PRESS RELEASE
WHITE HOUSE TARGETS U.K. TAX HAVENS
Obama, Brown Clash Over Offshore Taxes
March 4, 2009 (EIRNS)—The Obama White House is pushing strongly for passage of Senate bill S.506—"A bill to restrict the use of offshore tax havens and abusive tax shelters to inappropriately avoid Federal taxation, and for other purposes"—to force the exposure and taxation of "offshore" tax-evading income. The amount of untaxed wealth in the British Empire's offshore centers, as well as Switzerland and Luxembourg, is now believed to have reached as much as $13 trillion. In 2006, then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama co-sponsored with Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the anti-tax evasion legislation which President Obama is now calling for.
Lyndon LaRouche today declared the "total, enthusiastic support" of his LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC) for the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act. It could prevent the bankers and hedge fund operators who brought the financial system down, from enjoying their ill-gotten fortunes, untaxed, and costing the U.S. Federal government $100 billion a year in missing tax revenue.
More importantly, the White House push to open the "secret banking jurisdictions" of the British offshore empire puts Obama "on a real collision course with [British Prime Minister] Gordon Brown," as the London Guardian reported today. In contrast also to Germany and France, the British oppose opening up the offshore tax-avoiding banking centers, and oppose writing off derivatives and other bad debts booked there. The Guardian says the Levin Senate legislation "is a severe blow to Jersey, the Cayman Islands, and Switzerland, where $13 trillion in untaxed private wealth has gone." These and many other island havens are under U.K. (or Dutch) protection.
Brown is under intense City of London and U.K.-offshore pressure to stop this "blow" to the imperial system. And, although the Guardian does not mention it, former Chancellor of the Exchequer (Treasury Secretary) Gordon Brown was formerly called "the tax evaders' chancellor" for his protection of the offshore British money centers from regulation or disclosure, and his opposition to regulation in the City of London banks themselves.
The first indication that President Obama was downgrading America's "special relationship" with the U.K. came soon after his inauguration, when he sent George Bush's bust of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill out of the Oval Office, and back to the British Embassy, replacing it with one of Abraham Lincoln, who defeated the British Empire's Confederacy. Then, on March 3, Obama nixed a press conference at which Brown wanted to push his latest global bank bailout schemes. If S.506 becomes law, it will force Brown into open protection of Wall Street and City of London tax looters, along with such as British agent George Soros.
"President Obama's support for the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, as announced by Treasury Secretary Geithner [on March 3] is very welcome news and greatly improves the chances of an offshore tax bill becoming law this year," said Senator Levin yesterday. LaRouche added, "This is excellent. Go all out for it."
