{"id":84304,"date":"2016-12-12T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2016-12-12T12:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=84304"},"modified":"2016-12-11T18:27:36","modified_gmt":"2016-12-11T18:27:36","slug":"eu-desperate-to-raises-taxes-starts-cashless-society-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/12\/eu-desperate-to-raises-taxes-starts-cashless-society-project\/","title":{"rendered":"EU Desperate to Raises Taxes Starts Cashless Society Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few months back\u00a0The Guardian<\/a>\u00a0ran an article stating that \u201cSwedes are blazing a trail in Europe, with banks, buses, street vendors and even churches expecting plastic or virtual payment\u201d as if the cashless society\u00a0was something to be celebrated by modern society.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

7 Dec 2016 – <\/em>\u201cI don\u2019t use cash any more, for anything,\u201d said Louise Henriksson, 26, a teaching assistant. \u201cYou just don\u2019t need it. Shops don\u2019t want it; lots of banks don\u2019t even have it. Even for a candy bar or a paper, you use a card or phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cash transactions are already outdated in Sweden. According to central bank the \u2018Riksbank\u2019, cash transactions will make up\u00a0up barely 0.5% of the value of all payments made in Sweden by 2020.<\/p>\n

Likewise and\u00a0according to\u00a0The Independent<\/a>, Denmark has moved one step closer to becoming the world\u2019s first cashless society, as the government proposes scrapping the obligation for retailers to accept cash as payment \u2013 because, as they say, its to do with the \u201cburden of managing change and notes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strange then that all this is happening in an environment where EUR bank note circulation is still rising.<\/p>\n

The European Payments Council (EPC), a subdivision of the European Central Bank, are\u00a0taking steps in their quest to fully eliminate all cash. The reason is not to lift the burden off retailers or to make transactions more convenient but in reality to raise desperately needed\u00a0taxes.<\/p>\n

Highly respected \u2018ArmstrongEconomics<\/a>\u2018\u00a0reports that the EPC are going full steam ahead to enable immediate payment systems throughout not just the Eurozone but the entire European Union. The Single European Payments Area (SEPA) has been devised with the ultimate goal of eliminating ATM cash machines and force everyone to use their mobile phones or plastic cards, the project starting as early as November 2017.<\/p>\n

In the absence of confirmed information on this point, it is likely that tourists and business people will be forced to pre-pay Euro\u2019s\u00a0onto an App if they come from a country outside the eurozone, currently made up of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.<\/p>\n

The final goal of the EU Commission is best\u00a0described in their own words<\/a>: \u201cThe Single Euro Payments Area (or \u201cSEPA\u201d for short) is where more than 500 million citizens, over 20 million businesses and European public authorities can make and receive payments in euro. SEPA also means better banking services for all: transparent pricing, valuable guarantees ensuring that your payments are received promptly and in full, and banks assuming responsibility if something goes wrong with your payment.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, meetings and conferences\u00a0called \u201cTowards a cashless society<\/a>\u201d were started to get the information transfer across to the infrastructure, supported very heavily by the banks.<\/p>\n

It looks as though the initial battleground for banning cash will be \u2026 Greece.<\/p>\n

From\u00a0KeepTalkingGreece<\/a>\u00a0(27\/11\/16) \u2013 \u201cGreek banks propose a series of measures to combat tax evasion, strengthen the electronic transactions and limit the use of cash in the economy. One of the measures proposed is a special tax on cash withdrawals.\u00a0Bankers reportedly stress that cash money can easily and largely be channeled in the black economy. Therefore, a tax on cash withdrawals will drastically reduce cash transactions and by extension the black economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposal includes reforming the tax system by introducing a revenue-expenditure system. Households and\/or workers\u00a0will only be taxed on the amount of income that is has not been spent. In this way, people\u00a0will have a strong incentive to seek receipts for any expenditure in order to increase their expenditure and reduce the tax amount they will have to pay. There will also be an obligation for all businesses and regardless of their size to pay electronically every salary and wage.<\/p>\n

There is another tactic in play to push the cashless society even quicker. As\u00a0Sratfor<\/a>\u00a0Global Intelligence reports: \u201cThe eurozone has found a new scapegoat for international crime: the 500-euro note. The Continent\u2019s leaders are seriously discussing decommissioning the euro\u2019s highest denomination, which is favored by crime groups for transferring massive sums across international borders. Eliminating the bank note could help temper criminal activity, but in reality the implications are much broader. The idea is just the most recent step in an ongoing process moving Europe, and indeed the world, closer to an entirely cashless economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of this will go down well in\u00a0both Germany and Austria who experienced periods of extreme hyperinflation after the world wars. This, along with life under dictatorships and in high-surveillance societies, has given both populations a fierce desire to protect their privacy (please note) \u2014 something that is afforded by the anonymity of using cash \u2014 and to keep wealth in physical form to avoid relying on systemic institutions.<\/p>\n

There is another more sinister reason for forcing a cashless society. TruePublica\u00a0reported last September<\/a>\u00a0that a deal had been signed by the administrations of the US, UK and EU when it comes to bank depositors. We said that \u201cprocedures in the event of the failure of a systemically important bank clearly states that depositors are to be protected \u2013 that is, until options have ceased to exist. Next time, the state will be last in line, not first. Depositor bail-in schemes are now a reality.\u201d\u00a0In other words, if a big bank fails you will be unable to cause a run on a bank by withdrawing your cash.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the rescue of Italy\u2019s Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, reported by all the press as imminent has one other thing in common, none of them are sure if this will be full or partial nationalisation, state bail-out or a depositor bail-in.<\/p>\n

What the authorities want to do is avoid this nightmare scenario that happened on Britain\u2019s streets:\u00a0The Economist<\/a>\u00a0(Sept 2007 just before the full blown financial crisis erupted) \u2013\u00a0The queues that formed outside Northern Rock, the country\u2019s fifth-biggest mortgage lender, represented the first bank run in Britain since 1866. The panic was prompted by the very announcement designed to prevent it. Only when the Bank of England said that it would stand by the stricken Northern Rock did depositors start to run for the exit. Attempts by Alistair Darling, the chancellor of the exchequer, to reassure savers served only to lengthen the queues of people outside branches demanding their money. The run did not stop until Mr Darling gave a taxpayer-backed guarantee on September 17th that, for the time being, all the existing deposits at Northern Rock were safe.<\/p>\n

In addition to all of this, the use of negative interest rates, never implemented in 5,000 years since the invention of\u00a0money, is designed to\u00a0force money\u00a0out of the banks and into the economy which can be manipulated simply by changing the rate when required. The holy grail of economic measurement is rising GDP, which has eluded the ECB policymakers since the financial crash\u00a0reared its ugly head leaving wave after wave of social crisis. Its answer was to print money and push 50% more into the economy and yet achieved an inflation rate barely above zero. Taxing cash at ATM\u2019s or forcing it out of banks via punitive interest will be the norm in a few years.<\/p>\n

Finally, with all money moving electronically the banks and government have another distinct advantage over you. Eighteen\u00a0months ago, there was a\u00a0run on the banks in Greece<\/a>\u00a0so the central bank imposed capital controls, highly restricting the amount of cash that could be withdrawn daily. In the few weeks prior to those controls \u00a245billion was\u00a0withdrawn and stuffed under mattresses. This won\u2019t happen again if there are no ATM\u2019s and cash transfers have all but been eliminated.<\/p>\n

One way to the other \u2013 in the end, you are not going to be in control of your own money in a cashless society, that\u2019s for sure.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 truepublica.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few months back The Guardian ran an article stating that \u201cSwedes are blazing a trail in Europe, with banks, buses, street vendors and even churches expecting plastic or virtual payment\u201d as if the cashless society was something to be celebrated by modern society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}