Falciani: all banks help evade taxes

All the world’s major banks have connections between each other and work together in a secret network to help people evade taxes, whistleblower and former HSBC IT engineer Hervé Falciani said yesterday, warning that illegal offshore transactions can’t be carried out through one single bank but only with the help of many financial institutions.

“All the main banks, especially those located in tax havens, have links between each other and distribute the different tasks and transactions among them,” Falciani said, speaking at a conference in Miami. “Transactions show that offshore services can’t be provided through one single bank, other banks also need to help. All transactions are carried out through the same intermediaries and go through the same paths.”

Falciani worked as an IT engineer at HSBC for seven years before deciding to leak what he saw as systemic tax evasion. Through a tax agreement with France, Argentina was granted access to data of undeclared accounts of Argentine citizens in Switzerland and the original source of information was Falciani.

“I am working with the United States, the European Union and Argentina, who now have all the information. Even though I have given the information to many countries to avoid problems and for them to work together, only a few countries have already investigated the clients or have acted against the bank,” Falciani said. “Even less countries have moved forward to change the tax evasion system.”

AFIP tax bureau Ricardo Echegaray originally met with whistleblower Falciani last year during an official visit to Lyon. Falciani had reportedly contacted the Argentine authorities to talk about the list and offered to give the information but the government instead chose to receive it through its so-called double taxation agreement with France in order to give the data more validity when used at court.

Now Falciani would travel to Argentina to attend a hearing of the bicameral commission investigating the supposed scheme created by HSBC to help Argentines evade taxes. He has already been invited to come but no date has been set yet.

“It’s difficult for tax authorities to move forward due to a lack of will from the governments. Nevertheless, my ideal is finding a way for countries to work together,” Falciani said. “The higher compensation people get for helping justice, the greater the pressure cheaters will have. It’s important to know people can gain a lot more by helping instead of cheating.”