伯恩的幸存

xuzhouig2t1

Bourne to survive
0 [- I# J- C+ }2 f$ iAFTER visiting his bank in Zurich, Jason Bourne, an amnesic assassin, wonders: “Who has a safety-deposit box full of money and six passports and a gun?” In the popular imagination as well as Hollywood films the answer is clear: customers of Swiss banks do.

当失忆的杀手詹森•伯恩(Jason Bourne)从其位于苏黎世的银行走出后，自问到：”什么样的人会有一个装满了钱、6本护照还有一把枪的银行保险箱？”在大众的想像与好莱坞的电影中，这个答案是明确的：瑞士银行的客户就是这样的人。
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If this reputation for skulduggery is right, Switzerland, home to about one-quarter of the world’s offshore money, is in big trouble. After nearly going bust, UBS, its biggest bank, is now being pistol-whipped by America’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which wants it to hand over the names of tens of thousands of alleged tax dodgers. A preliminary settlement between the two was agreed on July 31st, although its details have yet to be made public. In March Switzerland agreed to comply with an OECD tax code that will oblige it to reveal information on clients that other governments say they need to enforce their laws. Where will crooks, despots and war criminals go now? And what will Swiss private banks do when they leave
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- v$ @' c- R( y% b* i7 a( Q! n/ @1 l如果这种隐秘而无原则的名声不是空穴来风的话，瑞士，这个坐拥世界四分之一离岸资金的国家将会有大麻烦。在几近破产后，瑞银(UBS)，这个瑞士最大的银行如今正被美国国税局(IRS)威逼，要求其交出一份包含数万涉嫌逃税人员的名单。7月31，这两家机构达成了一份初步协议，但协议的具体细节尚未公开。今年3月瑞士同意遵守经合组织税法，这将迫使瑞士提供那些别国政府在执法时所需要的客户资料。如今，那些骗子、独裁者和战犯能去哪呢？而这些人离开后那些瑞士私人银行还能干嘛呢？

Put those questions to Swiss bankers and they will explain—very smoothly, of course—that you are decades out of date. They are calm in part because the concessions on privacy are expected to be limited. Both the OECD code and, they hope, the UBS settlement will endorse the principle of “no fishing expeditions”. Foreign states would have to provide clients’ names and some ffxi gil evidence of wrongdoing before getting information on them. Even if the IRS remains on the warpath and goes beyond the OECD rules, perhaps only 5% of the $2 trillion of offshore assets in Switzerland comes from America.
如果你就以上问题去问瑞士的银行家，那么他必然会从容的回答说，你已经落伍几十年了。他们之所以镇定的部分原因是人们对隐私的让步预计将是有限的。同时他们也希望经合组织的法典与瑞银的处理方案都能够认可“禁止蓄意盘查”的原则。也就是说外国政府在得到客户信息之前需要提供该客户的姓名及其犯罪的证据。另外，即便美国国税局仍然坚持强硬立场，其要求甚至超出了经合组织的规则，但毕竟在瑞士的2万亿离岸资产中，也许只有5%的资产来自美国。
" A5 j6 J0 j2 _7 dFor the bulk of customers, Swiss bankers claim, tax is in any case not the main draw. They marshal some surprisingly good arguments. UBS has been haemorrhaging funds, with an outflow of SFr30 billion ($28 billion) so far this year (see chart). But the country’s next four biggest listed banks, Credit Suisse among them, have had private-bank inflows of SFr31 billion. Clients have fled a bank, not a country. Perhaps one-third of offshore funds in Switzerland are from places where the final fantasy xi gil wealthy may not pay much tax anyway, including Russia and the Middle East. They are mainly in Switzerland for its political stability and well-run banks.
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埃德蒙顿,Edmonton瑞士的银行家们辩称，对于大部分客户来说，避税无论如何都不是主要的吸引力。他们列举了一些很有说服力的论据。例如：瑞银一直在经受资金大量流出的困扰，单单今年就已经有300亿瑞士法郎(280亿美元)的资金流出(见图表)。但与此同时，该国排行第二至第五位的上市银行，包括瑞士信贷(Credit Suisse)，却通过私人银行业务吸收了310亿瑞士法郎的资金。这说明客户只是逃离了一家银行，而并非一个国家。另外，大约有三分之一的离岸资金来自哪些赋税并不太高的地区，如俄罗斯和中东。这些客户所看重的是瑞士稳定的政治环境与经营良好的银行。