2/25/2019
By Charles Payne, CEO & Principal Analyst

Just consider news from around the world this week:I know this isn’t shocking, but no one likes paying taxes. Even rich people that cheer the notion of higher taxes hire armies of folks to help them pay as little as possible.

Yesterday, the French court slammed Swiss Bank UBS with $5.1 billion in fines and damages for its role in helping wealthy French citizens evade $10.8 billion in taxes. 

There was news of Danske Bank being under investigation for facilitating the laundering of $230 billion, mostly by Russian citizens through its branch in Estonia yesterday. Without a doubt, Russian billionaires are more active in seeking tax havens and investing money outside their country.

However, the United States loses the most tax revenue to tax havens than any other country by far.

Also, Australia’s Tax Avoidance Taskforce announced this week that it has recouped $7.7 billion from foreign-owned companies, multinational companies, and $4.7 billion from wealthy individuals.

Yes, individuals (many heroes of Millennials and progressives) are just as eager as corporations to not pay taxes.

Last year saw high-profile examples from around the world, including China, where actress Fan Bingbing was fined $70 million for tax evasion, and where soccer superstar Ronaldo forked over $21.6 million to avoid going to jail in Spain.

That said, all of this begs the question: are taxes simply too high and too unfair, or are businesses and wealthy people simply too greedy?

Charles Payne
Wall Street Strategies

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