Tax day is here, and activist-artist Paolo Cirio invites you to a protest tax evasion by availing yourself of an "offshore tax haven"—just as the biggest businesses do. Eighty percent of hedge funds have their companies registered anonymously in the Cayman Islands, he says. That's how they avoid the taxes they'd pay at home. Cirio has not only hacked the Cayman's registry site but created certificates of authentication for the rest of us—using the information he has uncovered.
Cirio, who is a fellow at Eyebeam Art & Technology Center, calls Loophole for All
A service to democratize offshore business for people who don't want to pay for their riches. It empowers everyone to evade taxes, hide money and debt, and get away with anything by stealing the identities of real offshore companies.
Is it legal? PayPal doesn't think so. PayPal suspended the account of Loophole4All.com, freezing the $700 raised in one month through selling the identities of Caymans companies. The reason: "PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments for items that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity."
Cirio is sticking to his art—claiming he's promoting a form of civil disobedience and subverting corrupt and unjust laws through facilitating collective performance. PayPal, he points out, is a company based in Luxembourg, an offshore country, which generates some $145 billion that is not taxed by any home country.
If President Obama sticks with the "chained-CPI," John Nichols writes, it's good news for the Republican Party.
