{"id":22926,"date":"2015-10-16T11:00:23","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T00:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=22926"},"modified":"2015-10-16T10:00:07","modified_gmt":"2015-10-15T23:00:07","slug":"progress-towards-a-national-scheme-targeting-unexplained-wealth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/progress-towards-a-national-scheme-targeting-unexplained-wealth\/","title":{"rendered":"Progress towards a national scheme targeting unexplained wealth?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Money<\/a><\/figure>\n

Buried deep in the news about a tax bill of close to $6 million being served on three Victorian \u2018racing identities\u2019<\/a> was an even more important story: the Commonwealth, state and territory governments are close to agreeing on a new national scheme to target Australia\u2019s \u2018unexplained wealth\u2019. This scheme will add to existing Commonwealth and state laws, importantly, promote further unity of effort against serious and organised crime.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s good news. It\u2019s taken over five years to get to this point<\/a>, which suggests that the Commonwealth and at least a number of state governments have come to an agreement about proceed-sharing and addressed concerns over \u2018jurisdictional sovereignty\u2019.<\/p>\n

To put this effort in context, the negotiations among the states, territories and the Commonwealth started when Kevin Rudd was prime minister the first time around. Success will be of great credit to current Justice Minister Michael Keenan and the ministers and officials who\u2019ve worked with him.<\/p>\n

Unexplained wealth laws are a legal innovation that overcome some limitations of the current and ongoing \u2018proceeds of crime\u2019 and \u2018unpaid tax\u2019 methods used to confiscate illegitimate assets.<\/p>\n

Under traditional proceeds of crime laws, the prosecution has to prove that the wealth of a convicted criminal was derived from crime. Unexplained wealth laws don\u2019t require proof of a direct link between the unexplained wealth to a specific crime.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also superior to using tax law because the police can go after the full amount, not just the taxable component and relevant fines (although this remains a useful tool too).<\/p>\n

With unexplained wealth laws<\/a>, the onus is placed on the holder of any assets in Australia to prove that their assets and cash were gained legitimately using the \u2018balance of probabilities\u2019 test. Under Commonwealth law<\/a>, this means that you need to show how you paid for your houses and cars, or earned the cash in your accounts. If you can\u2019t, then a court may require you to forfeit a sum that represents the difference between the explained and unexplained portions of those assets.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a buffer of $100,000 in this, which means the average-Joe worker who takes a few cash jobs on the side shouldn\u2019t get caught in that net\u2014although the tax office will still be interested.<\/p>\n

This system of confiscating unexplained wealth requires what every legitimate earner in Australia should be able to do easily.<\/p>\n

If implemented to the fullest extent, a national unexplained wealth scheme would allow a single civil court action against an individual. That action might be led by the Commonwealth or a state or territory, but it would involve the active cooperation of all relevant jurisdictions. This would remove the need to launch multiple court cases against one person, make it possible to include assets stashed across jurisdictions, and remove the distinction between state and federal jurisdiction. The ability to launch criminal cases would also remain.<\/p>\n

As a result, legal proceedings should become easier and faster to mount and, hopefully, Australia should see more illegitimate money put to productive use (but remember\u2014Commonwealth law has yet to be tested in court).<\/p>\n

One limitation is the continued restriction of such laws to Australian jurisdiction. As Australia\u2019s international organised crime links increase<\/a>, this new law and system won\u2019t be directly applicable to overseas wealth. That provides an opportunity for criminals\u2014and importantly, an opportunity for Australian diplomacy\u2014to convince others of the value of adopting similar laws in their own countries.<\/p>\n

That limitation aside, this multi-jurisdictional agreement will seriously promote the efforts of our nation\u2019s law enforcement and regulatory agencies to counter serious and organised crime<\/a>\u00a0by improving their tools to choke the financial lifeblood out of organised criminals. As I\u2019ve argued recently<\/a>, providing law enforcement agencies with tools like unexplained wealth are important innovations that are worth pursuing\u2014even if it\u2019s over a marathon, rather than the Cox Plate distance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buried deep in the news about a tax bill of close to $6 million being served on three Victorian \u2018racing identities\u2019 was an even more important story: the Commonwealth, state and territory governments are close …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":22927,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[518,704,546,1501],"class_list":["post-22926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-legal-system","tag-legislation","tag-organised-crime","tag-unexplained-wealth"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nProgress towards a national scheme targeting unexplained wealth? | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/progress-towards-a-national-scheme-targeting-unexplained-wealth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Progress towards a national scheme targeting unexplained wealth? 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