Thursday, August 25, 2016

How large businesses socialise losses - Contrast this with Science Wisdom

When I was a kid growing up to 188 cm in the '60s, music was an outlet for enlightenment, frustration, rebelion.  It was more about individualism. Today it's just like a big business...
~ Joey Ramone

Children of the Welvet Revolution: London Is Getting The First YouTube Store 
Google has unveiled a retail outlet called the Creator Store, where online video stars can sell merchandise to the public...
 
She must have felt so optimistic. When Gertrud Arndt arrived at the Bauhaus school of art and design in 1923, she was a gifted, spirited 20-year-old who had won a scholarship to pay for her studies. Having spent several years working as an apprentice to a firm of architects, she had set her heart on studying architecture. Female Pioneers of the Bauhaus

HMRC: More than 50pc of challenges against the taxman succeed

Alleged bribery by Australian companies of foreign governments remains a serious issue at the centre of international business. The man in charge of catching these businesses, AFP Commander Peter Crozier, says we need to encourage companies potentially implicated in such behaviour to come forward. 
Not-so risky business in Congo as Australians embroiled in offshore bribe claims  

 How the U.S. Corporate Tax Rate Compares to the Rest of the World (Tax Policy Blog)

 Survey: Citizens want more EU action against tax fraud

 Basic human values and white-collar crime: Findings from Europe:
Question & Result via CL
The question wording is as follows: ‘How often, if ever, have you done each of these things in the last five years?’: ‘ . . . paid cash with no receipt so as to avoid paying VAT or other taxes?’ (tax evasion);
Results
The distribution of the three dependent variables – tax evasion, insurance fraud and bribery – shows that approximately 30 percent of the respondents in the sample have committed at least one of the considered crime types. Out of these, about 95 percent has evaded taxation, about 11 percent had made a false insurance claim and approximately 4 percent had offered a bribe in return for the services of officials

HMRC proposes swingeing new sanctions to combat tax evasion  

 Former NSW Labor minister Ian Macdonald facing charge over allegedly corrupt coal deal

The President of the NSW Legislative Council, Don Harwin, was behind a recent push to shrink the City of Sydney council area for the benefit of the Liberal Party, according to the party's former candidate for mayor. A former senior inner-city Liberal, Edward Mandla, has split with the party and is running on an independent ticket in next month's council elections Senior NSW Liberal Don Harwin behind push to shrink City of Sydney: claim

If you use one of the many online platforms available to rent a spare bedroom, provide car rides, or to connect and provide a number of other goods or services, you’re involved in what is sometimes called the sharing economy.

KPMG: Get real on tax reform before the future bites

 Don Quijones of Spain & Mexico, editor at Wolf Street. Originally published at Wolf Street 
In June 2016, the ECB began buying the bonds of some of the most powerful companies in Europe as well as the European subsidiaries of foreign multinationals. This pushed the average yield on euro investment-grade corporate debt to 0.65%. Large quantities of highly rated corporate debt with shorter maturities are trading at negative yields, where brainwashed investors engage in the absurdity of paying for the privilege of lending money to corporations.

 Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Originally published at New Economic Perspectives 

Apple Inc.: Poster Child for Why We Need to Close Offshore Tax Loopholes 

Corporate Inversions: Taxes Make US Companies Takeover Targets  


Lew Taishoff, YA CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP. “Well, maybe counsel sneakier than I could, or even better, a top-fuel unmodified Class-A rounder.”

A New Report Sheds Light on Profiteering by So-Called Debt-Relief Companies Nation

The wealthy have nearly healed from recession. The poor haven’t even started. Washington Post

Theodore Seto (Loyola-L.A.), Thinking in More Nuanced Ways About Income and Wealth Inequality (Jotwell) (reviewing Bariş Kaymak (Université de Montréal) & Markus Poschke (McGill University), The Evolution of Wealth Inequality over Half a Century: The Role of Taxes, Transfers and Technology, 77 J. Monetary Econ. 1 (2016))

There Were Only 13 Federal Private Prisons… But Closing Them Is Still A Big Deal...
Golly, who'd have thought marrying private equity and the Stanford Prison Experiment could go so awry? Dealmakers

The death of neoliberalism and the crisis in western politics

How the multinationals do it ABC
On multinationals, the Big 4 & tax havens. Interview includes TJN's Nicholas Shaxson, author of Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men Who Stole the World.   

Exclusive: Monte dei Paschi CEO, former chairman under investigation – source Reuters 

 Stephen Olsen, Dean Zerbe Adds Insights to Whistleblower “Collected Proceeds” Tax Court Case (Procedurally Taxing). “Dean was one of the primary architects of the whistleblower statute, and one of the leading practitioners in this area ...

'Fantastically corrupt' countries doing more against corruption than UK tax havens

These "Tax Haven" Companies Have the Most Profits Stashed Overseas  


The longer companies wait to remove illegal anti-whistleblower language from employment agreements, the larger the penalty is going to grow. That seems to be the message the Securities and Exchange Commission delivered Tuesday to Health Net Inc. The California-based health insurer will pay a $340,000 penalty for illegally using severance agreements requiring that outgoing employees waive their latitude to pursue monetary awards tied to the SEC’s Dodd-Frank whistleblower program SEC tells another company: Stop blocking whistleblowers MarketWatch


CalPERS’ Tainted Fiduciary Counsel Robert Klausner Departs After NC Publicizes His Dubious History

Siri, Cortana and the ATO’s Alex (aka Sasha Dubcek): the rise of the service avatar

Billions surface from fledgling program swissinfo
A Swiss law offers tax evaders amnesty on revealing undeclared assets

U.S. Army fudged its accounts by trillions of dollars, auditor finds Reuters

R.I.P. Gawker, 2002-2016

Fortune, Can Tech’s Tattle Tycoon Trump Thiel?:
A Fortune investigation into Gawker Media’s finances reveals that though [founder Nick] Denton is down, he is not out. As the company’s websites assailed tech giants like Alphabet, Apple, and Facebook for byzantine schemes meant to reduce their tax burden, Gawker Media quietly played the same game. Our investigation reveals that Denton is as much a creature of the tech industry as he is a critic—and that Gawker’s slippery but legal tactics may, in the end, help Denton survive Thiel’s crusade with funds to spare.
When Denton started Gawker Media 14 years ago, it was a U.S. taxpayer just like any other American small business. Its headquarters were in downtown Manhattan; its employees were mostly local. Today Gawker Media still operates primarily from New York City offices—it also has an office in Budapest—but it is now a Cayman Islands–based holding company with two subsidiaries: one in the U.S., one in Hungary. (Denton speaks Hungarian and has ancestral ties to the nation. The country also has highly favorable corporate tax policies.) For clarity, we’ll call the combined operation—U.S., Hungary, Cayman Islands—Gawker Global. According to various financial documents—among them U.S. tax returns, disclosures from Hungary, and documents released by the company in and out of court—Gawker Global used three tactics to reduce its U.S. tax burden. Can Tech’s Tattle Tycoon Trump Thiel?

Gawker.com to End Operations Next Week Gawker :-(


One of the oft-used tricks of our modern system of socialism for the rich is to have the government pick up costs that should properly be borne by private concerns. A common ruse is to have the operator of a new plant or large facility set up a bidding war between prospective locations, pitting them against each other to win the jobs that it will supposedly generate. The fallacy of this approach, from the perspective of the community, is that the tax gimmies often wind up being so large as to fully offset the gains from the expected increase in jobs. And that’s before you get to the fact that many of these newbies to the local economy aren’t additive, but partly or in the case of WalMart, almost fully displace established local businesses. Those existing players not only often offered high wages than the new entrants, but they also had reason to keep the interest of the community in mind (for instance, they might donate equipment to a local charity). How large businesses socialise losses Bloomberg, in an in-depth report, describes yet another way that WalMart makes local communities pay for the privilege of having it drive local retailers out of business ...There’s nothing inevitable about the level of crime at Walmart. It’s the direct, if unintended, result of corporate policy The article is very much worth reading in full. Corporate Savings 
 
Uber’s $100m settlement with drivers rejected by judge BBC (furzy). Hooray! Judge Edward Chen echoes Jed Rakoff on the failure of bank miscreants to make admissions regarding misconduct, but this has potentially bigger implications. I haven’t had time to read the ruling (here), so any reader input would be very much appreciated.

Between a rock and a hard place — that seems to be Italy’s niche in a crowded world. How it ended up there is a long story; but suffice to say, Italy has no one to blame but itself. Or, more accurately, its own political class. Italy is staring into an abyss of huge public debt and constant high unemployment. Its young generation has no future. Many in Europe and 
beyond express surprise: Italy has so much to offer, after all. It boasts the highest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, it has taste and a rich history. The language of Dante — the native tongue of barely 60 million on a planet of well over 7 billion — is the fifth most studied in the world. Lament from a country on the brink Politico. Italy 

The Library Science Database provides access to over 150 top publications in library and information science

ATO pledges tougher action on business tax debts

Will the British government target tax dodging enablers at last?   

Scientists say they have found a ‘fifth force of nature' MEdiaDragons International Business 
From Now On You’ll Be Able to Access NASA Research for Free Motherboard 
Here are some of the strangest predictions of what life will look like in 100 years Visual Capitalist

Exxon Mobil Fraud Inquiry Said to Focus More on Future Than Past NYT

"Michael D’Ascenzo" The Former Leader Who Left Positive Marks on Many ...  ;-)
From left to right Alex Malley CEO CPA Australia, Michael D'Ascenzo Former Federal Commissioner
Michael D’Ascenzo led the Australian Tax Office (ATO) as commissioner of taxation from 2006 to 2012 – the culmination of 35 years service with the ATO. As commissioner, he championed corporate values that put taxpayers and the community at the centre of the ATO’s thinking and drove greater openness and transparency in governance. He pioneered advances in tax and superannuation administration, including improvements to Australia’s self-assessment system. ​​​Aligning Vision: Michael D Ascenzo on Leadership and the Tax Office

It is interesting to compare how governments have treated his two predecessors, Trevor Boucher and Michael Carmody. Boucher retired in January 1993 and spent two years as Australian ambassador to the OECD in Paris while Carmody was parachuted into the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service in 2005 after a 12-year stint as commissioner. Given D’Ascenzo’s 35 years’ experience where he interacted with key players in government, the legal and accounting professions and the community you would think Swan could better utilise his expertise rather than giving him a part-time job at the FIRB.
Why Swan moved the nation's top tax man on 

Countries committed to sharing beneficial ownership information - USA is missing 

Nobel prize-winning economist Stiglitz tells us why ‘neoliberalism is dead’ Business Insider. Huh? The Clinton and Trump campaigns sure don’t think so.
Dead Dancing rather than Dirty Dancing ...



Public procurement — the next frontier for tax justice campaigning?
This guest blog by Matti Ylönen is partly based on an academic article Cities as World Political Actors: “Tax haven free cities” initiative and the politics of public procurement. In the past few years, several cities in Europe have also shown their interest in adopting tax and transparency-related provisions in their public procurement tenders. However, cities have found that using public procurement for promoting tax justice is easier said than done . . .


Will the British government target tax dodging enablers at last?
There has been much talk in Britain of new government proposals that tax advisors giving advice on tax avoidance could face large fines of up to 100% of the tax lost if their schemes are defeated in courts. Is this a quest for positive newspaper headlines, or, a sea change in political will? Enforcement is key . . .


The private sector will be invited to contribute innovative solutions to improve the quality and value of intelligence products, in a first-of-its-kind joint project initiated by Australia’s financial intelligence agency, AUSTRAC, and the newly formed Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC). Joint media release: Joint agency project selected to sharpen intelligence capability
 
Lawmakers Overseeing Wall Street Given Bigger, More Favorable Loans Than Others: Study International Business Times 

America’s cash-strapped teachers are a target for predatory lenders Guardian

Kobe Bryant Launches $100 Million Venture-Capital Firm 

Deutsche Bank’s $10-Billion Scandal The New Yorker

SNP moves to close Scottish tax haven loophole in Westminster 

Factsheet, Hillary Clinton Will Make Life Easier for Small Business at Every Step of the Way
 

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