Diavan:

I am still working and my income is not dstributed to me. I work for it.

I tried to put in terms Bobert can relate to and contractors do not "shop". They buy materials. Why do you automatically assume I am talking about people stashing money offshore? You lash out automatically againts anybody with a different opinion. I am talking about Boberts misconception of sucessfull people taking advantage of the less fortunate.

Perhaps you can explain why tax revenues are increasing so rapidly while rich folks are stashing their money ofshore?

If you notice, IRS is going all out to detect offshore accounts. The problem is not a new one as Bobert asserts but the IRS is just now cracking down. Perhaps it is this crackdown that is causing the increased revenues.

IRS Says Offshore Tax Evasion Is Widespread
By David Cay Johnston New York Times March 26, 2002

"...It is legal to have an offshore account, provided it is reported and any taxes are paid. Failure to disclose such holdings is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. In 1999, the I.R.S. said, 117,000 Americans checked the box on their income tax return disclosing an offshore account, far fewer than the number of MasterCard accounts the agency found in just Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, and the Cayman Islands.

Because of secrecy laws in the tax-haven nations, the charge records reveal only account numbers � not names. So investigators, in a laborious process, must turn to merchants to obtain the names of the individuals through their credit card receipts.

Investigators will have an easier time finding tax evasion by customers of American Express, which agreed to turn over some records after giving the customers warning. But the agreement is limited to those accounts, billed to addresses in the three tax havens, that incurred at least five charges in the United States in 1998 and 1999 and in which at least one was for at least $2,500 on certain types of purchases, including automobiles, jewelry and yachts. Unlike MasterCard and Visa, which as networks do not know the names of customers, American Express knows its cardholders.

A senior I.R.S. official acknowledged yesterday that the agency lacked the resources to prosecute most of the offshore tax evaders or even to pursue civil penalties against more than a fraction.

"We have lots of indications of tax evasion here," said Dale Hart, an I.R.S. deputy commissioner, "and we are going to be using the resources we do have to work those cases to the best of our ability." But, she noted, "every day, several times a day, we make decisions about which cases we will work and which we will not."

Congress has sharply reduced the agency's budget for tax enforcement. Today, just 23 tax auditors remain on the payroll in Manhattan, the richest tax district in the country, down from 150 several years ago.

When the I.R.S. obtained records of one bank in the Cayman Islands, it said it found 1,500 cases worth prosecuting. "How many have they brought?" asked Larry Campagna, a criminal tax lawyer in Houston. "Maybe 10?" Mr. Campagna said that when the investigation was completed many of the credit cards would be found to have innocent explanations and not involve tax crimes. Ms. Kneally and Mr. Kagan expressed similar views. But Ms. Hart said she was confident from the data analyzed so far that the I.R.S. had found many deliberate tax evaders and not innocents caught up in a fishing expedition...."