Monday, February 12, 2018

What Could Possibly Even Happen, My Goodness?!

Heroes And Cowards Have One Thing In Common: Fear 


Why do art collectors collect? To establish political legitimacy, to claim aristocratic roots, for tax write-offs — the reasons are as varied as the  collectors 

The Whole Fish Is Rotten, Not Just Rob Porter Charles Pierce, Esquire

The Equifax hack could be worse than we thought CNN
If you can take a selfie, you can protect your state tax refund

IRS cops scouring cryptocurrency accounts to build taxevasion cases

File Your Taxes Before Scammers Do It For You



More than 11000 Americans targeted in India call center tax fraud


Men posing as officials from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service left thousands of voice messages claiming to have found irregularities in the victims' tax records. The messages instructed them to call back or face legal action. But the phone number they gave connected unsuspecting people in the United ...

Cutting tax fraud with digital administration

Sydney nightspots caught up in Plutus tax scam

France to name and shame worst cases of tax fraud - PM

Fraud and scandals costing DIY super funds billions

Mareeba businessman guilty of dishonestly under reporting to ATO
Scots crooks face losing millions in cash as loophole to exploit tax ...







Jotwell (2016)Omri Marian (UC-Irvine), What We Now Know We Didn't Know About Tax Evasion (And Why It Matters) (JOTWELL) (reviewing Annette Alstadsæter, Niels Johannesen & Gabriel Zucman, Tax Evasion and Inequality (NBER Working Paper No. 23772 (2017)):
Over the past several years, a series of leaks related to offshore tax avoidance and evasion (SwissLeaksLuxLeaksthe Panama PapersBahama Leaks, and Paradise Papers, to name a few) has fueled calls for tax transparency. To date, most discussion of the leaks has been policy-oriented (leaks: good or bad?) and largely anecdotal (based on some truly outrageous revelations). It was not until very recently, however, that a small group of researches started delving into the data exposed by these leaks to make statistically significant empirical findings. AlstadsæterJohannesen & Zucman’s (AJZ) paper is an excellent example of such paper, which combines methodological sophistication, public data, and leaked data, to make important new contributions to the voluminous literature on the offshore tax world. ...






A New Hampshire woman wins a $560 million lotto jackpot, but can't collect until she reveals her name. She refuses.


  1. If forever is too long, how long is a good amount of time to live?

The main character of my new book, Eternal Life, has been living her life as the 2,000-year-old, and she’s really had it with immortality. One hundred and twenty isn’t a bad alternative. Always leave the party while you’re still having fun.

 $20 Billion Hidden in the Swamp: Feds Redact 255,000 Salaries.
The Butcher Builders: How Western Journalists Helped Create a Monster in Russia Paste Magazine




Bitcoin price will crash to zero, Nouriel Roubini says 

Australia’s Only Classical Music And Arts Magazine Abruptly Closes…


Limelight, launched in 1976 as the magazine of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Classic FM radio and spun off in 2006, cancelled printing of its March issue on Tuesday and laid off its staff. Said publisher Andrew Batt-Rawden, "The magazine has improved a lot financially, we are reaching a big audience across Australia and a few internationally, but my personal situation was that I simply couldn't continue the monthly profit and loss." (He is talking to potential buyers.) … [Read More]


Homeland Security cybersecurity chief says Russia successfully hacked some state voter registration systems in 2016.




Trump’s Failure in Puerto Rico Was Even Worse Than We Knew New York Magazine (resilc). Not if you’ve been reading Lambert’s coverage!

The Gillian MacKenzie Agency and Wolf Literary Services have merged to form MacKenzie Wolf. The new company is led by partners Gillian MacKenzie, who heads the literary management division, and Kirsten Wolf, who manages the legal and financial consulting division. Allison Devereux and Rach Crawford continue as agents and will co-manage foreign rights. Kate Johnson continues as agent and UK rights manager. Elizabeth Rudnick joins as agent-at-large.

How Is It That ‘The Simpsons’ Has Predicted Everything From The Current President To Disney’s Takeover Of Fox?…


Basically, you put a bunch of very smart people in a writers' room and let them loose: "The result is a show packed with references to art, literature, pop culture, politics and science." (Alternative theory: The Simpsons has so many episodes that it's bound to get a few things right.) … [Read More]

Data Driven Journalism: “Over the past year, the Center for Cooperative Media, based at Montclair State University in New Jersey, been collecting information about dozens of collaborative reporting projects involving hundreds of newsrooms around the world. That information was used to identify six distinct models of collaborative journalism, which are based on how long newsroom and information organizations work together, and how they integrate their work and workflows. Early into the process, Stefanie Murray, who directs the Center for Cooperative Media, realized that the information they were collecting about journalism collaborations could benefit other newsrooms. She approached me about turning this information into a database, to easily show how journalism collaborations were funded and how newsrooms work together. The database launched in early January. It contains information about more than 150 journalism collaborations around the world, and features information including when the collaboration started, who was involved, funding sources, the tools that newsrooms used, and whether the collaboration had a formal arrangement in place or someone in charge of the efforts


SILICON VALLEY’S TAX-AVOIDING, JOB-KILLING, SOUL-SUCKING MACHINE Esquire This loses me on the pop explanations of why these companies are successful….



Washington Post – “Shortages of employees — a common feature of troubled government programs — are hampering a range of services to the public and stressing the federal workforce, the government’s central personnel agency said Wednesday. Thereport comes just ahead of a White House budget proposal that is expected to include plans for carrying out a long-term reduction in the federal workforce, as ordered by the Trump administration last April. In preparing its initial “Federal Workforce Priorities Report,” the Office of Personnel Management, under an initiative it undertook around the same time, reviewed the role workforce issues played in underperforming or at-risk programs at two dozen Cabinet departments and large independent agencies. OPM found personnel issues factored in 59 percent of programs on the Government Accountability Office’s “high-risk” list and in 38 percent of reports by inspectors general of “management challenges” within their agencies. Specifically, inadequate staff was cited as a problem in 34 percent of the former and 14 percent of latter. Lack of employee skills, and training and development were also common themes. “The services provided by agencies for the benefit and protection of the American public are dependent upon having the necessary Federal workforce. However, many programs cited capacity shortcomings affecting both the management and mission accomplishment of at least 20 (or 83% of) agencies,” it said. “Gaps in staffing levels were hampering agency performance or placing performance at risk as well as causing stress for overworked employees. Impacted missions and services included those related to public safety, health care, real estate, business ventures, citizen and veteran benefits, law enforcement, and Federal revenue and cost control activities,” the report said…”