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Following the Bitcoin trail

"Before the paranoid start dumping their Bitcoins, Ms Meiklejohn says that changes could be made to reduce the trail that her group followed. Mixing services, for instance, can take money from one party and return it using entirely an new key. 'Those kinds of services would completely thwart our kind of analysis', she says. But caveat emptor: in the team’s testing of four mixing services, one stole their money and another returned the same key. She says the trust required and volume necessary for mixing simply doesn’t yet exist. The fundamental problem is that 'right now there are not enough ways to buy and sell Bitcoins,' which means that it is difficult to take advantage of the underlying protocol’s anonymity." Continue reading →

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Swiss banks face hefty fines under US tax deal

"The deal offers individual Swiss banks the opportunity to avoid US prosecution if they agree to pay 'substantial fines', disclose all of their cross-border activities, provide details on the accounts of US citizens, and give information on the sources and destinations of transferred funds in relation to secret American accounts. Each bank will set its own non-prosecution agreement or deferred-prosecution agreement with the US authorities under those terms. The fines will be assessed at 20-50 percent of the aggregate value of any undeclared accounts held by Americans, depending on the time they accounts were open — before 2009 or since then." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSwiss banks face hefty fines under US tax deal

Foreign Retirement Plans Seen Scrutinized in U.S. FATCA Effort

A U.S. tax crackdown is coming for foreign retirement plans. The U.S. has been pushing banks and individuals to report overseas assets, making it tougher to hide money abroad with new rules and penalties rolling out under the 2010 Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, known as Fatca. The next wave of scrutiny will cover retirement accounts, Bloomberg BNA reported. “The retirement community has been a little slower to catch up,” said Russell E. Hall, a senior consultant at Towers Watson. Foreign retirement plans generally must agree to report their U.S. account holders to avoid a 30 percent withholding tax on U.S.-sourced interest, dividends and proceeds from the sale of securities beginning July 1. Global companies with programs overseas will need to catalog their funded retirement plans to figure out which ones may be exempt, Hall said. Continue reading →

Continue ReadingForeign Retirement Plans Seen Scrutinized in U.S. FATCA Effort

France adds Jersey, Bermuda to tax-haven blacklist

"France has added Jersey, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands to its list of uncooperative tax havens. The entry gave no reason for the move. According to data compiled by the French government through to August 2011, Jersey and Bermuda had responded to all French requests for information. The British Virgin Islands had responded to 31 out of 41 requests. Tax has always been a sensitive issue for France, which has among the highest tax takes in the developed world, but President Francois Hollande has been under pressure to regain the initiative after the embarrassing resignation of his budget minister this year over a secret Swiss bank account." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFrance adds Jersey, Bermuda to tax-haven blacklist

France backs action on Syria as U.S. seeks coalition

"French President Francois Hollande gave a boost Friday to US hopes of forging an international coalition for possible strikes against Syria after British lawmakers rejected any involvement in military action. The White House had signalled Thursday that President Barack Obama, guided by the 'best interests' of the United States, was ready to go it alone on Syria after deadly chemical weapons attacks last week. But Russia, the Syrian regime’s most powerful ally, warned any military strikes would 'deal a serious blow to the entire system of world order'. While Germany and Canada ruled out joining any military strikes, Hollande said the British vote would not affect his government’s stance." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFrance backs action on Syria as U.S. seeks coalition

Rumsfeld: Obama hasn’t justified Syria attack

"Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday night that President Barack Obama had not done enough to justify an attack on Syria. 'One thing that is very interesting, it seems to me, is that there really hasn’t been any indication from the administration as to what our national interest is with respect to this particular situation,' Rumsfeld told Fox Business Network host Neil Cavuto. Rumsfeld criticized the Obama administration for being in a 'withdraw mode' and an 'apology mode.' He said the lack of U.S. assertiveness on the world stage had created a power vacuum that was being filled by those who didn’t share American values or interests." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingRumsfeld: Obama hasn’t justified Syria attack

British PM concedes vote on military action should await UN report

"David Cameron was forced to delay plans for immediate military strikes on Syria last night after being warned he faced losing a Commons vote. MPs will vote tonight on a hastily prepared motion which still supports the principle of military action. However, it will not now be carried out until ‘every effort’ has been made to secure a UN agreement, and even then, direct British involvement would require a second Commons vote. The decision to wait for a second vote is a humiliating setback for Mr Cameron who had privately promised Barack Obama that Britain would stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBritish PM concedes vote on military action should await UN report

White House faces high bar on Syria after Bush Administration’s Iraq lies

"The White House will likely argue that since its proposed action in Syria will be 'limited' it does not require Congress to wield its constitutionally granted power to authorize a declaration of war. But the more time that passes before US military action, the more restive the domestic political scene becomes. A growing number of lawmakers have concerns and polls show Americans wary of another foreign entanglement. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy meanwhile said on MSNBC that cruise missile attacks may make people 'feel better, but it may not actually make the Syrian people safer or advance US national security interests.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWhite House faces high bar on Syria after Bush Administration’s Iraq lies

Obama administration hints it could act alone on Syria

"The United States hinted Thursday it could act alone to punish Syria for a chemical weapons attack. The Obama administration also denied that public skepticism dating to an Iraq war intelligence debacle was complicating its effort to justify possible military action against Syria. Obama, who came to power criticizing his predecessor George W. Bush’s go-it-alone approach on foreign policy, was confronted Thursday with a choice over whether to wait for allies or launch unilateral US action. Obama aides stress they envisage only 'limited' punitive action in Syria and dismiss comparisons with the US invasion of Iraq, which the president built his political career on opposing." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama administration hints it could act alone on Syria

U.S. spying still under shadow of Iraq intelligence failures

"In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq 10 years ago, the CIA and other intelligence services confidently asserted that Saddam Hussein’s regime had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. But it turned out the intelligence community was 'dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction,' according to an official inquiry, the Silberman-Robb report. The spy services failed to collect solid information, botched their analysis and reached conclusions based on flawed assumptions instead of evidence, making it 'one of the most public — and most damaging — intelligence failures in recent American history,' the 2005 report said." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingU.S. spying still under shadow of Iraq intelligence failures