<story><title>Tax Evasion at the Top of the Income Distribution: Theory and Evidence</title><url>https://www.nber.org/papers/w28542</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ucha</author><text>The public underestimates the huge efforts that have been accomplished to prevent tax evasion in the last few years.&lt;p&gt;FATCA forces all signatories to report US tax payer info to the IRS no matter the country in which they have a bank account.&lt;p&gt;CRS signatories do the same thing for pretty much every country in the world and automatically exchange bank account information with the tax office of one&amp;#x27;s country of residence.&lt;p&gt;Pretty much every offshore center requires identification of the UBO - Ultimate Beneficial Owner - of any tax structure in place.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s so so so much harder to open a bank account in a country in which one is not resident because the US has a very long reaching arm and frequently punishes sanctions banks or entire countries for failing to have proper anti-money laundering controls in place. Yes, banks can be fined, not because money laundering took place but just because the regulator decided that the controls in place are not sufficient.&lt;p&gt;Where does that leave us? On one hand, tax evasion is much harder. On the other, money has become a system of control. The government knows by default who has how much in their bank account. Banks are deputised with government powers and can lock your account merely on suspicion of a fraudulent transaction. When they freeze your funds, they are legally prohibited from telling you why. You essentially don&amp;#x27;t own your money and there is no due process to have it seized. Developing countries are pretty much excluded from the modern financial system. It&amp;#x27;s close to impossible to process financial transactions if you&amp;#x27;re a software developer trying to sell your products but have the misfortune of living in Nigeria or Cuba.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a modern aberration that the internet is so free yet the financial system isn&amp;#x27;t at all but most people in developed countries aren&amp;#x27;t affected by this so they simply don&amp;#x27;t care. What&amp;#x27;s the point of crypto when I can use venmo, right?&lt;p&gt;[edit] typo</text></comment>
<story><title>Tax Evasion at the Top of the Income Distribution: Theory and Evidence</title><url>https://www.nber.org/papers/w28542</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>omarhaneef</author><text>It would be interesting to see this alongside the amount of tax avoided through regulatory capture in various industries. I assume that illegal tax avoidance is dwarfed by perfectly legal tax avoidance.</text></comment>