Money doesn’t talk, it swears

The super-secret world of Swiss banking is usually hidden from our view.

But due to more revelations about global banking giant HSBC’s Swiss accounts, the corporate tax dodgers, politicians, global arms dealers, royalty and other criminals who use its services are on public display.

HSBC profited from doing business with all of them, helping to hide hundreds of millions of dollars.

When the bank became uneasy about some of its more “colourful” clients, it merely asked them to act less conspicuously. And the clients complied. One HSBC employee reported that one of the clients “understands our concerns and will use smaller amounts”. Some clients even made trips to Geneva in order to withdraw wads of cash in used notes, the proverbial small unmarked bills.

But it would be unfair to say that HSBC did nothing about the leaks. As Bob Dylan wrote, “money doesn’t talk, it swears”. So something had to be done. When former HSBC employee Hervé Falciani leaked the original material in 2008, HSBC set the Swiss police onto him. The bank’s response to the current leaks was to demand that the data be destroyed.

In 2010, the French government sent its Greek counterparts, then in the midst of vicious austerity measures, the names of 2,000 Greek HSBC clients. Two years later a Greek magazine, Hot Doc, published the names and noted the lack of activity. The magazine’s editor was immediately arrested for violating privacy laws.

Anything to divert attention from the massive hypocrisy of the tax-dodging corporate criminals calling for cuts to wages, hospitals and schools to save the economy.

The former Greek finance minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou said there had been no action because the list of names had been lost. Finally it was, miraculously, found – minus the names of three of Papakonstantinou’s relatives.

In Australia, it took the media revelations for the Australian Tax Office to reveal that it had received a leaked cache of 261 Swiss HSBC bank files almost five years ago. More than 300 Australian account holders were included, with total holdings of more than $15 million.

Not to worry. The ATO has a plan to deal with Australia’s budget emergency. Not by getting more money from the biggest Australian corporations. Instead it will save money by letting them audit themselves.

And why does the ATO need to save money? Because of public service cuts in the last budget, thousands of ATO jobs have gone.