# Tax Agency uncovers €20 billion of Spanish capital in Switzerland



## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

Tax Agency uncovers €20 billion of Spanish capital in Switzerland | In English | EL PAÍS

Due to the modulo 720 declaration

715 people now being investigated for money laundering


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

Yes, I posted a link to this article in the thread about the banks asking people for information about the source of their income, as well as ID documents.

Although it's not mentioned in the El Pais article, I was pleased to see this information inn the El Mundo coverage regarding the increased amount of tax that has been collected as a result:-


"Menéndez ha asegurado que la recaudación aumentó en 2014 en un 12,5%. En el primer trimestre de este año, la Agencia ha recaudado 2.889 millones, lo que supone un 13,5% más que en el primer trimestre del año anterior. La cosecha entre enero y marzo representa "el mejor trimestre de la serie estadística", según el responsable de la institución."

I know people find the requirement to file the Modelo 720 onerous and some are suspicious that it might lead to some of their assets being seized (although there has been no sign of such a thing to date and the third round of submissions has just been made) but I don't think anybody can deny that it seems to be working.

No doubt there are still a lot of stones waiting to be turned over, though.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

This news pleased me almost as much as learning that Tesco had made a massive loss.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Alcalaina said:


> This news pleased me almost as much as learning that Tesco had made a massive loss.


Pleased that small investors, pension funds and other non-plutocratic organisations with shares saw the value of their shares decrease???? Or that thousands of people may lose their jobs because of closures???

Is the fact that 'Big Business' got a deserved hammering more important than any other consideration??

P.S. I don't like Tesco either but neither do I enjoy seeing the casualties of the fallout.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

The amount of money this toad has been raking in, and not declaring, is absolutely staggering.


Rato recibi? 2,8 millones en divisas en 2012 y 2013 desde el exterior y no los declar?, seg?n Hacienda | Espa?a | EL MUNDO


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

mrypg9 said:


> Pleased that small investors, pension funds and other non-plutocratic organisations with shares saw the value of their shares decrease???? Or that thousands of people may lose their jobs because of closures???
> 
> Is the fact that 'Big Business' got a deserved hammering more important than any other consideration??
> 
> P.S. I don't like Tesco either but neither do I enjoy seeing the casualties of the fallout.


Yes. I'm pleased on behalf of all the small local shops that went out of business after Tesco took away their trade, and the suppliers they've screwed. Investors are just gamblers after all, they should know the risks.

When capitalism is working properly, small businesses compete for custom by making better products and offering value for money. Tesco does the opposite.


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

I was born with nothing and I still have most of it left. The Tesco loss was mostly about devaluing of their enormous property portfolio. As a result of this they will close 43 non-profit making stores which will mean the demise of thousands of jobs. Not just the direct employees but also their suppliers. Whilst we need these conglomerates to keep their share prices high in order to benefit investors we also need them to have a compassionate mind towards their employees. The best example of this might be John Lewis and the idea that all workers are owners of the stores and receive a welcome share bonus each year. But the shop floor workers are paid a pittance, just above minimum wage so it ain't all good.


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## Madliz (Feb 4, 2011)

¿Gran hermano?

asÃ* funciona el superordenador de hacienda que ha descubierto los fraudes de la amnistÃ*a fiscal â€” idealista/news


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Alcalaina said:


> Yes. I'm pleased on behalf of all the small local shops that went out of business after Tesco took away their trade, and the suppliers they've screwed. Investors are just gamblers after all, they should know the risks.
> 
> When capitalism is working properly, small businesses compete for custom by making better products and offering value for money. Tesco does the opposite.



It's a mighty and very generalised assumption that small businesses make better products and offer vfm. Some do, some don't. If you hold that 'small is best' to be universally true, then surely the dea of the state taking over utilities etc. should be scrapped forthwith. I don't believe that.
The fact is that the bigger you are, the more you can save by bulk buying and therefore can offer customers lower prices.

How do you stop some businesses being more successful than others and therefore having improved access to lower-cost buying? Only by state regulation and interference, some might say, n a scale that few in a democratic society would welcome.

You and I might not like Tesco or supermarkets as a whole for that matter. Fact is, millions do. Not everyone has the time, energy, money or inclination to spend half a day shopping.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

thrax said:


> I was born with nothing and I still have most of it left. The Tesco loss was mostly about devaluing of their enormous property portfolio. As a result of this they will close 43 non-profit making stores which will mean the demise of thousands of jobs. Not just the direct employees but also their suppliers. Whilst we need these conglomerates to keep their share prices high in order to benefit investors we also need them to have a compassionate mind towards their employees. The best example of this might be John Lewis and the idea that all workers are owners of the stores and receive a welcome share bonus each year. But the shop floor workers are paid a pittance, just above minimum wage so it ain't all good.



I too started with nothing but like most on this Forum, I suspect,I'm glad I've ended up with something in my old age, if not with £millions.
So you think that non-profit making enterprises should be kept going at a loss? For every enterprise, regardless of size? If not, at what number of employees?
When we lost big contracts we had, very reluctantly, to lose employees. Otherwise we might well have had to close and deprive many more of work and wages.
I am 100% for employee ownership in a social market economy. We offered a deal like that to our employees but they weren't interested. If John Lewis or any other employee owned company had to cut costs by shedding jobs, believe me they would do so.

Of course, in the state=owned centrally planned economies of socialist Eastern and Central Europe no-one lost their jobs. Obsolete, unproductive and unprofitable industries were kept going at tremendous cost to the social wage and the environment. In the last decades of their lives they were kept afloat by massive loans from the capitalist states they despised.
I suppose we could always offer that system of guaranteed employment to Western European voters but somehow I suspect there would be few takers.

The way forward is fairer taxation, revenue used for job creation and legislation against unfair monopolies and practices that restrict competition.
We need to remember too that Big Government is as much of a threat to well-being as Big Business, if fact often more so.

AS for shares.....the public limited company has spread share ownership widely so that most of us on this Forum have shares either held directly or by a pension fund or other management institution on our behalf. So we should be careful when we gloat at a fall in the market.
It's also often overlooked that the banks were not given their bailout money, it's a repayable loan, and that many small shareholders suffered the loss of lifetime savings when banks like RBS , LLoyds and Northern Rock had to be rescued by taxpayers.
Especially hard hit were the thousands of RBS employees who bought into the rights issue which funded the disastrous Am-Ro acquisition. Many of these were low-paid branch staff who looked to these shares as a retirement nest egg.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

mrypg9 said:


> It's a mighty and very generalised assumption that small businesses make better products and offer vfm. Some do, some don't. If you hold that 'small is best' to be universally true, then surely the dea of the state taking over utilities etc. should be scrapped forthwith. I don't believe that.
> The fact is that the bigger you are, the more you can save by bulk buying and therefore can offer customers lower prices.
> 
> How do you stop some businesses being more successful than others and therefore having improved access to lower-cost buying? Only by state regulation and interference, some might say, n a scale that few in a democratic society would welcome.
> ...


Sorry but I still can't help being pleased that they're taking a hammering. Tesco got WAY too big - £1 in every £8 spent in the UK or something like that?? That's just not healthy. Their customers have migrated to Lidl and Aldi for better prices and Waitrose for better quality, and I don't blame them.


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## Susanna345 (Apr 29, 2015)

Wow thats a lot of money recovered. i still believe they should put the money back in the community.


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

Susanna345 said:


> Wow thats a lot of money recovered. i still believe they should put the money back in the community.


The €20bn is just the amount of money supposedly being held in Switzerland. Not all of it will be illegal - indeed there's nothing illegal about holding money in a Swiss bank account, provided you declare it. But Hacienda will take a look at some of those accounts to try to determine how the money came to be there.


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

Lynn R said:


> The amount of money this toad has been raking in, and not declaring, is absolutely staggering.
> 
> 
> Rato recibi? 2,8 millones en divisas en 2012 y 2013 desde el exterior y no los declar?, seg?n Hacienda | Espa?a | EL MUNDO


What makes me laugh with some of what is coming out is the breathtaking stupidity , or is it the absolute confidence in the "system" as it was , of the certainty that no one would ever be asking about anything ? Otherwise, like one person being investigated up in Cataluña , you wouldn't be as stupid as to not use your bank account for the past 12 years. :rofl: 
You've got no defence to that ,have you ?


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

gus-lopez said:


> What makes me laugh with some of what is coming out is the breathtaking stupidity , or is it the absolute confidence in the "system" as it was , of the certainty that no one would ever be asking about anything ? Otherwise, like one person being investigated up in Cataluña , you wouldn't be as stupid as to not use your bank account for the past 12 years. :rofl:
> You've got no defence to that ,have you ?


I think they just assumed that they would always get away with it, because that's the way it's always been. Should anyone start sniffing around, you just get your mates in the judiciary to make it go away. Or in the case of the former examining magistrate Baltasar Garzón, get him removed from office for being too good at his job!


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

gus-lopez said:


> What makes me laugh with some of what is coming out is the breathtaking stupidity , or is it the absolute confidence in the "system" as it was , of the certainty that no one would ever be asking about anything ? Otherwise, like one person being investigated up in Cataluña , you wouldn't be as stupid as to not use your bank account for the past 12 years. :rofl:
> You've got no defence to that ,have you ?


I'd go for the confidence, or to be more accurate, arrogance.

It goes right down to local level. A local Mayor around here, in Alcaucin, went to prison for various corruption offences a few years ago. When his house was searched the police found €160,000 under his mattress (yes, literally) and he had never touched a cent of his mayoral salary which was paid into his bank account. Before becoming Mayor he was a building labourer, btw, so could hardly claim he'd been able to save that amount independently.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Alcalaina said:


> Sorry but I still can't help being pleased that they're taking a hammering. Tesco got WAY too big - £1 in every £8 spent in the UK or something like that?? That's just not healthy. Their customers have migrated to Lidl and Aldi for better prices and Waitrose for better quality, and I don't blame them.


I'm not sure why success per se should be viewed as unhealthy. The fact that so many customers were willing to spend so much money there merely shows that people like Tesco. Is it Government's job to dictate to people where they should spend their money as long as they're not spending it on anything illegal? As for getting 'way too big' - that's the argument used by Tories against taking utilities and other such public services under state control. Sometimes big is better, in terms of procurement policies for instance.


I'm wondering if Germans see Lidl and Aldi as we see Tesco. After all, they are big in Germany and all over Europe too, including the UK. Not sure how they compare with Tesco in terms of turnover/assets but they are big too.
Waitrose aren't cheap, are they? When people get more money in their pockets they'll probably go back to Tesco -* if* they get more money, perhaps I should say.

USDAW aren't happy with the job losses. A high percentage of Tesco workers belong to USDAW or UNITE.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

mrypg9 said:


> I'm not sure why success per se should be viewed as unhealthy. The fact that so many customers were willing to spend so much money there merely shows that people like Tesco. Is it Government's job to dictate to people where they should spend their money as long as they're not spending it on anything illegal? As for getting 'way too big' - that's the argument used by Tories against taking utilities and other such public services under state control. Sometimes big is better, in terms of procurement policies for instance.
> 
> 
> I'm wondering if Germans see Lidl and Aldi as we see Tesco. After all, they are big in Germany and all over Europe too, including the UK. Not sure how they compare with Tesco in terms of turnover/assets but they are big too.
> ...


My rather quixotic antipathy towards Tesco is partly because they achieved their massive growth in the 80s and 90s by placing convenience ahead of quality. People with "busy lives" like a one-stop shop, or so we are told. The quality of the produce deteriorates (I'm thinking farmhouse cheddar as an example) but nobody notices because they never buy it anywhere else. Then they introduce some over-packaged "Premium" version which actually tastes like it used to but costs twice as much.

I am old-fashioned and like buying meat at the butcher's and bread at the baker's. Even when I was working I did that. I know I am not like most people in that respect, though I am now living in a place where it's the norm, and that suits me fine.

I'm sure the redundant staff will get jobs at Aldi or Lidl, or Waitrose, who seem to be opening new stores all over the place.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Alcalaina said:


> My rather quixotic antipathy towards Tesco is partly because they achieved their massive growth in the 80s and 90s by placing convenience ahead of quality. People with "busy lives" like a one-stop shop, or so we are told. The quality of the produce deteriorates (I'm thinking farmhouse cheddar as an example) but nobody notices because they never buy it anywhere else. Then they introduce some over-packaged "Premium" version which actually tastes like it used to but costs twice as much.
> 
> I am old-fashioned and like buying meat at the butcher's and bread at the baker's. Even when I was working I did that. I know I am not like most people in that respect, though I am now living in a place where it's the norm, and that suits me fine.
> 
> I'm sure the redundant staff will get jobs at Aldi or Lidl, or Waitrose, who seem to be opening new stores all over the place.


Actually, people with busy lives, real busy lives, *do* like the convenience of a one-stop shop, especially working mothers or people with things that occupy their after-work lives, or as seems the case nowadays, people with more than one job.
I think you are making assumptions about other people's tastes and habits. How do you know 'nobody notices' the allegedly poor quality of what they buy? And if they enjoy it, so what? 
Whether the quality of meat or bread from small shops is better than from a supermarket depends very much on the quality of the small shop. Not all independent retailers are superior. We buy our bread from our local baker and I defy anyone to discern the difference between a barra from that shop or a freshly baked warm barra from Mercadona. We once bought some patisserie from the local cake shop which when unwrapped turned out to be stale and inedible.

The Tesco 'superstore' near my dil in Reigate has a lot of fresh local produce, meat, fruit and veg as well as local cheeses. Giants like Tesco are very quick to catch on to new trends. Incidentally, I haven't noticed that Spaniards have an aversion to supermarkets.

And yes, I dare say you're right. Those workers, the drivers, cashiers, packers and so on who are made redundant may well get jobs elsewhere. That's what George Osborne said about the public sector workers who lost their jobs because of the cuts. Of course, there may not be a Lidl or Waitrose offering jobs in their area....but they can go on the dole, of course..


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

mrypg9 said:


> Actually, people with busy lives, real busy lives, *do* like the convenience of a one-stop shop, especially working mothers or people with things that occupy their after-work lives, or as seems the case nowadays, people with more than one job.
> I think you are making assumptions about other people's tastes and habits. How do you know 'nobody notices' the allegedly poor quality of what they buy? And if they enjoy it, so what?
> Whether the quality of meat or bread from small shops is better than from a supermarket depends very much on the quality of the small shop. Not all independent retailers are superior. We buy our bread from our local baker and I defy anyone to discern the difference between a barra from that shop or a freshly baked warm barra from Mercadona. We once bought some patisserie from the local cake shop which when unwrapped turned out to be stale and inedible.
> 
> ...


I was only attempting to explain why I _personally_ feel the way I do about Tesco - I never suggested they don't have a role to play or that other people shouldn't shop there. But there is no doubt that they forced the closure of thousands of small retailers. Having a choice between 95 different types of toothpaste or googleberries flown in daily from Fiji is no substitute for losing your corner shop.

Incidentally I doubt Tesco will be closing any stores that _don't_ have a Lidl or Aldi nearby.


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