<story><title>Panama Papers Reveal How Wealthy Americans Hid Millions Overseas</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/06/us/panama-papers.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;clickSource=story-heading&amp;module=first-column-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Negative1</author><text>No offense to you but that is absolute and utter bullshit. The tax process being exploited has nothing to do with it being inefficient and burdensome. It is in fact that way to obfuscate the external influences that incorporated all the loopholes that very well trained attorneys that only the wealthy can afford are incentivized to take advantage of.&lt;p&gt;Your &amp;#x27;institute my idea and it will fix everything I promise&amp;#x27; idea has basically been why many Presidents have been elected and yet nothing has really improved.&lt;p&gt;The problem is not simple but the root is; while the wealthy can influence the process of how much they pay in taxes, the system will continue to be in their favor. How do we fix that? Damned if I know.</text></item><item><author>matt_wulfeck</author><text>I really believe the best way to combat tax evasion is to make the tax process easier, more efficient, and less burdensome, especially to wealthy earners.&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;i&gt;insane&lt;/i&gt; the amount of work that I put into my taxes each year, only because we have a small business and doing things right versus doing things wrong is a difference in the tens of thousands of dollars. The extraordinary amount of loopholes and special interests means you need experts. And as I&amp;#x27;ve said before here, the current tax system exist in the interest and benefit of large companies, not small companies or individuals.&lt;p&gt;If we instituted an overnight 9%, 9%, 9% &amp;quot;Simcity Tax&amp;quot; system and eliminated the massive tax loopholes that exist in all levels of the tax code, then I guarantee that money would come &lt;i&gt;pouring&lt;/i&gt; back into the United States.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>smsm42</author><text>It has actually a lot to do with it. For two main reasons:&lt;p&gt;1. All tax complications, special exceptions, special deductions, etc. usually meant to benefit some behaviors and&amp;#x2F;or punish some other behaviors. One can&amp;#x27;t wonder then that some people use these regulations to reduce their tax load - that&amp;#x27;s exactly how they are supposed to work! If you put into the law, say, deduction for making a movie, because you want more movies to be made, and then somebody makes a movie with the purpose of lowering the taxes, you got exactly what you wanted. It may be a crappy movie because its sole purpose was to avoid taxes, but that&amp;#x27;s still how it supposed to work. More you have special regulations, more you have ways to play them to reduce your taxes.&lt;p&gt;2. Tax scheming is not free. It takes a lot of inconveniences, highly paid specialists and paperwork to achieve. If the cost of compliance is high, it makes sense to scheme, but if compliance is very cheap but scheming is expensive, not a lot of people would bother with scheming. Some, of course, still will, but there is still a reverse proportion between cost of compliance and incentive to scheme.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The problem is not simple but the root is; while the wealthy can influence the process of how much they pay in taxes, the system will continue to be in their favor.&lt;p&gt;How is it in their favor exactly? Top quintile has about half of total income in US and pays about 2&amp;#x2F;3 of overall taxes. That&amp;#x27;s some unusual definition of favorable treatment.</text></comment>
<story><title>Panama Papers Reveal How Wealthy Americans Hid Millions Overseas</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/06/us/panama-papers.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;clickSource=story-heading&amp;module=first-column-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Negative1</author><text>No offense to you but that is absolute and utter bullshit. The tax process being exploited has nothing to do with it being inefficient and burdensome. It is in fact that way to obfuscate the external influences that incorporated all the loopholes that very well trained attorneys that only the wealthy can afford are incentivized to take advantage of.&lt;p&gt;Your &amp;#x27;institute my idea and it will fix everything I promise&amp;#x27; idea has basically been why many Presidents have been elected and yet nothing has really improved.&lt;p&gt;The problem is not simple but the root is; while the wealthy can influence the process of how much they pay in taxes, the system will continue to be in their favor. How do we fix that? Damned if I know.</text></item><item><author>matt_wulfeck</author><text>I really believe the best way to combat tax evasion is to make the tax process easier, more efficient, and less burdensome, especially to wealthy earners.&lt;p&gt;It is &lt;i&gt;insane&lt;/i&gt; the amount of work that I put into my taxes each year, only because we have a small business and doing things right versus doing things wrong is a difference in the tens of thousands of dollars. The extraordinary amount of loopholes and special interests means you need experts. And as I&amp;#x27;ve said before here, the current tax system exist in the interest and benefit of large companies, not small companies or individuals.&lt;p&gt;If we instituted an overnight 9%, 9%, 9% &amp;quot;Simcity Tax&amp;quot; system and eliminated the massive tax loopholes that exist in all levels of the tax code, then I guarantee that money would come &lt;i&gt;pouring&lt;/i&gt; back into the United States.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>um_ya</author><text>You don&amp;#x27;t need to be a millionaire to use these tax loopholes. I calculated that it would take $2600 a year to maintain an offshore structure. That includes an offshore LLC and trust in Belize (the best jurisdiction). The Belize trust owns membership position in your Belize LLC, and your Belize LLC has control over the trust. Then you just appoint yourself as manager of the LLC. Once that&amp;#x27;s done, you can simply open bank accounts or brokerage accounts in the LLC name.</text></comment>