Well it says in the article that one of the terms of the settlement is the bank has to cooperate with the justice department on further investigations of the accounts they helped shelter. So it sounds like the US is going after those individuals, in addition to the cash penalties levied on the bank. And part of the reason for increased funding of the IRS was to assist with carrying out investigations of “big fish” tax evaders like this. It’s also a deferred criminal prosecution, so if the bank goes back on their agreement to assist with investigations or pay penalties the justice department could reopen a criminal case against individuals at the bank itself.
Confused by the second half of the comment. It’s not hard to find out where US tax revenue goes, you don’t have to guess (well except for what’s actually inside the defense spending chunk, see: pentagon audits):
And yes infrastructure is one portion of that, would be in that discretionary non-defense slice. Most of our federal spending is on things like medicare, unemployment, and social security (there’s a large chunk in the 2022 chart for student loan forgiveness, I think that represents at least some what was unfortunately struck down by the supreme court though). The 2021 infrastructure act and other on-going infrastructure projects is something this revenue will go towards, though it would be a small percent overall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_Jobs_Act
Here’s more details on the discretionary budget in particular:
Out of the $910 billion yearly in non-defense discretionary spending, about $132 billion goes toward education, about $112 billion toward transportation. Lots more details. Found it interesting that our defense budget has sunk as a % of gdp somewhat since 2010. Not by nearly enough imo though. There’s still almost as much defense discretionary spending as non-defense discretionary spending (~$750 billion defense, ~$910 billion non defense discretionary spending).
In general it’s not like they take every little tax collection or penalty and set it aside for one specific purpose (don’t attack me, I know there’s exceptions). So use the charts and you can tell for yourself about what % of that money is spent on what.
Cool, cool - so are we gonna tax it or what? Folks hiding the money should be penalized for avoiding taxes, right?
The bank paying a penalty of $122.9M is more than double the taxes they would have paid otherwise ($50M). That seems appropriate.
The extra tax revenue will be used to build schools, roads, needed infrastructure? Probably not!
Edit: reworded for clarity
Well it says in the article that one of the terms of the settlement is the bank has to cooperate with the justice department on further investigations of the accounts they helped shelter. So it sounds like the US is going after those individuals, in addition to the cash penalties levied on the bank. And part of the reason for increased funding of the IRS was to assist with carrying out investigations of “big fish” tax evaders like this. It’s also a deferred criminal prosecution, so if the bank goes back on their agreement to assist with investigations or pay penalties the justice department could reopen a criminal case against individuals at the bank itself.
Confused by the second half of the comment. It’s not hard to find out where US tax revenue goes, you don’t have to guess (well except for what’s actually inside the defense spending chunk, see: pentagon audits):
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58888
And yes infrastructure is one portion of that, would be in that discretionary non-defense slice. Most of our federal spending is on things like medicare, unemployment, and social security (there’s a large chunk in the 2022 chart for student loan forgiveness, I think that represents at least some what was unfortunately struck down by the supreme court though). The 2021 infrastructure act and other on-going infrastructure projects is something this revenue will go towards, though it would be a small percent overall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_Jobs_Act
Here’s more details on the discretionary budget in particular:
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58890
Out of the $910 billion yearly in non-defense discretionary spending, about $132 billion goes toward education, about $112 billion toward transportation. Lots more details. Found it interesting that our defense budget has sunk as a % of gdp somewhat since 2010. Not by nearly enough imo though. There’s still almost as much defense discretionary spending as non-defense discretionary spending (~$750 billion defense, ~$910 billion non defense discretionary spending).
In general it’s not like they take every little tax collection or penalty and set it aside for one specific purpose (don’t attack me, I know there’s exceptions). So use the charts and you can tell for yourself about what % of that money is spent on what.
Got it, thanks!