2008/05/05 - Gabriel Calzada - Expansión
Prison
The members of this organization appear to have a Machiavellian mentality. For them, the end justifies the means. It doesn't matter information on these accounts was obtained only after paying criminals to steal it; it doesn't matter international law was violated; and it doesn't matter if Spanish citizens go to jail. Anything goes as long as the population learns a lesson and never attempts to protect its savings from the state's insatiable appetite.
The members never ask themselves why "normal people," as sources at the Revenue Service define the accused, would want to risk becoming outlaws. They don't consider that when the fiscal burden increases without end, average citizens have to choose between letting the state confiscate their savings and hiding that savings to improve the future financial situation of their loved ones. Such a perverse situation reaches its highest level when citizens cannot, at the same time, obey the law and uphold the most basic moral standard.
The super-rich that some naive people hoped to find implicated in these bank accounts do not face such dilemmas. If only the rest of us could say the same someday. Successive administrations have tweaked our legal system to ensure millionaires have the tools to save and invest without having to deal with the high tax rates other citizens must pay. The rich can protect their savings by establishing a SICAV or, if they lack scruples, push to receive taxpayer-financed subsidies for setting up solar energy fields or for some other bit of government pork.
During Spain's Golden Age, the Scholastics argued that if the King wanted to avoid becoming a tyrant he had to keep taxes inside limits acceptable to taxpayers. More recently, John Train has contended that if we accept that peaceful possession of property, the right to keep and save the fruits of our labor and the right to defend against robbery are human rights, in the sense they are inherent to the existence of a society we would consider civilized, then as soon as taxes go from being a payment to support strictly common affairs to being confiscatory, tax evaders are exercising their natural rights and preserving civilization from illegitimate government. Our government doesn't have to put "normal people" in jail. It has to earn the level of legitimacy that the authorities have in countries like Liechtenstein.
Private Property 
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