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> Lim, Binance’s CCO from 2018 through 2022, is charged with willfully aiding and abetting Binance’s violations through intentional conduct that undermined Bina

> Lim, Binance’s CCO from 2018 through 2022, is charged with willfully aiding and abetting Binance’s violations through intentional conduct that undermined Binance’s compliance program. Lim is also charged with conducting activities to willfully evade or attempt to evade applicable provisions of the CEA, including promoting the use of “creative means” to assist customers in circumventing Binance’s compliance controls and implementing a corporate policy that instructed Binance’s U.S. customers to access the trading facility through a virtual private network to avoid Binance’s IP address-based controls or create “new” accounts through off-shore shell companies to evade Binance’s KYC-based controls. Chief Compliance Officer promoting "creative means" of circumventing compliance controls. You just can't make this up.

somenameforme 4y ago
A good accountant will not only encourage, but directly facilitate and aid in tax avoidance. Tax evasion is what is illegal - that's not paying taxes you owe. Tax avoidance is using every possible loophole, trick, and structure to minimize what you owe. Large corporations, for instance, often pay tax rates of near 0%, by using all sorts of "creative" structuring, classifications, and so on to try to avoid taxation. And that is all completely legal. The point of this is that "sounds dodgy" or "done only to avoid a legal obligation" and "is illegal" are two very different things. Which it is, is a question I think few are capable of giving an even remotely informed opinion on. It's a global company being sued by the one country in the world they don't [nominally] offer service to.
- sam_goody 4y ago
  Once, while sitting with my accountant, I asked, in passing, the sum of two numbers ("how much is X and Y?"). Without looking up or pausing he responded "How much do you want it to be?"
- robocat 4y ago
  In New Zealand, there are anti-avoidance provisions, so some avoidance is illegal. If you are engineering your finances in a contrived or artificial manner, purely for the purpose of reducing taxes, you might find your tax avoidance techniques are illegal. Take care in your own jurisdiction to get good tax advice, since perhaps “avoidance” is a grey area!!!
  - Aperocky 4y ago
    > If you are engineering your finances in a contrived or artificial manner, purely for the purpose of reducing taxes nothing scream like "We failed at legislation so we're going to resort to arbitrary decisions" Unless they define what contrived or artificial manner means exactly, which I doubt.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - vba616 4y ago
      I'm not a lawyer, but the traditional "Circular 230 Disclaimer" in the US suggests to me that either the US works similarly or many people think so. You know about "structuring"?
      - Aperocky 4y ago
        No, but I suspect I would feel the same way.
        vba616 4y ago
        As I understand it, when there's a law that says something like "the bank has to report cash transactions over $10K", and you divide all your transactions into chunks of $9999 to evade it, then there's a law that says you can't do that. Even if every one is at a different bank. While it does seem to involve intent, a lot of laws do. "operatives...who scurry from bank to bank making these structured deposits are known as “smurfs” because, like the little blue cartoon characters, they’re everywhere" https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article223878770.html https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article223878770.h...
      - jimmydorry 4y ago
        And structuring is another terrible example of "good legislation". It is yet another failure on the same scale as "civil asset forfeiture". That is, law so generalised and broad that it can be applied selectively and punitively.
- boston_clone 4y ago
  You can read the official opinion of the US legal team here - https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ilnd.431767/gov.uscourts.ilnd.431767.1.0_1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ilnd.43... I think it can be summarized that they knowingly traded securities with US entities, and intentionally circumvented legal and technical restrictions to make those trades happen.

somenameforme 4y ago

A good accountant will not only encourage, but directly facilitate and aid in tax avoidance. Tax evasion is what is illegal - that's not paying taxes you owe. Tax avoidance is using every possible loophole, trick, and structure to minimize what you owe. Large corporations, for instance, often pay tax rates of near 0%, by using all sorts of "creative" structuring, classifications, and so on to try to avoid taxation. And that is all completely legal. The point of this is that "sounds dodgy" or "done only to avoid a legal obligation" and "is illegal" are two very different things. Which it is, is a question I think few are capable of giving an even remotely informed opinion on. It's a global company being sued by the one country in the world they don't [nominally] offer service to.

sam_goody 4y ago
Once, while sitting with my accountant, I asked, in passing, the sum of two numbers ("how much is X and Y?"). Without looking up or pausing he responded "How much do you want it to be?"
robocat 4y ago
In New Zealand, there are anti-avoidance provisions, so some avoidance is illegal. If you are engineering your finances in a contrived or artificial manner, purely for the purpose of reducing taxes, you might find your tax avoidance techniques are illegal. Take care in your own jurisdiction to get good tax advice, since perhaps “avoidance” is a grey area!!!
- Aperocky 4y ago
  > If you are engineering your finances in a contrived or artificial manner, purely for the purpose of reducing taxes nothing scream like "We failed at legislation so we're going to resort to arbitrary decisions" Unless they define what contrived or artificial manner means exactly, which I doubt.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - vba616 4y ago
    I'm not a lawyer, but the traditional "Circular 230 Disclaimer" in the US suggests to me that either the US works similarly or many people think so. You know about "structuring"?
    - Aperocky 4y ago
      No, but I suspect I would feel the same way.
      - vba616 4y ago
        As I understand it, when there's a law that says something like "the bank has to report cash transactions over $10K", and you divide all your transactions into chunks of $9999 to evade it, then there's a law that says you can't do that. Even if every one is at a different bank. While it does seem to involve intent, a lot of laws do. "operatives...who scurry from bank to bank making these structured deposits are known as “smurfs” because, like the little blue cartoon characters, they’re everywhere" https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article223878770.html https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article223878770.h...
    - jimmydorry 4y ago
      And structuring is another terrible example of "good legislation". It is yet another failure on the same scale as "civil asset forfeiture". That is, law so generalised and broad that it can be applied selectively and punitively.
boston_clone 4y ago
You can read the official opinion of the US legal team here - https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ilnd.431767/gov.uscourts.ilnd.431767.1.0_1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ilnd.43... I think it can be summarized that they knowingly traded securities with US entities, and intentionally circumvented legal and technical restrictions to make those trades happen.