U.S. law allows whistleblowers to collect 30 percent of any taxes recovered as a result of their information, and it seems that one disgruntled computer technician is taking advantage of the program. Meet Heinrich Kieber, a nefarious criminal-type turned “good guy” who will be testifying in front of the “Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Thursday via a video statement from a secret location,” according to ABC News. Mr. Keiber is from Liechtenstein, a tiny country with very secretive banking laws. He stole banking information that showed how the world’s super-rich were skirting their countries tax laws. Keiber then sold the information to tax authorities in 12 countries, including the U.S, hence the whole “secret location” thing.
Kieber reportedly sold three CD’s full of names and data to tax authorities to 12 countries including Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy and the United States.
Tax authorities in Italy published the full list of names.
In Germany, the disclosures led to the arrests of several prominent CEO’s on charges that had evaded millions of dollars in taxes.
A former UBS private banker, Bradley Birkenfeld, has agreed to a plea deal and is reported to be cooperating with US authorities in bring charges against American citizens on tax evasion charges.
The Liechtenstein bank, LGT, is owned by the tiny country’s ruling family led by Prince Hans-Adam II.
Kieber’s Washington lawyer, Jack Blum, says Kieber should be considered a whistleblower and a hero, not a thief, for revealing how the super rich hid billions of dollars using the Liechtenstein bank.
Whatever you think of thieves (we’re not fond), you have to admit that it takes serious balls to be comfortable pissing off a fairly large percentage of the world’s super-rich and powerful tax evaders.
Day of Reckoning? Super Rich Tax Cheats Outed by Bank Clerk [ABC News]
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Awesome! If I were that guy…. hell yeah I would do it! I dont care if half of the rich tax-avoiding a-holes in the world were looking for me afterwards. Gimmie a new ID & I could live a simple, quiet life on 30% of all the money the IRS gets from these thieving rich jerks.
Come & get me!
Half the people who live in countries that border Liechtenstein can’t find it. When I took a motor coach tour from Switzerland to Liechtenstein, someone asked “How do we know when we’ve entered Liechtenstein?” The answer: When the license plate color changes from white to black.
I’d love to see a goodfella driving around the Rhine basin trying to find Liechtenstein. This guy’s pretty safe.
To all those folks who think its improper or hypocritical to violate the law in order to enforce it, can you help me understand the following?
Do you really think that the one-time-criminal data-thief is truly more dispicable than excessively rich companies/person who routinely break the law. Its pretty clear that the CEOs, etc, are lifetime white collar criminals who live above the law, not the guy who is taking one for the team (its pretty clear his life and liberty were not as important as his belief that criminals should be punished).
Should we prosecute undercover FBI/Police/etc who sell or use drugs and commit other crimes in order to prosecute a clearly larger criminal? Sometimes you gotta break the rules, especially when the bad guys are succeeding by doing so.
Aren’t you concerned, or at least suspicious of, the laws that make what this single clerk has done were written by the tax cheats themselves, or by people who benefit by protecting their secrets?
Its not like the guy stole the data and is ransoming it to the account holders, or selling it to random criminal enterprises, or any number of immoral things. He’s offering it the govt’s of the suspected criminals, although he stands to profit substantially (but its no secret, and he probably won’t live to see it). How would you feel If I knew my neighbors were pedophiles, and I knew where they kept the evidence but due to red-tape and legal technicalites the police were unable to act? Would you think I was an immoral burglar if I broke in and exposed them, so the police finally could act.
Anyways, I hope he gets the 30%, he better spend it fast though.
I’m not sure it’s fair to characterize ALL CEOs as life-long career white-collar criminals. There’s got to be some honest ones out there (right?). I mean, maybe if we rooted through some of the Above and Beyond stories we’d find some.
@Hamm Beerger: Yeah dude. Taxes totally suck. I hate driving on roads and having my garbage taken away.
Wouldn’t it be ironical if this guy started stashing his sizable reward in tax shelters, though?
That wasn’t my money! Someone deposited it in my little numbered account and I don’t know anything about it! Must’ve been a typo when they made the deposit – wrong account!!! I’m innocent, I tell you. I want my attorney.
@blong81: Don’t like it? Leave. Let me show you countries that have lower taxes than the US. Huh, Venezuela (maybe), Cuba?, Bhutan, Saudia Arabia, Quatar, Kuwait, UAE, Yemen, Somolia (no government to collect), Iraq, help me out here guys, has to be some place this clown can move to.
[www.whosarat.com]
@papahoth: Agreed.
/is too lazy to look up countries with lower taxes
@blong81: YOU SIGNED UP FOR IT
@coan_net: No, it would be more like, you’re a plumber hired to fix a leaky pipe and you stumble onto a meth lab.
How anyone can see the scumbag tax cheaters as victims is beyond me. I have no sympathy for the super-rich…
@Hamm Beerger:
Only the little people pay taxes, right?
The biggest problem with our tax system is the uber rich don’t pay ALL the taxes. They are the ones who mainly benefit from the largess of the government so they should pay for it.
@coan_net: The reason you can’t figure it out is because you are failing to include the cost to society of all those drugs being distributed – increased crime rates, broken lives, costly addiction, death by overdose, economic depression as money is funneled into vice industries. If the one break-in could save lives and help hundreds of working poor, wouldn’t it be worth it?
The cost of the ultra-rich not paying their taxes has a similar result. It robs these countries’ governments of billions of dollars that could build schools and libraries, improve welfare programs, prevent crime, improve infrastructure, and help maintain a more balanced society.
When the ultra rich don’t pay taxes, you pay in the form of higher effective tax rates, and a disappearance of the things you have been paying taxes for, such as social security.
One bank in one country… the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
@SAGoon987: In Texas we pay tolls, and the garbage collection is a line item on the water bill…
@Shrink_Ray_Bandit: Do you even know how tolls work? Also, do you like POLICE and SCHOOLS?
You people will manipulate anything to try and misrepresent something, won’t you?
I can see a downside to this:
It’s no secret whatever that the rich own and operate the republican party. Having lost all this money, they’ll simply pursue a legal means of reducing their tax outlays; they’ll resort to ever more insidious and despicable methods of brainwashing the public into supporting the republican party, which, of course, will have the effect of lowering the taxes of the super rich and raising the taxes of the poor, whose labours and toils have created the wealth and resources of the rich.
I am sooo tired of rich fat middle-aged balding white men. They are ruining everything. And I don’t think that’s hyperbole.
@ludwigk: Actually, the idea that the money the IRS is going to collect from this is going to improved schools, welfare, and infrastructure, and so forth was a JOKE…
For one thing, those are state functions, not federal functions… for another thing, if you’re really so naive that you think any of the loot is going to trickle down to the man on the street in any form, you shouldn’t be allowed to leave the house without supervision. Do you have any clue how much interest is accruing on the national debt, for example? (Of course you don’t.) The savings of a thousand multimillionaires would be lost in the background noise.
I would say that the problem is that he SOLD the lists. If he had just turned them over to the countries in question and waited for his reward, I’d have much less of a problem with his intrusion into the systems. But the article makes no mention of this 30% rule and instead says that he just sold the stolen data. That doesn’t make him a hero.
Also, what are the issues if the countries knowingly purchased stolen data?
@DikembeMeiztombo: Okay, two things. Firstly, let’s not post in all caps. Secondly, don’t call other users fools. Calm it down. Read the comment code.
Awesome dude. You should have seen the reaction of those German CEOs. Wahahaha.
However, seriously, I do think the bank owes the super rich folks the same thing they would owe everybody else when ID data gets stolen. A complete denial of the facts, and half a year of privacy protection. Obviously, not in the US, but in the country of the bank: Liechtenstein. ROFLOL.
I hope the IRS stands up to their promise of giving this guy 30% He should also get an IRS building names after him.
Best method – Don’t buy a stupid, overpriced POS that you have to jailbreak for it to be useful. Silly lemmings…
@DikembeMeiztombo: You’re absolutely right, what was I thinking in criticizing the government for wasting money. In fact, everything I earn is owed to the government, and I’m sure they’d do a much better job of managing my money than I ever could so perhaps they should just take it all. And I won’t bitch or complain even a little bit because I obviously signed up for it by being gainfully employed here.
@aka_bigred:
my iPhone called. you’re in the wrong thread.
@jscott73: Well said! Whatever this guy’s motivations, It’s nice to see that CEOs who are already screwing everyone and everything and have the BALLS to evade taxes besides, are getting their due.
DEAR MR BILL GATES
I WRITE YOU THIS LETTER AS MY SISTER IS VERY SICK IN NIGERIA. IF YOU COULD PRIVIDE THE LOCATION OF YOUR SECRET BANK ACOUNTS I CAN THEN DEPOSIT A CAPTURED TREASURE INTO YOU ACCOUNT AS IT HAS BEEN SEIZED BY THE GOVEMENT.
MR BILL GATES, PLEASE REPLY SOON, THE MONEY WILL BE GIVEN TO THE GOVENMET IN 3 DAYS UNLESS I HAVE LOCATION OF SECRET OFF SHORE TAX SHELTER.
VERY BEST,
DANIEL BJODS
@harvey_birdman_attorney_at_law: As others have pointed out, you could always move. Otherwise, stop complaining about being expected to pay the same taxes the rest of us do. If you want to complain about the way they’re spent, fine, but taxes are a fact of life, and if you don’t pay them, you are stealing from me and your other fellow citizens who do their part. Taxes are necessary. Anarchy sounds like fun when you’re a teenager, but grown-ups realize that they are the price we pay for living in a decent country.
/Nothing is certain but death and taxes.
@gareki.ga.haikyo.ni:
I would have to say this is probably the single most stupidest thing I have read within the last six months, congratulations sir you have won the prize for wasting thirty seconds of my life with your irrelevant diatribe.
I know that the article says that he stole the data, but he is from Liechtenstein, those of us not from Liechtenstein can not presume to know their laws. Not to mention the fact that the laws in the US do not apply.
Why do people instantly think this guy’s a thief? He’s a bank clerk who worked at the bank for years watching the super rich play their shenanigans. He got sick of it and knowing he could make some money off of it he turned those guys in to their respective governments. Kudos to him.
No, I don’t think that government does a good enough job with our tax dollars. But does that mean that the rich get to hide millions and billions of dollars?
@K-T: Yes, he broke the law to do it. Most if not all whistle blowers have to break the law to get the proper information to the right people. Illegal copies of sensitive files is what brought to light most illegal activities on the part of businesses, governments, and corporations.
@fostina1: lol someone’s been watching too much “Smallville”
@Wormfather is Wormfather: oh gods I think I love you. Marry me and bear our children.
As a systems administrator who feels strongly about the ethics of the profession, I have mixed feelings about this.
On a personal level, I cheer the man for exposing some of the people who “get away with it” because they can. How much more could the government do (including, possibly, lowering tax rates) if everyone paid what they are supposed to?
On a professional level, I am completely appalled. He broke his country’s laws, and violated basic ethics — when we computer professionals get access to privileged information, it should remain privileged. There are exceptions (if, for example, these people had broken *his country’s* laws).
There have been another rash of news reports about computer professionals abusing their privilege. In one recent case an angry employee locked everyone else out of the computers for the city of San Francisco.
It’s hard enough having to fight the belief that system and network administrators spend their time going through users personal files and email without people like this. He should be prosecuted and punished.
I’m pretty sure that the responsibility to report crimes outweighs geek-client privilege, if such a thing exists. I think even psychiatrists are required to inform police if a client admits a felony.
As a firefighter, please post on your house in clear view if you don’t want to pay taxes.
@tawni: please, the uber rich deserve to hold on their money just as much as the regular joes. If they got their money illegally, absolutely take it all away but b/c they succeeded or worked hard or innovated is NOT a legitimate excuse for the government to take away their earning. If Obama gets elected, it’s not only the uberrich whose taxes will be going up. According to him you are probably rich. I’m not saying that there isn’t a place for taxation but at this stage most western governments have gone from tax structures that were meant to pay for things government should do: provide infrastructure, provide a military for defense, etc etc to a confiscatory tax scheme, that’s just wrong. Screwing over a person b/c they are rich is not right just as when rich people screw over poor people. Let me make it clear I have no problems with people blowing the whistle on illegal activity. What I do have problems with is a confiscatory taxation system. If I legally and for my own sense of values, morally, earned a ton of money, I think I earned the right to keep it b/c I would know far better how to give it away and invest than any government.
@coolkiwilivin: well we have seen how well the Bush tax cuts have worked so far. He did say 6 months ago. “they’re working.” It must be true, I’ll finish my comment later, need to do up some more horse.
@coolkiwilivin: one more thing, let me know what country has lower taxes that is fit to live in. I highly recommend you look to retire there.
@coolkiwilivin: “If I legally and for my own sense of values, morally, earned a ton of money, I think I earned the right to keep it b/c I would know far better how to give it away and invest than any government.”
If taxpayers who are not uber rich don’t get a sayso in how their tax monies are disbursed, then why should the wealthy?
Nice guy, now in witness protection.
Since he committed several crimes in obtaining the data and sold the data for profit, he has little credibility as a witness, and would NOT be called to testify in any specific criminal or civil case.
His CDs of names provide a basis to start investigations, but federal authorites will need significantly more d*mning evidence to secure any criminal convictions.
People with this much money can afford the best attorneys and IT people to scrub their computers squeaky clean.
Civil action?
Sure, but the taxpayer has multiple avenues of appeal, and cases take forever.
@coolkiwilivin: Uh…you did RTFA, right? Especially the part where they didn’t pay the taxes that are an obligation of living in whatever country it is in which they reside.
@SAGoon987: Tolls was kind of tounge in cheek, but since you want to be a jerk.
Roads – Gas Tax, Federal and State
Schools – Property Tax, State Lottery
Police – Property Tax, Local Sales Tax
None of these are income tax items. None of your points are relevant in this thread. MODERATOR!!
@papahoth: well I still am waiting. What country?