Trillions stashed in offshore banks

It's not only Switzerland where the elites like to hide their money. A recent report by the IMF has brought to light that multinational firms like Apple, Microsoft, Google keep billions of dollars hidden in offshore bank accounts.  

These offshore banking centers help the elites and other criminals remain incognito.

Some call this - Offshore capitalism. It was in the 1970s that this form of capitalism began, from the margins, to make itself known in the wider world. Multinationals and banks began as a matter of course to expand and grow through tax havens.

The reason these corporate elites don't wanna bring their money back into the US is the  inordinate corporate tax. If Apple takes back its money to the US, it'll have to pay a corporate tax of 35%. And that's the reason why instead of taking that money back, it has resorted to borrowing money at a rate of 9.1% to pay dividends worth $100 billions to investors, thereby saving large amount of tax.


Microsoft too has long kept a lot of its cash overseas, mostly in Ireland.It is keeping more than $51 billion in cash overseas to avoid high U.S. corporate taxes. Microsoft , Apple , Google together have around $134.5 billion outside the US.  These tech companies are calling for a repatriation holiday, where the U.S. government would temporarily suspend taxes on bringing cash back from overseas. 

According to guardian.co.uk , "On a conservative estimate, a third of the world's wealth is held offshore, with 80% of international banking transactions taking place there. More than half the capital in the world's stock exchanges is "parked" offshore at some point." $1.4 trillion  is being held in offshore banks in the Cayman Islands alone.

It's not only corporate elites who hide their astronomical wealth in offshore banks but politicians too. One such example is Mitt Romney.

The following comes from ABC news

"In addition to paying the lower tax rate on his investment income, Romney has as much as $8 million invested in at least 12 funds listed on a Cayman Islands registry. Another investment, which Romney reports as being worth between $5 million and $25 million, shows up on securities records as having been domiciled in the Caymans."