This Won't Criminalize Anyone

The recent moves to curb secrecy in private banking does not make any a criminal, it simply makes catching the crooks easier:

European leaders should give up the attack on Swiss banking secrecy and accept a withholding tax on foreigners to avoid criminalizing wealthy taxpayers, said Konrad Hummler, managing partner of Switzerland’s oldest private bank.

“If there is really a desire to criminalize part of the elite in European countries, then it would be a bigger problem for these countries than for Switzerland,” Konrad Hummler said in an interview at the offices of Wegelin & Co. in Zurich. The “majority of European clients were not criminals but just diversifying away from their home country

There is nothing illegal about using a private banker, but people are using private bankers to conceal income from tax authorities and to conceal income, and assets from spouses in divorce cases, and these are explicitly criminal acts, tax evasion and fraud.

Under the current world banking regime, people can put money in almost any institution that they want in almost any country, including Switzerland.

What is a crime, and has always been a crime, is putting money some where to hide it from tax authorities and opposing counsel.

Maybe we should go Chinese, and have a roving execution van, and put bullets in the heads of tax evaders, and their co-conspirator bankers, like Konrad Hummler.

Mr. Hummler, if you didn't want to go to jail, you shouldn't have been a criminal