LAGARDE-LIST 2,059 GREEK TAX SAVERS

Curiosity prompted me to see the infamous Lagarde-List of  2,059 Greek tax payers who have or who had opened bank accounts at HSBC in Switzerland. It is freely available on the Internet, courtesy of Greek's Hot Docs magazine - here is a copy:

http://www.noelhodson.com/GREEK-LAGARDE-LIST-2059HSBC.pdf

I do not recognise any of the names. There is no indication of the transactions or balances, so we must assume all the funds are legitimate, tax paid and play no part in the fiscal and commercial deficits that require the European Union to bail-out this nation.

The sky is dark here in Oxford UK; it is late in this working day - so I will leave any analyses of how many dollars, thalers or euros these 2,059 accounts hold, until another day. In the meantime stay-at-home and ex-patriate Greeks may be interested to see who is named - and decide if any of these accounts could be repatriated to Athens, to become contributions to financing their nation in its hour of need.

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It probably was not the UK's Commander James Bond 007 who broke into the Swiss banks' computers to obtain this vital data; it was more likely either French or Greek Military Intelligence - but it makes the point that, as President George Bush Senior said when he considered the Internet and the World-Wide-Web, "Forget Privacy! Privacy is Dead!" They do indeed KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE.

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NIL DESPARANDUM - I don't know the Greek equivalent to this courageous Roman advice to - Never Despair. But anyone, Greek or Roman, who has paid for and applied exotic tax-planning that goes wrong - can recover their costs and losses under the advisors' Professional Indemnity Insurance; so keep the paperwork.   

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