Seek and Destroy-A Proposal to Kill Illicit Cash

[catnhatnh]

Want to punish offshore tax cheats? Want to cripple the drug trade? Want to reduce the public debt? Take a page from the military-Change the money.

Picture this, on a day not to far in the future the president announces that on a near-time, certain date(say April 15th)that a new US currency was to be declared legal tender on the 30th of that month and all old money not exchanged by that date at designated sites would no longer be valid.For normal citizens this would be a minor inconvenience-sometime between those two dates money jars and piggy banks would need to be bagged and pocket cash and mad money stashes brought forward and taken to an exchange center-in short a pain in the ass!

But picture if you are one of the more affluent with cash parked offshore-say in the Swiss bank UBS. You've got a real problem-trunkloads of bills that are set to expire and a very real possibility of jail time trying to convert them. That money in the Caymans-no problem, bring it home but of course you need some means of accounting for it.

Ain't no foreign bank gonna give you the local money to stash either. On announcement day all that stashed money becomes radioactive. Swiss secrecy, oui-Swiss Francs, non. Already changed to other currencies? I'm betting your offshore banker buddies would be pleased to document that in exchange for allowing them to swap out their holdings...after all they will need to account for it too.

Meanwhile the IRS discreetly sets up a criminal amnesty allowing people to repatriate admitted stashed cash at 25 cents on the dollar and forgoing prosecution. All names to be published with no exceptions, with all financial and legal licenses to be suspended for life.

This period would include a month long regimen of increased searches and seizures at all borders and ports. Any undeclared cash seized to be summarily forfeited.

A national cash reconciliation board would be formed with a 5 year mandate to rule on treasure-trove and mistaken loss claims for accidental strandings of otherwise legitimate cash. After 5 years such claims would be handled by the treasury dept. or IRS.

Much of the wealth of the country has been stolen and sequestered. I think those who aided this should be quarantined and punished.