Sunday, June 19, 2016

Tara and Tax Stories

Happy 92nd Birthday June 


Margaret River, Western Australia courtesy of Katrina


MARGARET RIVER
Busselton was lovely...


Link from Tara Street Have Our Book Critics Gone Soft? (What Happens When “Every” Book Is Worth Reading?) 





“Nearly all of the more than 100 books graded by Book Marks seem to be worth reading, which renders it somewhat useless as a recommendation resource, which wasn’t lost on many of its early readers. But that’s not how Lit Hub editor-in-chief Jonny Diamond pitches the site anyway.” The New Republic

Multinational tax avoidance cost Australia $6bn in 2014, Oxfam report claims 

                       BHS: Sir Philip Green claims he moved to Monaco for health reasons   


Networking overseas too, that is important for a crime that has no borders  via JB

The following is a guest blog by my friend Dr. Atul K. Shah of Suffolk Business School:
Over the weekend, I came across a tweet from Edward Snowden that caught my eye.  He mentioned the Scottish governments use of the UK meta data.  What was surprising to me is that the data was shared not only with the policing authorities, but also, with the tax authorities.
In this article, there is a claim that “[t]he confirmation that UK state spy agency GCHQ ran a specific programmed, called “MILKWHITE”, to share data with devolved policing and tax authorities is the first Snowden leak to directly implicate Scottish authorities in the controversial policy of ‘bulk data’ collection.” The entire article is devoted to the problematic practices of meta data collection and sharing.  Further, it only mentions the tax authorities once.  But what is especially intriguing to me is that the taxing authorities are part of data analysis.
I would have suspected that the taxing authorities would want to use data to verify taxpayer movement.  For example, if you are avoiding US taxes because you claim a non resident status (I know it is a rolling calculation), wouldn’t it be nice for US to use your cell phone records to catch you spending 220 days a year in the US. But I never thought they the IRS, let alone other countries, had either the desire or funds to do data harvesting.  The idea that the Scottish taxing authorities are part of the data distribution protocol now gives me pause.  I wonder if taxpayers now need to be worried about taxing authorities starting to use meta data? 

Lew Taishoff, THE FRAUDSTER’S TOOLBOX. A case where preparer fraud left the client return open to examination beyond the normal statute of limitations.

How Canada got into bed with tax havens  
Nordea Reported to Police for Bank's Money Laundering Breaches  

 Tax rises on foreign homebuyers in Australia  
   
          Brazil Attorney General: Tourism minister 'had Swiss bank account'   

                Jump in serious tax evasion cases for HMRC  

                    HMRC ramps up tax evasion investigations to 3K a year  

                         No place for accountants to hide  


 Tax avoidance tactics laid bare: PwC tells multinationals 'read the play'  

      Rebels And Tax Avoidance: Chevron's Problems Pile Up  

         Dentons, KPMG Linked to Offshore Tax Scheme Up North  

              Why unfair tax treaties hold back developing countries  

                  How Will Country-by-Country Reporting Assist in Transfer Pricing Risk Assessment? 

                        Call for country-by-country reporting to be made public  

                            Libyan Fund Claims Goldman Sachs Exploited Its Financial Naïveté   
  
                                Goldman Sachs banker 'procured' prostitutes for Libyans, court hears 

                                      EU May Decide on Apple Tax Probe In July  

                                          Ireland and Apple Brace for the Worst as Tax Endgame Nears

 Businessman Pleads Guilty to Foreign Bribery and Tax Charges in Connection with Venezuela Bribery Scheme  

          IT staff moving to HMRC from private contractors will still be bound by 1% pay cap

                Latvian Banks Promote Money Laundering Companies  

                      Infrastructure and Projects Authority still concerned over HMRC Aspire exit

                            BHS and the silence of the auditors  

                                  BHS was a cash-generating machine for Philip Green and his family  

                                        How an obscure nonprofit in Washington protects tax havens for the rich  

 Ukrainian police raid JKX Oil over allegations of unpaid tax     

         Brazil President Temer implicated in Petrobras bribery scheme  

               Former Brazil president Lula poised for corruption trial, associates fear  

                   OECD mulls blacklist for defiant tax havens 

                          EU push on tax avoidance threatened by Prague veto  

                               Make UK super-rich pay one-off wealth tax, says Fabian Society  

                                     Nick and Christian Candy accused of tax evasion in high court  

  Scrapping tax havens would be unrealistic, experts tell MPs  

        Barcelona agree to pay £4.4m fine over Neymar tax fraud case  

            Ex-Deutsche Bank Employees Sentenced in Tax Fraud Case  

                 Private equity fights Italy tax changes