Do we need yet another demonstration that the rich and powerful, the wealthy, get all the breaks in this world? The US Justice Department seems little interested in justice for the wealthy. Perhaps it's hard to enforce laws against the wealthy people that put you in office?
In a time of shrinking budgets and sky-high deficits, all of the United States citizens who have withheld millions and millions (and billions?) in taxes from the US government are TRAITORS, and they should be HUNG. After a fair trial, of course. They want all the benefits of living in this country, but they don't want to pay their fair share. Hell, they don't want to pay ANYTHING.
Government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. This is America.
Democracy Now covered it recently here.
Why Is the Whistleblower Who Exposed the Massive UBS Tax Evasion Scheme the Only One Heading to Prison?
A former banker for the Swiss giant UBS who blew the whistle on the biggest tax-evasion scheme in US history is preparing to head to prison tomorrow to begin serving a forty-month federal sentence. Bradley Birkenfeld first came forward to US authorities in 2007 and began providing inside information on how UBS was helping thousands of Americans hide assets in secret Swiss accounts. We speak with his attorney, Stephen Kohn, the executive director of the National Whistleblowers Center.
UBS whistleblower reports to prison, in the Washington Times (what a rag)
MINERSVILLE, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A former banker who provided key assistance in the U.S. tax evasion probe of Swiss banking giant UBS AG reported to prison Friday and said his cooperation should have earned him the federal government's gratitude, not time behind bars.
Bradley Birkenfeld, 44, a former private banker for UBS, said his whistle-blowing exposed "the largest tax fraud in the world" and allowed the Internal Revenue Service to recover billions of dollars in lost revenue.
Birkenfeld, who handled wealthy American clients of UBS from 2001 through 2006, pleaded guilty in June 2008 to a single count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and was sentenced to more than three years in prison.
On Common Dreams
UBS Whistleblower Enters Prison
Minersville, PA - January 8 - At 2 pm today UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld surrendered to U.S. authorities and commenced serving a three-year and four-month sentence at the Schuylkill County Federal Correctional Institution in Minersville, Pennsylvania.
Stephen M. Kohn, the Executive Director of the National Whistleblower Center and one of Mr. Birkenfeld's attorneys issued the following statement:
"An American tragedy. A disgraceful miscarriage of justice. An insult to every honest American who must work hard and pay their taxes. The imprisonment of Bradley Birkenfeld, the most important tax whistleblower in history, is shocking and unjustified. This decision is not only grossly unfair and personally harmful to Mr. Birkenfeld, it will also have a radical chilling effect on the willingness of other bankers to step forward and expose fraud. This is devastating to any efforts to expose the use of illegal offshore bank accounts by criminals who want to avoid taxes."
Go here, but whatever you do, don't go up against the powerful, or you will be fucked.
I have to wonder, how many members of Congress or of the White House are on those UBS lists, and have been STEALING FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?
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