Taxing Times: Adam Smith v Adam Soviet

Uzbek farmers told to glue cotton back on bushes for official visit Guardian. From Count Potemkin’s playbook.

“We continue to be transfixed by upper-crust lifestyles in a primitive, almost unconscious way, equally covetous and condemning of all that glitters, just out of reach. What is absent, it seems to me, from our sense of the wealthy, is an understanding of their flesh-and-bloodness—of the fact that they, like Shylock, bleed when they are pricked and have miseries peculiar to them, against which immunity cannot be bought.” The New Yorker Published

Peter Reilly, Yogi Berra’s Sayings Worked Their Way Into Tax Decisions

Renu Zaretsky, A lawmaker’s work is never done.Today’s TaxVox headline roundup ranges from Russian tax revenue problems to improper EITC credits, plus much more.

David Brunori, A Word of Advice for Legislators of All Stripes (Tax Analysts Blog) “That politicians can impose economic policy through tax incentives is more akin to a Soviet five-year plan than to anything Adam Smith ever said.”

Talk of Criminally Prosecuting Corporations Up, Actual Prosecutions Down Dave Dayen, Intercept

Marxism Today — feisty, fractious, produced on a shoestring — published its last issue in 1991. It's never been more relevant ...  Cold Realities 

Minsky’s sequence goes along these steps :

1) hedging
2) Speculation
3) Ponzi
4) Looting

Looks like the looting stage is upon us!

Rich People Scared to Move into High Rent Apartments Because of Homeless Displaced by High Rents Alternet

• Pope Francis on inequality, tax evasion and corruption  
• Tax havens are by design secretive and opaque. The entire point of their existence is to conceal the wealth hidden within them. And a new book by Gabriel Zucman, The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens, reveals, as never before, the extent of their role in the global economy.
• Facebook paid £4327 corporation tax despite £35m staff bonuses
• Sunlight is the best way to disinfect corporate tax havens 
• Tax Evasion's Bite, From the Ancient World to Modern Days 
• India: Outed in lists, HSBC account holders lining up to declare 
• Ex-exec to face charges for 'blood diamond' tax fraud  
• How ‘competitive’ tax and incentive policies hurt small U.S. businesses  
• How We're Victimized by Corporate State Tax Avoidance  
• Netherlands request UBS account data  
• ATO puts tax audit outsourcing plan on hold  
• US$7.6tn hidden in tax havens - almost half annual US GDP  
• Tax avoidance by corporations is out of control; the UN must step in  

• Osborne’s crack down on non-doms is a sham  
• David Cameron says some British overseas territories and crown dependencies not doing to tackle tax evasion 
• McDonald's accused of tax evasion in Italy  
• Former Chief Financial Officer of Siemens Argentina Pleads Guilty to Role in Multimillion Dollar Foreign Bribery Scheme 
• US Tax Court Examines insurance policies
• Co-Founder of OXYwater Sentenced for Wire Fraud and Money Laundering  
• Sunlight On Tax Havens  
• There is money in tax avoidance: EY break £2bn fee income barrier with strong tax growth  
• C&AG report reveals tax evasion in contractor companies  
• U.S.-based corporations avoid taxes  
• OECD Report: Improving Co-operation between Tax and Anti-Money Laundering Authorities: Access by tax administrations to information held by financial intelligence units for criminal and civil purposes  

Russ Fox, TIGTA: “IRS Can’t Track International Correspondence.” IRS: “So What.” 

Russ Fox, Cash & Carry Your Way to Tax Evasion:

Mr. Kobryn was determined to lower his tax burden. Instead of making sure all expenses were noted on his tax returns and perhaps contributing to a SEP IRA, he decided to not deposit all of the cash into his business bank account. He knew about the currency transaction reporting (CTR) rules, so he made his cash deposits just under $10,000 and deposited them into several branches of his local bank.

That’s a reliable way to attract IRS attention.

News from the Profession. In Order Save the Accounting Profession, It Has to Be Destroyed First (Caleb Newquist, Going Concern). “I’ll even take it a step further and say a mass extinction is exactlywhat the accounting profession needs.”

Accused of Human Sacrifice, Tamil Nadu Mining Baron Grilled for 8 Hours. NDTV.com reports:

Mining baron, PR Palanisamy today was interrogated for nearly eight hours in connection with allegations of human sacrifice against him by the Madurai police.

Slow cooking seems harsh based on just an accusation, so I was relieved to find out in the first sentence that “grilling” was a figure of speech. That still left the mystery of why “human sacrifice” came up in a search for “tax evasion.”

A former employee of the mining baron, M Servarkodiyan, has claimed that the group targeted mentally challenged people for human sacrifice, and that he himself had brought some of the men from Pudukottai district.

Oddly, the story never mentions what the alleged sacrifices would allegedly accomplish. If it was warding off tax examiners, it did not work ...

Earlier in 2012, the mining baron was arrested in a tax evasion and illegal mining case. He’s on bail now.

The moral: Human Sacrifice fails as a tax avoidance tool. Stick with more conventional tactics, like voodoo dolls, charms and curses.

Business in the United States: Who Owns it and How Much Tax They Pay, September 20, 2015

• Why a ‘competitive’ economy means less competition  
• Can Corbynomics guru Richard Murphy fix Britain?  

• Fiscal Outlook: Addressing Improper Payments and the Tax Gap Would Improve the Government’s Fiscal Position,GAO-16-92T: Published: Oct 1, 2015. Publicly Released: Oct 1, 2015.