CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive Marc Rich of Glencore fame continues to pay big
WOW. YOU MEAN TELEVISION ISN’T ALWAYS RIGHT? Contrary to popular belief, it’s hard to spot a liar or con artist Bear Pit characters ...
New York Times, Belgium’s Tax Break to Multinational Companies Is Ruled Illegal ...
J. Roger Mentz (former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (Tax Policy)), Tales of Tax Reform (2015)
Politicians of all stripes are calling for tax reform. It sounds great: lower the tax rates, get rid of all of the “special interest” provisions, make our tax law simple, fair and an engine for economic growth. Some pundits even suggest that tax reform is “low-hanging fruit” that can easily be accomplished. But is this so? How would we know whether it will be that easy and straightforward? One way of learning about what a legislative tax reform process would entail is to explore what happened in 1986, when fundamental tax reform was enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Reagan.
Among the countless activities banned by old British laws are carrying a plank down a busy sidewalk and beating a carpet in the street “unless the item can be classified as a doormat and it is beaten before 8 a.m.” “So voluminous and eccentric is Britain’s collective body of 44,000 pieces of primary legislation that it has a small team of officials whose sole task is to prune it…. Sifting out the obsolete legislation is the work of two lawyers and a researcher at Britain’s Law Commission, which is responsible for reviewing laws and recommending changes. Thanks to them, more than 200 measures are scheduled to be repealed” in 2016. [New York Times]
“The Taco Bell exec who got canned from his job after he was caught on video drunkenly attacking his Uber driver is suing the driver for $5 million. … The suit says that it’s against California state law to record someone without their consent.” A lawyer for Uber driver Edward Caban says plaintiff Benjamin Golden’s lawyer is incorrectly invoking the California law, which he says bans audio but not video recording. [LAist]
“Under the proposal, the massive class of non-Yahoo users won’t get any payment, but the class lawyers at Girard Gibbs and Kaplan Fox intend to ask for up to $4 million in fees. (The ultimate amount of fees will be up to the judge, but Yahoo has agreed not to oppose any fee request up to $4 million.) While users won’t get any payment, Yahoo will change how it handles user e-mails — but it isn’t the change that the plaintiffs attorneys were originally asking for.” [Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica]
“Under the proposal, the massive class of non-Yahoo users won’t get any payment, but the class lawyers at Girard Gibbs and Kaplan Fox intend to ask for up to $4 million in fees. (The ultimate amount of fees will be up to the judge, but Yahoo has agreed not to oppose any fee request up to $4 million.) While users won’t get any payment, Yahoo will change how it handles user e-mails — but it isn’t the change that the plaintiffs attorneys were originally asking for.” [Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica]
NO! SPEAKING OF INSANE: Could drinking your own pee be the cure for what ails you?
Throughout the 19th century, novels were regarded with the same suspicion with which we treat, say, Eli Roth’s ‘torture-porn’ Saw movies today. They were dangerous not simply because of the stories they might contain – the romantic expressions of wish-fulfillment, for example, that led Emma Bovary down the garden path of adultery – but also because reading itself was seen as a kind of possession: an encroachment of the ‘other’ upon the self Aeon
Prem Sikka, Professor of Accountancy at Essex University, said: “Successive governments have failed to investigate the firms. Instead, the partners of major accountancy firms are given peerages, knighthoods, public accolades and government consultancies. The same firms have colonised regulatory bodies, fund political parties and provide jobs for former and potential ministers. This has brought them political insurance and their anti-social practices continue to inflict enormous social damage.” Big four audit firms never examined over illegal tax plans
Prem Sikka, Professor of Accountancy at Essex University, said: “Successive governments have failed to investigate the firms. Instead, the partners of major accountancy firms are given peerages, knighthoods, public accolades and government consultancies. The same firms have colonised regulatory bodies, fund political parties and provide jobs for former and potential ministers. This has brought them political insurance and their anti-social practices continue to inflict enormous social damage.” Big four audit firms never examined over illegal tax plans