The Homeland Beckons

Among the incalculably immense benefits of maintaining, despite the odds against that the involvement of money would quote, very good relations with a certain family of first cousins who live a couple of hundred kilometres further down the Guadalquivir from his home here in La Quinta Leche are the occasional anecdotes that he hears from the lips of the two that are career Hacienda tax inspectors - like their observation from a couple of years ago that it was becoming increasingly difficult to find sellers of real estate willing to accept under-the-table payments consisting of 500 euro notes. A bizarre little story that appeared in the press recently confirms this.

It seems that a collection of Colombian, umm, businessmen were recently swindled by a group of Serbian money launderers in a transaction the intention of which was to exchange 800,000 euros worth of these 'bin ladens' (you've heard of him but never seen him) for bills of smaller denominations. That the latter group managed to pull a fast one on the narcos, and that everyone involved somehow got arrested, is secondary. More interesting was the rate of exchange. All news reports indicate (for what that might be worth) that the Colombians were taking a 37.5% haircut - 500,000 for 800,000.*

On a level less suitable for trash television, business daily Expansión has lately been dedicating a bit of ink to the matter of funds of Spanish origin deposited in Swiss banks. Starting Tuesday with the headline, 'More than 60 billion in black money in foreign countries could return to Spain', followed by reports that holders of these accounts were beginning to make enquiries concerning the terms on which they could expect to be repatriated to Spain. This was followed up the next day with, 'Hacienda gives an ultimatum to 3,000 fortunes with money in Switzerland', noting that these people - who deposited their money with the HSBC Swiss subsidiary and have been turned in by French authorities - have been given 10 days in which to come up with a good story for the relevant bureaucrats.

Apparently, and due to fear of a public outcry, the government will not be offering a tax amnesty in exchange for an investment in Spanish sovereign debt. The main beneficiary will end up being the country's national accounts (including the current, we imagine) and not the bund spread. Such is the nature of a zero sum game.

*That tricks like this may be a traditional and time-honoured economic activity here is betrayed by the headline under which the story appeared in El País. The 'desk swindle' is apparently well enough known to have its own name. The use of the definite article in 'el timo del escritorio' is equivalent to be being on a first-name basis with this type of thing.

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