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Comment by howmayiannoyyou | Hacker News Reader

Reality check:

- US haven status undermines despotic regimes by denying them data on citizens hedging their bets with offshore accounts. This provides the US leverage, intelligence, foreign direct investment & tax revenue.

- Offshore dollar pools (eg. Eurodollars) are problem enough for the US Treasury & FED's monetary policy. Absent US haven status this problem would be far worse.

- The secrecy doesn't much apply to US citizen and less so once the Democrat's $600 bank account reporting requirement is passed into law.

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Realty check: US forced FACTA on many countries but never offered reciprocity. Tax haven status apply to all non US citizen, so this leverage exists for many of the US "allies" (btw as a European î don’t believe that such a concept exists) like all OECD countries that have to fight against complex tax evasion schema thanks to the US. What the world want is reciprocity.

> "allies" (btw as a European î don’t believe that such a concept exists)

I believe in "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours".

What may be illegal for one government to do might be off-shore-able. Therefore, "allies" are useful in such arrangements.

There's CRS now, between OECD countries. (and it's FATCA, which made the US more interesting as a money destination)

The USA are the only country not part of CRS. Have a look here: https://www.oecd.org/tax/automatic-exchange/international-fr...

The USA is always "do as I say not as I do" and they have zero credibility regarding tax evasion :

```the IRS is still not obligated to share information pertaining to:

    * Cash accounts held by entities, including those that are resident in the FATCA partner jurisdiction;
    * Non-cash accounts, whether held by individuals or entities, unless the accounts earn U.S.-sourced income; and
    * ‘‘Controlling persons’’ of any entities that have accounts in U.S. financial institutions, regardless of whether those entities are from the partnering country, even if those entities are owned and controlled by residents of the partner jurisdiction.

```

Ah, so it's not money laundering when we are the ones doing it.

That's not what was said... uncharitable response such as yours is unhelpful

A longer way of saying the same thing might be:

The 2nd argument is a benefit only to the US so not relevant to outsiders deciding whether they're "playing fair".

Arguably this applies to the first as well, or at best only US allies.

And the third... Again kind of self interest - one rule for your own citizens and another for everyone else's.

IMO there are two ways to view this: the US acts in its own interests, everyone else does too, fine. It's only hypocritical if the US expects a higher standard from others, "rules based international order" etc, but seeks to exempt itself -

edit: in which case the world just sticks with the previous view, which, hey, every other species does too.

Either erroneous conclusion or made in bad faith. The despotic regimes (like Jordan, Russia, Kenya, and many others) are some of the biggest launderers, according to the Pandora Papers! These regimes are propped up by the United States trust law race to the bottom, not undermined by it. It's an internationalized criminal enterprise.

Laundering is (tax-wise) the opposite of tax evasion though, which what financial secrecy benefits the most.

> data on citizens hedging their bets with offshore accounts

Just to be clear: in the majority of EU countries, it is perfectly legal for a private person to have a bank account overseas. Be it in the US, Panama or somewhere in central Africa. There is also no requirement to report such account.

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