| Anton
Keller is not a banker, but a man of influence. And while others are concerned
about decisions by European Union affecting Switzerland - currently focussing
on the EU's savings tax directive - the secretary of the Swiss
Investors Protection Association SIPA/ASDI (www.solami.com/gold.htm)
places his bets on decision-makers in Washington. There, over the
years, he has evolved in the center of a pléiade of lobbyists pursuing
objectives which are of direct interest to Switzerland and its rôle
in the gobal banking community. His recipe: to launch and push suitable
ideas among those which can make a dent, and to let others take credit
for whatever success is achieved. His motivation? The 62 years
old citizen of the Canton of Appenzell finds himself compelled to raise
his voice when he sees fundamental principles and liberties violated, be
it by public or private bureaucrats. And he may jump into action
when he recognizes an opportunity to defend and promote the citizen's private
sphere, as has been the case with what, since 1986, he is fighting as the
OECD's orwellian outgrowths.
In banking circles here and abroad Anton Keller is appreciated but, symptomatically,
he has few affinities with the Swiss Bankers Association (ASB). His
efforts to-date were financed primarily by a few bankers in Geneva and
Zurich and by some Swiss industrialists. His characteristic "guérillero"-style
lobbying has enabled him to communicate effectively with foreign decision-makers
and to obtain political turn-arounds in favor of Swiss interests even in
seemingly hopeless cases. Anton Keller's links with the United States
go back to 1960 when, as an exchange student, he also followed a training
for reserve officers of the US Air Force which gave him a unique "opportunity
to study the American psyche, to discover the value structure of this pioneer
society, and thus to better understand by what Americans are motivated
and driven". In this interview with Le Temps, Anton Keller discusses
his lobbying strategies in favour of more individual responsibility, liberty
and privacy particularly in the United States, Europe and Switzerland.
And he speaks up for tax reform, including a Europe-wide withholding tax
not at 35 but at 20 percent as a possible result of the current negotiations
between Switzerland and the UE.
Le
Temps:
Will the republican victory reinforce your combat against
the European directive on the taxation of the saving and in favour of the
bank secrecy?
Anton
Keller: It is indeed an easier situation where the American leaders
will be more at ease to reactivate the forces of liberalism and to support
the individual interests of the citizen. This philosophy again has more
chances - in spite of the very major effects of September 11 - vis-a-vis
the projects too easily imposed by bureaucrates who hid behind the slogan
of the antiterrorism to justify all that would facilitate their private
diary, that it is related or not to the antiterrorist cause.
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What
did you obtain through the lobbying in Washington?
-
We already almost acquired on the level of the American decision makers
a guarantee of their position against the automatic exchange of information
which the UE wants to impose. We play on fibre of freedoms and the several
liabilities. One seeks to wake up the spirits of the American decision
makers to the importance of the protection of the private, incomplete sphere
if it excludes that from the financial private sphere. We intervene with
the Congress in the republican camp, but there are also fine experts among
the democrats. We must polish, to adapt the speech to the democrats or
the republicans, but the potential of contact was present on the two sides
when we developed the strategy four years ago about the attack against
the bank secrecy.
Moreover,
we hope well that the United States could go until sanctioning OECD, by
depriving it of their financing until it returns to its vocation first
to defend the principles of liberalism and tax competition. Secret work
of its tax commission and its W8 group on tax avoidance is done out of
any democratic control and certain mandates which obtained the civils servant
who work there deviate of the initial orientation of this organization
which should be pro-companies, pro-freedoms and pro-sovereignty.
-
the
lobbying in Washington it is more effective on the UE than that applied
directly in Brussels?
-
Yes, if we correctly do our work on our premises and in Washington, we
do not have anything to fear of Europe which for a long time will be still
guided by the arrogance of bureaucrates rather than by democratic authorities.
I did not consider it necessary to invest me in the lobbying of Brussels.
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Which
is your analysis of European hardening in favour of an automatic exchange
of information?
-
They are mainly American bureaucrates who had already promoted this system
of tax harmonization which goes back to 1986, year of publication of the
Convention of OECD on the mutual administrative tax matter assistance.
One found there already all these aberrations and it is as of this year
that we had begun our combat. We had conducted campaign and completely
neutralized this convention at the end of two years, even if it ended up
coming into effect in 1995. We had not received an unspecified support
of the large Swiss banks, which applauded afterwards. Actually, only some
personalities had supported us on an individual level. We had in very 200
000 francs. Today, with the GAFI (Group of financial action on the bleaching
of capital, note), it is exactly the same thing under another title. And
with Brussels, it is still the same combat.
-
Which
effects would have the equivalent proposal for a deduction at the source
in Switzerland?
-
If a rate of 20% is adopted, that could even become a general alternative.
The 35% applied to the investors in Switzerland are very high. To lower
this rate with 20% would be beneficial too for the Swiss ones. It is the
only harmonization at the tax level which I could conceive like acceptable.
-
Which
is the probability that the UE issues a tax amnesty according to the Italian
model?
-
an amnesty will never have the discounted effect if there is not in unconscious
customers of our banks a dissatisfaction, a dissatisfaction vis-a-vis a
possible negligence by our banks with the principles which made the success
of our banking tradition. However, the large banks sold off what made our
force while agreeing too quickly to become tax officials American when
they yielded by sacrificing our laws to apply those American to Qualified
Intermediaries (IQ). These laws force the Swiss banks to identify the American
citizens among their investors to take a tax with the source on their incomes
with the profit of the American tax department.
-
Which
are your relations with the ASB?
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Dominated by the large banks, the ASB does not represent really all the
banks in Switzerland, nor the heritage and the real vocation of the money
market. Consequently, the combat and the procedures diverge occasionally.
The ASB always showed the Swiss flag in Washington, me I make the opposite,
I am done discrete. We find ourselves only on the finishing line. Sometimes,
they receive me and sometimes it is me which receive them.
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By
bringing you closer Washington, do you put London in a delicate situation?
-
the true reasons of the position of London in favour of the automatic exchange
are the competition which represents the Swiss money market. Then there
are unavowed reasons, including the interest to use tax information for
the services of information. In the United States, one also finds of bureaucrates
who support London in this field. The apparatuses of the services of information
push in this direction. These forces should be neutralized. In this respect,
the war against terrorism is also a "mask-sex" aiming at the same interests.
We have formidable adversaries. The democratic mechanisms of monitoring
actually play less and less in political systems like the United States
and the international organizations.
-
You
work only through American lobbies and not as a representative of the ASDI?
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Yes. We owe the success of our operation with a reinforced discretion:
we never act near the Congress under Swiss banner, but pass by American
interests. We work with associations such as Center for Freedom and Prosperity
(CFP), Discovery Institute, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Competitive
Enterprise Institute and others. We seek to mobilize these networks, very
active at the parliamentary level. But attention: if you come to see them
with a vague idea, their specialists make you an estimate - very expensive
-, and then seek to use your idea according to their own program. It is
what arrives at our traditional banking associations: they seek a network
(lawyers, associations), but do not arrive with a proven methodology already
on the level. We understood that it is necessary to use these networks
to the maximum as instruments of lobbying. We develop our project, our
resources are used in a dominating way [ for the analysis of the problems,
the identification of the objectives, and the development of an action
plan ], then we choose ourselves the specialists who will render us services
in a "guerrilla" [ political ] very specific implying limited funds and
actors. It is much more effective than if you seek to make you represent
for your nonAmerican interests. With this traditional "marketing" of the
carriers of the Swiss flag, one is entitled to results like those obtained
at the time of the business of the funds in déshérence. |