If you liked the exactions, intrusions and costs of the Y2K venture, you'd love to heed a John Doe summons, courtesy of IRS.  And you'll be thrilled - while it lasts and you can afford it - by the jeopardies, confidentiality breaches and red tape entailed in the IRS' Qualified Intermediary scheme.

As you know, a world-wide witch-hunt has been unleashed, purportedly against US tax dodgers but - as with the Y2K frenzy - easily covering up even more sinister economic intelligence objectives.  Seeking to monopolize the moral high ground, this US bureaucratic onslaught has already succeeded globally to catch some 2600 bankers off guard, to bring them off balance and to turn them into "qualified intermediaries" (i.e. IRS Deputies).  This was done by way of the Qualified Intermediary Agreement which the IRS worked out with some shell-shocked and particularly gullible bankers - behind the back of the constitutional lawmakers everywhere and mostly in direct contradiction to existing local laws and customs.

Now, potentially, with the changes some 80 US lawmakers brought about in the US Treasury's policies on tax competition, fiscal sovereignty and financial privacy, the shoe is on the other foot.  We thus have a fast-closing window of opportunity not only to rein in the self-elected international bureaucratic lawmakers at the OECD, the FATF and elsewhere.  But also - most importantly - to have the mutually harmful, deliberately supercomplex and sovereignty-violating QI regulations thrown onto the waste heap of history by a US judge.  Provided, of course, some concerned bankers will rise to the tasks and opportunities at hand by becoming co-plaintiffs against the US Treasury.  On this track, the table could indeed be turned on the IRS by those looking for a way to effectively oppose IRS pressures jeopardizing client confidentiality and privilege through John Doe summons.  Such a counter-attack against the ill-considered onslaught on constitutionally protected freedoms may be spearheaded by suitable institutions, including off-shore banks and credit card companies which are now being sued for failing to facilitate the IRS' witch-hunt with their card holder data.

As indicated before, the growing success among US lawmakers of the US-based but already global campaign against IRS overreach has been all but overlooked by our "sparring partners".  At the OECD, the FATF and the IRS, they have started to fight back agressively - and with well-lined pockets at that.  That puts at risk several of our efforts on the national and international tax front, including our project to have the entire Qualified Intermediary Regulations (QIregs) thrown out by a US Court.  In order to succeed, our war chest must finally measure up to the tasks at hand and the resources mobilized against us.

Indeed, lack of timely and adequate funds has already forced us to postpone our US lawmaker meeting.  In the event, that meeting, originally planned for London, will now be held in Dublin; its date (probably December) and venue will be announced at http://www.solami.com/Dublin.htm; this plan reflects the Irish fiscal sovereignty success story (as illustrated in Amity Shlaes' memorable Financial Times edpage story of 14 August 2001 "A tiger slumbers in Maine's northern woods").  Meanwhile, a publicly-televised Roundtable took place on 9th August, sponsored by the International Platform Association (IPA).  The workshop "Human Rights Issues Arising from Highly Intrusive Investigative Provisions" will be held on 13th September at the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime (http://crimesymposium.jesus.cam.ac.uk), focussing on:

Adam Smith's First Canon on Taxation of 1776, i.e. the state's obligation to protect its taxpayers, and Whately's by now classical 1827 definition of taxes to be "the revenue levied from the subject in return for the protection afforded by the Sovereign.";

"The Saint Louis Declaration" of June 2001 on "the fundamental human right for individuals" "to flee political and economic oppression ... and ... to move themselves and their property to nations of other political jurisdictions with levels of taxation and public services compatible with their individual tastes and preferences", World Taxpayers Association, National Taxpayers Union & 31 US and foreign taxpayer organizations, http://www.ntu.org;

Gilbert Morris' latest paper "Signs and Sovereignty - The Growth of Supervenient Authority in the United Nations", Competitive Enterprise Institute, Washington August 2001 (http://www.solami.com/MorrisUN.doc);

Richard Rahn's "Economic Growth Options", "Taxation, Money Laundering & Liberty" (http://www.solami.com/RR9Aug.htm, http://www.solami.com/RR13Sep.doc), and

Bruce Zagaris' latest paper "Exchange of Tax Information Policies at the Millennium: Balancing Enforcement with Due Process and International Human Rights", Washington 9 August 2001.

The Washington Roundtable of 9th August served as a public opener of this debate.  And the Grenada and Dublin meetings in particular are expected to bring us closer to our above-outlined objectives.  As in the past, we seek in particular to strengthen those pro-market, pro-fiscal sovereignty and pro-financial privacy US lawmakers who brought about the said fundamental changes in the US Treasury positions.  Experience shows that they need to be actively, strongly and persistently supported "in their conviction and position vis-à-vis some sneaky, entrenched and still very determined bureaucrats at the very U.S. Treasury."

It is our privilege to invite you to effectively support these efforts in your own ways.  That can take many forms, e.g. through personal participation at any of the forthcoming events (perhaps a colleague of yours would appreciate receiving this fully hyperlinked message from you).  By way of your bank - if it is or you, as its client, are affected by, or it has already seen itself compelled to become an IRS-subservient Qualified Intermediary - to serve as a co-plaintiff in our drive against the IRS' globally harmful QI Regulations.  And, of course, by way of your discreet co-shouldering the heavy burdens we have thus assumed over the past 15 years (tax-deductable contributions may be made directly from outside the US to: Bank Hottinger & Cie, Geneva: account nr.961790, ref: SIPA/ASDI, from inside the US: on request).

Sincerely yours,

Anton Keller, Secretary, Swiss Investors Protection Association
cp 2580  -  1211 Geneva 2  -  t+f: +4122-7400362,  m: +4179-6047707, e: swissbit@solami.com