avanti said:
If it is legal then is it cheating?
In the case of the Italian riders quoted above, it was not legal and they were either convicted and/or had to pay large fines in addition to the evaded income being taxed. For Andy and Fränk, it needs to be seen. Considering they are well connected in Lux, they might get through it.
As they are not living or riding neither in Panama nor Singapore and as it must be assumed for the article these are payments by RSN in favour of the riders paid to a legal entity, it is obvious that it is tax cheating. If these legal entities had either actual business operations in those exotic countries incl. employees or the entities were based in a country where Andy/Frank live for a substantial part of a tax year or generate income, it would be different. (At least that's the rule in a number of European countries, don't know the particular regulations for Lux though)
avanti said:
I don't know about cyclists but many pro tennis players set up residence in low tax countries.
Unfortunately, that's true, I am aware of quite a few number of absolute top tennis players that direct substantial parts of their (particularly sponsoring/advertisement) income streams to letterbox companies in other exotic locations such as Cayman, Bahamas, Aruba, Bermuda and also Channel Islands (not even LOW tax but mostly NO tax). It is really disgusting, considering that sponsoring is taken out of the pocket of the consumer (middle class) and cheated from taxing while the middle class fairly pays its taxes... whatever.
Roude Leiw said:
don't get the point of this threat?
I like lists and statistics a lot!
So for example like I created a thread for listing cyclists with a cross or mountainbike background here's just another one
Roude Leiw said:
they optimize fiscally their income like millions of businessmen/sportsmen/artists do. so why point fingers?
I agree with you, that cyclists as an aggregate are ridicolous, compared to bizmen/athletes/artists, etc. But tax cheating is exactly a significant problem in today's society. Armies of lawyers are just consistently looking for loopholes or creative or deceptive structures to cheat taxes. Taxes that governments particularly nowadays urgently and desperately need in order that it's not getting worse. (not to mention that these govies/politicians in need of tax income to fix our countries budgets are mostly the buddies of many tax "optimisers" like you formulated it and their [gov./polit.] reckless spending frenzies without carefully thinking about the next generations has been even more responsible for this mess).
Roude Leiw said:
The swiss are not the best placed to give the worlds lessons regarding this...
I am just listing facts, not trying to give a lesson, although I can't stand cheating, whether in cycling, sports in general or real life incl. taxes. But to be honest, the list seems to be pretty modest, which is a good sign, not?
Roude Leiw said:
The swiss are not the best placed to give the worlds lessons regarding this...
There were definitely days until about 15 to 20 years ago, during which banks domiciled in Switzerland recklessly accepted any kind of money, whether black or white. Interestingly, not just Swiss banks, but like in all offshore heavens, banks resident in numerous and different countries did set up their laundering operations here.
In the meantime however, laws and regulations have changed dramatically. While there might of course still be a lot of black and not taxed money around (considering that it is estimated that more than 50% of the liquid net worth assets of the global population is sitting on accounts with Swiss privat banks), it is almost impossible today to launder money or ship untaxed money to Switzerland. Actually, you have to be an idiot to do that. But of course, tax cheaters get increasingly more creative and unfortunately might always find new loopholes and tricks to evade.
Today, for private individuals trust structures, particularly in the channel islands, but also entities in Delaware are quite safe and primary locations do hide black money or ship it to.
On the other hand, Switzerland is increasingly more used by large global corporates to set up holding companies or headquarters. This was also the case for a few well known companies in the cycling industry recently, such as Specialized or Scott. Of course, like many global corporates, they process significantly more cash flow through these operations than appropriate. Let's hope that lawmakers and tax authorities wake up here as well.
But as Swiss citizen, you're anyway f..ked. If you are the beneficial owner of an offshore entity without substance (i.e. real business operations and employees), Swiss tax authorities will tax you for this offshore income as if it were Swiss income. Additionally, they are preparing to remove the banking secrecy for Swiss citizen's accounts held with banks subject to Swiss jurisdiction. Total government control here we come.
T_S_A_R said:
the idea of luxembourg accusing anyone of tax evasion after all the tax income they deprive the uk of is a joke.
**** tax havens.
Talking UK tax heavens, let's talk about Channel Islands or UK trust structures
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