Tax havens closed as Lowy files revealed

[Swagman]

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

Tax havens closed as Lowy files revealed
Elisabeth Sexton
July 19, 2008

AN INTERNATIONAL tax haven crackdown that began with two whistleblowing bankers has not only exposed the private financial affairs of the Australian billionaire Frank Lowy but yesterday forced Switzerland's largest bank to close its doors to US clients wanting offshore accounts.

The impact in Australia could widen if 20 audits by the Australian Taxation Office relating to funds in Liechtenstein bear fruit. The Tax Office is using some of the same material as a US Senate subcommittee whose first public hearing, on Thursday night, prompted Mr Lowy to reveal he was one of the 20.

The committee began investigating in February, when news broke that Heinrich Kieber, a former employee of the bank LGT in Liechtenstein, had sold thousands of client documents to the German Government.

(snip)

Among them were 35 pages from LGT's files laying bare its relationship with Mr Lowy, the executive chairman of the shopping centre group Westfield Holdings, and his sons David, Peter and Steven, who also work for Westfield. The report says the documents show the bank helped the Lowys hide ownership of assets from Australian tax authorities and disguise the beneficiaries of a Liechtenstein foundation that held $US68 million in assets in 2001.

On Thursday Mr Lowy rejected these statements, saying the report drew inferences from the documents and stated them as facts without verification. He and his family had not been given "any meaningful opportunity to … have the true position stated", he said.

The US Senate investigation received a second wind in June, when Bradley Birkenfeld, a former employee of UBS, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service.Birkenfeld gave prosecutors detailed information, including that in one case, he had bought diamonds using a US client's Swiss bank account and smuggled the diamonds into the US in a toothpaste tube.



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/lowy-files-revealed/2008/07/18/1216163156772.html

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## 50 days before 9/11, Larry Silverstein's Silverstein Properties and Frank Lowy's Westfield America obtained 99-year leases on World Trade Center Buildings One, Two, Four and Five. Silverstein already owned Building Seven. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey handed over control of the World Trade Center to Silverstein and Lowy on July 24, 2001. Lowy leased the shopping concourse area called the Mall at the World Trade

Westfield currently has interests in total assets worth A$41 billion, representing 121 shopping centres in four countries with over 10 million square meters of retail space. It is the world's largest retail property group by equity market capitalization".

[whistle]

1. Any whistleblowera over in the Cayman Islands that could rattle a few thousand cages?

[elehhhhna]

4. The Clinton Admin got the Cayman account holders records in 2000.

After exended legal challenges by Visa & Mastercard (that's the easy way to spend the money -- via credit card). Visa & MC argued that they didn't have the names of their account holders -- that only the issuing Caymanian banks knew the cardholders names -- lol-- the judge didn't buy THAT.

But the BA has done NOTHING with them.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Well, well, well. It looks like this time around, the careless people who

supported Bush are not going to escape the consequences of their reckless judgment.

[fascisthunter]

3. good...