Monday 9 February 2015 20.21 GMT
The use of Swiss accounts to dodge tax was systematic. The flaky response from the bank and the politicians is anything but
“Values,” wrote the Rev Prebendary Stephen Green, “go beyond ‘what you can get away with’.” Reassuring words from the part-time priest who for years ran one of the world’s biggest banks, before being brought into government by David Cameron. Courtesy of the HSBC files, however, we now know that this bank, when under his stewardship – first as chief exec, later as chair – was involved in concealing “black” accounts from the taxman, servicing the secretly stowed funds of corrupt businessmen and allowing the withdrawal of “bricks” of untraceable cash.
In the face of these ugly facts about his old bank’s Swiss operation, Lord Green has said only that it is for HSBC, and not for him, to comment on that institution’s past and current behaviour. No wonder. His obvious refuge would be to claim that, as the boss of a global business in London, he had other worries and could not be expected to know every detail of what distant colleagues in Geneva were up to. Sadly for him, this potential shelter took a battering from something else he wrote: “For companies, where does this [ethical] responsibility begin? With their boards, of course. There is no other task they have which is more important. It is their job ... to promote and nurture a culture of ethical and purposeful business throughout the organisation.”
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Then there is the most fundamental question of the lot, at least for those unexotic citizens who are happy to work for a salary on the understanding that it will be taxed at source then paid into a British bank. Namely, what valid reason could there be for squirrelling funds in Switzerland? Even as it concedes past problems with tax, HSBC insists that there are “numerous legitimate reasons to have a Swiss bank account”, but neglected to expand on what these might be. Save for the odd individual with Swiss family links or plans to invest in a real Swiss business, are these reasons really so self-evident that they don’t need require spelling out? If private banking overseas is to be tolerated at all, then, in the light of the systematic malpractice laid bare this week, the onus should surely shift on to the individual to explain why it is needed.
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Citizens who work hard to pay their own taxes are nonetheless looking at cuts to cherished services for years to come. They are entitled to rage against the rich who dodge their own obligations, the bankers who assist them, and the politicians who still refuse to get tough.
Link:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/09/guardian-view-hsbc-files-damning-dossier
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