If you could stay home and watch television, play video games and hang out with your friends all day at government expense, would you do it? Of course most Americans that collect money from the government each month are not abusing the system. Many truly are incapable of taking care of themselves, and others are […]
Argentines Hit With 35% Foreign Credit Card Tax for Holidays
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner increased a tax on credit card purchases abroad ahead of the southern hemisphere summer vacation period to stem a hemorrhaging of reserves to a seven-year low. The government raised a levy on card purchases in foreign currency to 35 percent from 20 percent, according to a resolution published in today’s Official Gazette. […]
A U.S. Default Seen as Catastrophe Dwarfing Lehman’s Fall
“Anyone who remembers the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. little more than five years ago knows what a global financial disaster is. A U.S. government default, just weeks away if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling as it now threatens to do, will be an economic calamity like none the world has ever […]
Germans Hide Cash in Diapers as Swiss Secrecy Crumbles
“Germans who avoided taxes by keeping money in Switzerland are bringing wads of cash home and hiding it in odd places. With Swiss banks the target of an international crackdown against tax evasion, the government wants the industry to stop managing undeclared funds. This requirement, combined with high-profile cases such as Bayern Munich President Uli […]
Americans Giving Up Passports Jump Sixfold as Tougher Rules Loom
“Americans renouncing U.S. citizenship surged sixfold in the second quarter from a year earlier as the government prepares to introduce tougher asset-disclosure rules. Expatriates giving up their nationality at U.S. embassies climbed to 1,131 in the three months through June from 189 in the year-earlier period, according to Federal Register figures published today. That brought […]