sioux falls south dakota is a banking city that specializes in trusts > >i put those comments to a south dakotan trust lawyer who agreed to speak to me as long as i didnt identify them. the lawyer was sympathetic to the offshore officials argument, but said this is how the world is now, and everyone is just going to have to get used to it. it is, after all, not just south dakota and its trust companies that are sucking in the worlds money. banks in florida and texas are welcoming cash from venezuela and mexico, realtors in los angeles are selling property to chinese potentates, and new york lawyers are arranging these transactions for anyone that wants them to. perhaps under previous administrations, there might have been some appetite for aligning the us with global norms, but under trump, its never going to happen. > >susan wismer, one of just 10 democrats among the houses 70 members, attempted to prolong the discussion by raising concerns about how south dakota was facilitating tax avoidance ever since ive been in the legislature, the trust taskforce has come to us with an updating bill, every year or every other year, and we just let it pass because none of us know what it is. theyre monster bills. as democrats, were such a small caucus, were the ones who ought to be the natural opponents of this, but we dont have the technical expertise and dont really even understand what were doing, she confessed, while we ate pancakes and drank coffee in a truck stop outside sioux falls. we dont have a clue what the consequences are to just regular people from what were doing. > >the guardian: the-great-american-tax-haven-why-th e-super-rich-love-south-dakota-trus t-laws
United States