Tax evasion thread

**~~sabaku_no_gaara~~** · December 15, 2012, 05:29 AM

Hey I read this today:

Owner of YouPorn, Pornhub sites extradited to Germany from Belgium in tax evasion case

BERLIN — The owner of the heavily used YouPorn and Pornhub websites has been extradited to Germany after being arrested in Belgium on suspicion of tax evasion.

Fabian Thylmann, a German who lives in Belgium, was extradited on Thursday. Alf Willwacher, a spokesman for Cologne prosecutors, said Friday that Thylmann didn’t contest extradition. It wasn’t clear whether he has responded to the accusations against him.

Thylmann was arrested last week on a German warrant, and several properties including his home were searched. Prosecutors have declined to give details of the case against him.

Thylmann’s company, Manwin, owns several sites including YouPorn and Pornhub which, according to Internet information company Alexa, are among the most popular websites on the planet. Manwin has offices in Luxembourg, Britain, Germany, Canada, Cyprus and the United States.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...ertainment_pop

And earlier this week Here in Belgium the fiscus refused to settle with former minister of foreign affairs and current euro comissioner Karel de Gucht over a tax evasion case that's been investigated since I think 2011 (he's also fighting a bill that gives the special tax inspection the right to check peoples bank statements now that the special tax inspection wants access to his statements

)

It's from selling stocks in 2005 for 1.2 milion euro's and building a vacation home in Tuscany without reporting the income to taxes

And there's also shady stuff concerning the dismantling of Fortis, his wife and many of his close friends sold huge amounts of stock on the day when the gouverment was negotiating about the future of Fortis. when they anounced their deal the stock imediately fell from 5€ to 0.88€ or something

It's suspicious that the wife and close friends of a minister suddenly sold their stocks before the gouverment made their anouncement.

So what about your known frauds and evaders? Let's list them all should be a fun read

**Thorn777** · December 15, 2012, 03:52 PM

Well the former CEO of the German privatized Post was prolly Germany's most prominent recent case, where suddenly after being very outspoken about keeping wages for the employees high facing dirtcheap competition with real slave labor wages of 3-4 euro's an hour, and making all kind of statements that this is macro-economic sense, and gaining some popularity out there with the masses, they found something....

I'll bet there is this stuff on everyone who earns enough money to hire some foxy accountant...but when you fall out of line they know where to find you.

**alhoon** · December 15, 2012, 08:28 PM

Wait, someone evaded 1.2 Million Euros and got... arrested? Strange.

**~~sabaku_no_gaara~~** · December 17, 2012, 01:34 PM

Originally Posted by alhoon

Wait, someone evaded 1.2 Million Euros and got... arrested? Strange.

He didn't get arrested, he's being investigated and is working really hard to stop the investigators from looking into his finances, and it seems his lawyer is trying to turn this into a verry verry long game wich is problematic because in a year or 2 we reach the expiration date (not sure what the correct english term is) and then he can't be prosecuted anymore.

And he's not just anybody, he's the former minister of foreign affairs and a current European Commissioner

Originally Posted by LaMuerte

Sabaku , I know this one is very old , but remember the minster Leo Delcroix who had postmen renovating his villa in southern France?

How many times did slick Leo get saved by the bell ? You gotta admit , the man knows the rules.

How about the Augusta scandal with Willy Claes? I think we can fill an entire page with Belgian politicians

**LaMuerte** · December 15, 2012, 08:38 PM

Sabaku , I know this one is very old , but remember the minster Leo Delcroix who had postmen renovating his villa in southern France?

How many times did slick Leo get saved by the bell ? You gotta admit , the man knows the rules.

**Bleda** · December 15, 2012, 08:42 PM

Evading taxes is the moral equivalent of not complying with a mugger. There's nothing wrong with that.

**LaMuerte** · December 15, 2012, 08:45 PM

Originally Posted by Bleda

Evading taxes is the moral equivalent of not complying with a mugger. There's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah , I'm wondering if I should reserve this space for my case in the near future...

**Hakkapeliitta** · December 16, 2012, 04:34 PM

Originally Posted by Bleda

Evading taxes is the moral equivalent of not complying with a mugger. There's nothing wrong with that.

Yep. If I already have a gun then why should I pay for the security of a neighbour for whom I don't particularly care for in the first place? Or why should I pay for the education of their children? I mean is a well educated populace an asset for a nation? I doubt that, as if you have a Phd then you are less willing to flip burgers.

**Bleda** · December 16, 2012, 04:46 PM

You assume that you need a government, of all things, to educate children. Quite an assumption considering the utter failure of our centrally planned education markets. Now more to the point of the thread, if you mug someone and give their money to a needy family, does that qualify as charity on your part? Do your intentions excuse the original theft by threat of violence?

**Hakkapeliitta** · December 16, 2012, 09:13 PM

Originally Posted by Bleda

You assume that you need a government, of all things, to educate children. Quite an assumption considering the utter failure of our centrally planned education markets. Now more to the point of the thread, if you mug someone and give their money to a needy family, does that qualify as charity on your part? Do your intentions excuse the original theft by threat of violence?

Yes, we do need a government to educate our children. Why shouldn't every child get the education they have the potential for?

As to the "thread": the person who is being taxed benefits immensely from a society that has tax-paid police-force, military, roads, justice system, etc. Therefore they should pay more in taxes. It's nothing more than giving back what one owes to society.

**Bleda** · December 16, 2012, 09:42 PM

Originally Posted by Hakkapeliitta

Yes, we do need a government to educate our children. Why shouldn't every child get the education they have the potential for?

The state-run/top-down education system we have is the worst in the developed world. Even in '3rd world' countries people would rather pay for private education than settle for "free" state education. The market can deliver education more effectively and far more cheaply.

Originally Posted by Hakkapeliitta

As to the "thread": the person who is being taxed benefits immensely from a society that has tax-paid police-force, military, roads, justice system, etc. Therefore they should pay more in taxes. It's nothing more than giving back what one owes to society.

First you assume that simply because the government claims a monopoly, that it's automatically the ideal vessel to deliver those services. Secondly you're assuming that the product of one's labor is owned by others simply because they have a monopoly of the legal initiation of force.

And most importantly, you assume that it's government to be thanked for roads and infrastructure when in fact it's the markets that pay for all of it, not the other way around. All resources used by the government, were taken from someone who produced it, by force.

What good is a road that doesn't lead to the neighborhoods, factories and businesses that utilize them?

**Vanoi** · December 16, 2012, 09:49 PM

Originally Posted by Bleda

The state-run/top-down education system we have is the worst in the developed world. Even in '3rd world' countries people would rather pay for private education than settle for "free" state education. The market can deliver education more effectively and far more cheaply.

Sorry, but that is really inaccurate. The USA's education isn't great, but other countries around the world have great education. Finland has the best education system in the world. Guess what? Its state-run.
They just don't do many of the things other Western countries do.

http://www.businessinsider.com/finla...d-2012-11?op=1

**Bleda** · December 16, 2012, 10:09 PM

The best state-run systems incorporate competition among schools where education funding is attached to individual pupils whose parents have some say in the manner, style and location of the child's education. These systems imitate market functions and would work much better with even more market oriented reforms. That's the difference. The US has a top down system, with layers of central planners and political machines standing between the students and their educational opportunities.

**Vanoi** · December 16, 2012, 10:11 PM

Originally Posted by Bleda

The best state-run systems incorporate competition among schools where education funding is attached to individual pupils whose parents have some say in the manner, style and location of the child's education.

Did you read the article? There isn't competition in Finland and its working.

**Bleda** · December 20, 2012, 08:18 AM

Originally Posted by Vanoi

Did you read the article? There isn't competition in Finland and its working.

That's a fair point, though I'll need to look into this a bit more since it's a case study. One point of note, Finland has a population roughly equivalent to the US state of Minnesota, which makes centralized planning more tenable, but still not ideal. One could argue that the successes of the Finnish educational system has it's roots in the same variables that Finland's continental neighbors have utilized. Namely it's distinction between Gymnasium, Realschule and Hauptschule and allowing the students to choose their own path through the system with varying degrees of practicality and abstract theory, depending on the student.