEW YORK’S POLITICAL ROT

    Here in the city, Council Speaker Christine Quinn enforces her authority with money — more than a half-billion doled out annually to members who stand with her. She also has withheld funding if a member has so much as issued an unauthorized press release that omitted Quinn’s name.
    While in the City Council, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio also dipped into the slush fund and doled out more than $7 million.
    Anthony DelMundo/New York Daily News
    While in the City Council, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio also dipped into the slush fund and doled out more than $7 million.

    Public Advocate Bill De Blasio , who slams Quinn over the so-called member item system as the two vie for mayor, dipped into the slush fund while in the Council. He doled out more than $7 million. He funneled $439,000 to six groups and reaped $90,000 in campaign contributions from people associated with the organizations.

    Controller John Liu presided over a campaign that used straw donors to get public funding from the Campaign Finance Board.

    RELATED: BILL DE BLASIO, CHRISTINE QUINN BUTT HEADS OVER COUNCIL PORK

    Currying favor with the Republican leaders allegedly bribed by Smith, billionaire Republican mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis poured more than $100,000 into the city’s GOP.

    Catsimatidis also hired Queens Republican Vice Chairman Vincent Tabone as a $100,000-a-year counsel for his supermarket firm. Tabone is charged with taking $25,000 in Smith’s plot.

    Announcing Stevenson’s arrest, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “The people of New York should be more than just disappointed. They should be angry. . . . When it is more likely for a New York state senator to be arrested by the authorities than to be defeated at the polls, they should be angry.”

    The fury should extend far beyond those led away in handcuffs, to those who created the climate for the handcuffing.

    Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/fundamentally-lousy-article-1.1308145#ixzz2PcCE7tsS

  37. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    Politicians have gotten so bold in their corruption, that they feel entitled to be corrupt………………lawyers are leading the charge in this corruption, if the citizens don’t take a stand now, all will be lost, we have already lost most.

  38. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    What we have to admire about NY, they will all go to jail once caught, last month was Jessie Jackson’s son.

  39. Buy Low Avatar
    Buy Low

    @David
    As recently as 18 months ago, Barbados was in danger of the dreaded if not ubiquitous “black list” due to a minister’s untimely filing of a boiler plate declaration of compliance to the rest of the world. Barbados is losing domiciled companies that are part and parcel BIM’s #2 FX earner to zero tax jurisdictions not only in the Caribbean but in the Middle East. We undoubtedly have the lifestyle infrastructure that can bring a man like Valeant’s Pearson (36.3 mm USD compensation last year), a Melnyk, et al but over time the weary, slogging pace of business and/or gov’t facilitation of any sort whatsoever becomes an obstacle to further growth. Like TripAdvisor on tourism, we get bad business reviews. Truly on de Rock but between a hard place.

    @Not Taken

    . is taken. I was simply providing a more positive slant on the salient qualities of having some legitimate big boys in our backyard. The Canadian gov’t was tangentially complicit for years in this now sudden witch hunt for hidden tax dollars by its selective non-enforcement by way of doing a cost/benefit analysis v a best practices due diligence of business models that could not pass a smell test. Are you breathing? Good, open an IBC or just pay yourself via dividends through your BarBAYdows company…but keep quiet, will ya? Certainly hats off to Melnyk, Doyle, Mannix, Allard, countless and nameless others who came, saw, conquered and left a lil’ for the small man.

    A very neglected tax dodge pon our Beautiful Barbados comes from the exchange of offshore shares for the majority of luxury properties when a sale/purchase is completed. Granted, from the seller land tax was paid, staff compensated, local goods purchased, mini stimulus to the economy, but who really ever sees those unregulated books? Was the house/project/marina/prison REALLY sold (or worth) 100 million? Or is a lawyer’s escrow account filled with an extra 60 million on top of the 40 million actual sales price and the jurisdictional non capital gains transaction goes POOF in the offshore air?

    Sold VRX in FEB 🙂 !!!

  40. David Avatar
    David

    @Buy Low

    What you wrote does not gel with what was said in the just concluded Estimates Debates. Several times the point was made on the government side that the DLP government has put more legislation on the books as it relates to the offshore sector than the BLP. If we came close to being blacklisted it begs the question how attuned is the relevant ministry to the sector. Maybe it is a godsend Hutson lost his pick. We say how important the sector is yet we hardly do anything to improve facilitation.

  41. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    Once the ministers have problems with world standard compliance and due diligence, they will only give Bajans half the story.

  42. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @David,
    Any employee can find out if his employer is paying his dues to the NIS by simply telephoning the NIS, or going in there and asking. they will give him/her the correct answer.
    Valiant did not build a new headquarters. they just took over the building that Biovail had built and operated from. Melnyk still lives in Barbados. He loves it here.

  43. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    The neighbours talking bout we.

    http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Tough-economic-time-for-Barbados_13970586

  44. Amused Avatar
    Amused

    @Bush Tea | April 5, 2013 at 12:00 PM | Completely wrong. Amused would most certainly agree with David Weekes and support his scheme. Amused is amused that Bushy could think that Amused would not agree. It is a first class idea, so long as it does not breach the Companies Act which, dated 1986, was not passed by Arthur.

    BTW, in 2001, Barbados was the fastest-growing off shore port in the world. That was when we had a credible justice system. Today, thanks to the fact that we have no justice system, we are in the rank of what could best be described as “also ran”. And it does not amuse me at all that successive governments are throwing money at studies and sales trips that are expensive and not productive, when the simple solution is the radical and brutal restoration of the Justice System. The mechanism for the firing of dead wood (from the CJ down) exists in the Barbados Constitution. I cannot understand this curious reluctance on the part of successive governments to use what the Constitution so clearly gives them the right to use.

  45. mrcorrecto Avatar
    mrcorrecto

    “What we’re after are people hiding their money offshore and avoiding Canadian taxes by hiding their money outside of our country,” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said in a news conference on Thursday. “Yes, CRA will pay for someone to provide information on people who are hiding their money outside of Canada.”
    FINALLY YOUR DISGUISING THIEVERY AND MONEY LAUNDERING WILL BE DISCOVERED. .
    hey i know a few people i can snitch on may be get some money.hummmmm

  46. David Avatar
    David

    @mrcorrecto

    If you don’t know what to say you should read and learn. Who does the money being laundered belong to?

  47. mrcorrecto Avatar
    mrcorrecto

    HERE IS A SONG TO ALL INVOLVED WITH THE TEEFING.!!!!!!!HA HA.
    http://youtu.be/L9EKqQWPjyo

  48. David Avatar
    David

    mrcorrecto

    You have made your point, move along.

  49. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    The justice system was just as ineffective in 2001 as it is now, the difference now being that the open and titillating secrets that resided inside Bim is now worldwide knowledge.

    David…………….i would love it if INCORRECTO starts snitching on the Canadians hiding money and laundering in Bim…………….maybe one of them will send out a hit man for him and do us all a huge favor.

  50. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    This PC Gov’t pretending to go after tax evaders who put their money in tax havens, the thing about tax evaders it is who you know. The last PC Gov’t let a very wealthy family remove a large sum of money tax free when it advised the CRA to waive the tax requirement.

    According to the rumour mill the taxes lost were over $500 million ask Money brain he moves in those high tax brackets he can spring the name or at least confirm the story.

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