Coming To Your Bank Account Soon - THEY Take 10% by 'Law'......

[David Guyatt]

I have real concerns that Plan A of the Cyprus "rescue" actually will become the template. Plan A aimed at raiding all depositors, on a sliding scale - both the insured and uninsured depositors.

The reason for this is that if European and other western banks need bailing, they will need a very large sum of money to achieve it, and this means everyone will be required to make a "donation", not just the wealthy. Besides this, those with well over E100k deposited won't be hanging around long enough to get caught again. Money has already, and is already, moving to far east safe havens.

I think it possible that Plan A was pulled in Cyprus only because it wasn't ready to go across the board. It, therefore, had to be replaced with Plan B to seed a false sense of security and to limit outward money flows. When the time is right to impose an across the board remedy, it'll happen.

I understand that the coordinating body for this is the Bank for International Settlements.

[David Guyatt]

From Reuters:

Numbness gives way to anger in Cyprus over bailout

By Michele Kambas and Karolina Tagaris
NICOSIA | Thu Apr 4, 2013 3:30pm EDT

(Reuters) - Public shock in Cyprus about the tough terms of an international bailout is turning into anger as millions of euros remain locked in the country's banks.


Cypriots were stunned by last month's collapse of its second-biggest lender, Popular Bank, and a decision to slap losses on large deposits at the Bank of Cyprus in return for financial aid from the European Union and IMF.


They are now demanding answers after allegations earlier this week that a company connected to the family of President Nicos Anastasiades shifted money out of one of the distressed lenders just before the banking system was effectively locked down on March 15.


Anger and impatience is rising as the results of an official inquiry into what caused the crisis, and exactly who knew what and when, is unlikely to be ready for weeks.


Banks reopened last week but Cypriots can withdraw only 300 euros ($390) a day under a range of controls imposed to prevent panicked residents from emptying their accounts or moving all their savings abroad. Anxiety is being deepened by confusion over how the hastily-imposed rules should operate.


Hundreds of bank workers protested outside parliament on Thursday, worried that they could lose much of their pension savings under the terms of the bailout deal. This stipulates that some depositors have to bear part of the rescue's cost if their accounts hold more than 100,000 euros ($128,500).


"I am disappointed and angry," said Iacovos Louca, 53, who works at Popular Bank, which is being wound down under the 10 billion deal with the EU and International Monetary Fund. "The politicians are out of touch with our problems and the big guys, who had the information, managed to take their money abroad."


A copy of a bank statement, first published in the Cypriot communist newspaper Haravghi which maintains it is genuine, shows a company whose owners are related to the president by marriage moving money out of Popular in early March.


The company says there was nothing untoward or non-transparent in the transaction used to facilitate a real estate project abroad. It has also said many more millions of its funds remain locked in the Cypriot banking system.


LIMBO


One company in Nicosia which has several offices abroad has been caught in limbo as the central bank now has to approve transfers out of Cyprus over 25,000 euros. As part of the company's payroll is managed from the island, payments to employees abroad are being delayed because of the vetting process and currency controls to avoid a bank run.


"We have held clients' money for certain pre-paid jobs, and we have a cash flow issue now," the owner of the services company said, on condition of anonymity. "We have to make payments of more than 1 million euros on behalf of our clients, and now we can only use 100,000."


Lack of clear answers on where their money may end up is fuelling public frustration.


Andrew Georgiou, a 55-year-old British consultant who moved to Cyprus a year ago with the earnings from the sale of his home in London, says all four accounts he holds with Popular - even a sterling account containing just 22 pence - are blocked.


These totaled 97,000 euros and under the bailout deal, deposits under 100,000 are fully insured. Nevertheless, Georgiou is now unable to access any funds.


Georgiou, who is of Cypriot descent, said Popular Bank had justified its action on the grounds that he was also considered a beneficiary to an account held by his 78-year-old father. It also covered money held in a trust for medical expenses.


"I wrote to the central bank and they came back saying that it was not their competence, so whose competence is it?," said Georgiou. "Nobody is explaining where anyone should go with a problem."


As a result, Georgiou has been told he and his father could eventually be entitled only to a combined 40,000 euros despite the 100,000 euro guarantee, a fraction of their savings in Popular. "Absolutely nothing adds up," he said. "They told us it was 140,000 last week."


Georgiou and others like him are in for a long wait to figure out what went wrong. Three judges appointed to look into the island's financial collapse started work on Thursday.


With an extensive remit ranging from the business sense of Cypriot banks hoarding a mass of Greek government bonds while others were selling them and the prudence of government fiscal policies, the judges will need a small army of consultants.


Cypriots are, in the meantime, resigned to years of hardship. Iraklis Paraskeva, 53, has three children to support, now studying in Greece. "I am going to find myself in the street with no future, only debts. But we will fight to the end. We have nothing left to lose." ($1 = 0.7780 euros)


(editing by David Stamp)

[Jan Klimkowski]

I have real concerns that Plan A of the Cyprus "rescue" actually will become the template. Plan A aimed at raiding all depositors, on a sliding scale - both the insured and uninsured depositors.

The reason for this is that if European and other western banks need bailing, they will need a very large sum of money to achieve it, and this means everyone will be required to make a "donation", not just the wealthy. Besides this, those with well over E100k deposited won't be hanging around long enough to get caught again. Money has already, and is already, moving to far east safe havens.

I think it possible that Plan A was pulled in Cyprus only because it wasn't ready to go across the board. It, therefore, had to be replaced with Plan B to seed a false sense of security and to limit outward money flows. When the time is right to impose an across the board remedy, it'll happen.

I understand that the coordinating body for this is the Bank for International Settlements.

I concur.

I'd simply add that I think the insured/uninsured distinction will be irrelevant when the grab happens.

Under Plan A in Cyprus the insurance for deposits under 100,000 Euros was not removed. It was simply circumvented by the imposition of a TAX on all deposits.

So, the rheteric was: the insurance is intact, but everyone is charged x percent tax.

Since the leverage is so massive, the imposition of a 10 percent tax could wipe out all the actual money in a bank....

:panic::panic:

[David Guyatt]

It's beginning...

[URL="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-08/next-domino-australia-doubles-tax-retirement-savings"]

The Next Domino: Australia Doubles Tax On Retirement Savings[/URL]


Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/08/2013 15:00 -0400


Australia Deficit Spending ETC


Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog,


Though Australia's national balance sheet is comparatively quite strong, the government has been running at a net deficit for years... and they're under intense pressure to balance the budget.


The good news is that Australia now has a goodly number of investor-friendly immigration programs designed to bring productive foreigners into the country, similar to the trend we're seeing across Europe.


On the flip side, though, the Australian government has just announced new rules which penalize citizens who have responsibly set aside savings for their own retirement.


Any income over A$100,000 drawn from a superannuation fund (the equivalent of an IRA in the United States) will now be taxed at 15%. Previously, all such income was tax-free.


The really offensive part about this is that the government is going to tax people's savings on both ends,' meaning that people are taxed on money they move INTO the retirement fund, and now they can be taxed again when they pull money out.


The Cyprus debacle drew a line in the sand fleecing people with assets, or income, in excess of 100,000 dollars, euros, etc. is now acceptable. This is the definition of rich' in the sole discretion of governments.


And make no mistake if it can happen in Australia, which still has reasonable debt levels despite years of deficit spending, it can happen in bankrupt, insolvent nations like the US.


As you may know, US tax code allows for several different types of retirement accounts… and there has been a lot of talk lately about a Roth conversion'.


This is to say that a US taxpayer can convert his/her traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. And the implications are enormous.


A traditional IRA is not taxed on the way in, but it's taxed on the way out. So if you contribute $3,000 annually to your IRA, you won't pay income tax on that $3,000. But the accumulated retirement savings is taxed in the future when you withdraw the funds at retirement.


Conversely, contributions to a Roth IRA are taxed each year with the rest of your income. But the accumulated savings are NOT taxed when you withdraw the funds at retirement.


A few years ago, Congress inked a deal to allow US taxpayers to CONVERT their traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. In doing so, Americans were allowed to pay tax on the accumulated gains in their traditional IRA up through that point, then switch to a Roth.


Congress was essentially saying, "We promise that we will only tax you now in exchange for not taxing you later."


It certainly begs the question: How much do you trust your government?


Can we really expect the country that has racked up more debt than any other in the history of the world to keep its word? Can we really expect that 5 or 10 years from now, they won't make another grab for cash?


If the Australian government can unilaterally change the rules and start double-taxing retirement accounts, so can the US. And the trillions of dollars in retirement savings in the Land of the Free is far too irresistible for them to ignore.

[Magda Hassan]

Cyprus 37.5% Depositor Haircut Upgraded To 47.5% Brazilian Wax

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/29/2013 10:27 -0400


Once upon a time (in April), a few weeks after reversing its initial disastrous decision to haircut all deposits (including insured ones) the Troika slammed large Cypriot depositors (read evil Russian oligarchs) with a "bail-in" template, soon coming to all insolvent European nations, that included not only a forced assignment of equity in broke Cypriot banks, but far more importantly a haircut that amounted to 37.5% of deposits over €100,000. Since then a few things have happened in Cyprus, neither of them good, i.e., an a record collapse in bank deposits despite capital controls and a record crash in the local real estate market.
The confluence of both these events meant that as bank liabilities shrank (deposits), asset fair values (home mortgages) collapsed even faster. Which, as we warned in March, would entail bigger and more aggressive deposit haircuts, and ultimately: another bailout of Cyprus (something the president floated but promptly denied upon rejection by Merkel ahead of her September elections). Today, we learn that while the inevitable next bailout of Cyprus is still on the table, the deposit "haircut" just upgraded to an aggravated Brazilian wax, as the 37.5% gentle trim initially proposed was revised to 47.5%.
InCyprus reports:

The Finance Ministry and the Troika appeared to be converging on an agreement on the haircut of uninsured deposits over 100,000 euros in the Bank of Cyprus at 47.5%.

After marathon negotiations at the Finance Ministry further talks continued at Central Bank until late into the night with Finance Minister Haris Georgiades focussing on the technical issues that had arisen.

"They are very close to an agreement but some technical issues have risen and they are dealing with it," a source close to the negotiations told The Cyprus Daily.

Under a programme agreed between Cyprus and its international lenders in March, large depositors in BoC were asked to pay for the recapitalisation of the bank.

Authorities initially converted 37.5% of deposits exceeding €100,000 into equity and an additional 22.5% as a buffer in the event of further needs.

The Troika, who are here assessing Cyprus's loan adjustment programme until the end of the month demanded, a 47.5% haircut on uninsured deposits at BoC while the Finance Ministry was drawing the line at 45%, the sources said.

"The final agreement for the haircut will hover around 47.5% but that remains to be seen as negotiations will continue until late at night and announcements will be made tomorrow (Monday)," they added.

Alas, we have bad news for Cyprus, or rather for those evil oligarchs (and other innocent and naive people who believed the lies) who still haven't managed to bribe enough local bankers and pull what remains of their money: the "final" haircut will be far higher than 47.5%. And at a 10% rate of increase every 3 months, we expect the final 60%+ haircut to be revealed some time before the end of the year.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-29...zilian-wax