I have a loyalty that runs in my bloodstream, when
I lock into someone or something, you can't get me away from it because I
commit that thoroughly. That's in friendship, that's a deal, that's a
commitment. Don't give me paper - I can get the same lawyer who drew it up to
break it. But if you shake my hand, that's for life.
~ Jerry LewisText Analysis Systems Mine Workplace Emails to Measure Staff Sentiments
Footage of the microscopic world around us Business Insider
Think incoming nuclear missiles or a massive terrorist attack, a man-made disaster of epic proportions, a meteor or some other sort of nationally scalable natural disaster yet to be imagined.
A nightmare, basically.
Penelope Trunk on how the world worksThink incoming nuclear missiles or a massive terrorist attack, a man-made disaster of epic proportions, a meteor or some other sort of nationally scalable natural disaster yet to be imagined.
A nightmare, basically.
Netanyahu claims Israel has found Iran’s ‘secret atomic warehouse’ Guardian (Kevin W)Why India can’t join Iran’s sanctions busters Economic Times of India (J-LS)Delusions of Victory Carnegie Middle East Center (Chuck L)yes, but it's not ukraine and the baddies are not russians but our own best allies and so…https://t.co/pBS5t4Ih7X— Tarik Cyril Amar (@TarikCyrilAmar) September 28, 2018
NASA to celebrate 55th anniversary of first Moon landing by, er, deciding how to land humans on the Moon again The Register
A year after the tragedy of Hurricane Maria, the 51st state has become the favorite playground for extremely wealthy Americans looking to keep their money from the taxman. The only catch? They have to cut all ties to the mainland (wink, wink).
The party known as Cocktails and Compliance—so called for mixing alcohol with tax advice—was thrown on a Friday evening in May, in a warehouse turned art gallery in Old San Juan. The host had kept his guest list confidential: It contained the names of hundreds of ultra-wealthy mainland Americans who'd moved to Puerto Rico to avoid paying taxes, most of whom were reluctant to advertise that fact. More than 1,500 mainlanders have established residency here since 2012, when the island rebranded itself as a tax haven, and the annual Cocktails is at the center of their social calendar.
The NYT has this report: Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father (NYT 10/2/18), here.
Some interesting excerpts without getting too much into the details laid out:
The line between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion is often murky, and it is constantly being stretched by inventive tax lawyers. There is no shortage of clever tax avoidance tricks that have been blessed by either the courts or the I.R.S. itself. The richest Americans almost never pay anything close to full freight. But tax experts briefed on The Times’s findings said the Trumps appeared to have done more than exploit legal loopholes. They said the conduct described here represented a pattern of deception and obfuscation, particularly about the value of Fred Trump’s real estate, that repeatedly prevented the I.R.S. from taxing large transfers of wealth to his children.
“The theme I see here through all of this is valuations: They play around with valuations in extreme ways,” said Lee-Ford Tritt, a University of Florida law professor and a leading expert in gift and estate tax law. “There are dramatic fluctuations depending on their purpose.”
The manipulation of values to evade taxes was central to one of the most important financial events in Donald Trump’s life. In an episode never before revealed, Mr. Trump and his siblings gained ownership of most of their father’s empire on Nov. 22, 1997, a year and a half before Fred Trump’s death. Critical to the complex transaction was the value put on the real estate. The lower its value, the lower the gift taxes. The Trumps dodged hundreds of millions in gift taxes by submitting tax returns that grossly undervalued the properties, claiming they were worth just $41.4 million.
‘No regrets’: world’s biggest election loser runs for 96th time in Canada Guardian
How Health got Parliamentary Library to take down offending article
MY HEALTH RECORD: Parallels to the ABC’s Emma Alberici could not be more obvious: the minister was embarrassed, officials were incensed, but the independent Parliamentary Library stood firm in the accuracy of its analysis.
‘Be prepared for hard feedback’: dep secs’ graduate career advice
VPSC: “I just wandered around looking for issues I found interesting and by working on those sort of things it opens up the path to future jobs.”
CCTV systems could hurt councils with lax security, auditor-general warns
PRIVACY: Local governments have enthusiastically boarded the public CCTV bandwagon in recent years, snapping up federal and state grants, but have they done enough to manage the potential intrusion on individual privacy?
Affordable home-ownership scheme offers pathway out of social housing
CASE STUDIES: Shared equity models have a dual benefit of making home ownership affordable for people on modest incomes and freeing up scarce social housing for other households in need.
◾ Ten lessons from cities that have risen to the housing challenge
- A Policy Paper prepared for the UK Labour Party - A Better Future for Corporate Governance: Democratising Corporations for Their Long-Term Success
- International agreement on digital taxes unlikely soon - Hammond (2 Oct 2018)
- London at the heart of a £175bn money laundering scandal(2 Oct 2018)
- ECB calls for clearer common EU rules to combat money laundering (2 Oct 2018)
- FTSE 100 companies failing to address tax evasion (2 Oct 2018)
- UK Contractors warned over dubious new tax schemes (2 Oct 2018)
- Revolving doors: Former HMRC chief Edward Troup joins McKinsey (2 Oct 2018)
- The US IRS pursues fewer cases of tax evasion than it did 10 years ago(2 Oct 2018)
- Turkey orders arrest of 417 suspects in money laundering investigation (2 Oct 2018)
- Master trusts must register with The Pensions Regulator (2 Oct 2018)
- How three tech giants pay just £10m in corporation tax between them - Amazon, Facebook and Airbnb paid £6.8m combined(1 Oct 2018)
- ICRICT: A Roadmap to Improve Rules for Taxing Multinationals: A FAIRER FUTURE FOR GLOBAL TAXATION (1 Oct 2018)
- Richest 1% have little reason to pay more tax (1 Oct 2018)
- Danske Bank's $235 billion money laundering scandal isn't going away (1 Oct 2018)
- Digital Taxation: Taxing Where Value is Created: What’s “User Involvement“ Got to Do With It? (1 Oct 2018)
- Pets at Home shows its teeth with snap at Amazon over tax (1 Oct 2018)
- Labour is planning the most radical tax and spending reforms in over 70 years(1 Oct 2018)
- Another policy stolen from Uk Labour - New UK tax on foreign home buyers to help rough sleepers, UK PM says (1 Oct 2018)
- UK Treasury trousers £9.3 billions in stamp duty BEFORE new surcharge on foreign buyers (1 Oct 2018)
- US Takes on Russia's Favorite Money Haven: Cyprus (1 Oct 2018)
- How Companies Can Take a Stand Against Bribery (1 Oct 2018)
- Two Former SBM Offshore Executives Sent to Prison For Bribery (1 Oct 2018)
- Overseas banks push for tax cuts ahead of Brexit (1 Oct 2018)
- Trump's triumph in war on tax avoidance (1 Oct 2018)
- Petrobras hit with $853m corruption fine (1 Oct 2018)
- Brazil: A giant in crisis rocked by corruption (1 Oct 2018)
Wired: “On a clear, warm night earlier this year, several dozen University of California, Berkeley students folded themselves into gray chairs for a three-hour class on how to think like blockchain entrepreneurs. The evening’s challenge, presented by Berkeley City Councilmember Ben Bartlett, was to brainstorm how blockchain technology might be used to alleviate the city’s growing homeless problem. “We have at least 1,400 homeless people in our city, and that includes many right here at UC Berkeley,” Bartlett told the class. “So how can we use blockchain to fund a new prosperity? That’s a challenge I’d like you to take on.” The course, taught by visiting professor and former venture capitalist Po Chi Wu, is among a growing number of classes and research initiatives on blockchain technology emerging at universities. Blockchain—a method for creating and maintaining a global ledger of transactions that doesn’t require a third-party middleman such as a bank, government or corporation—is best known for its role in powering the virtual currency bitcoin. Applications for the technology are springing up in sectors including retail, humanitarian aid, real estate and finance. Although some analysts believe blockchain won’t gain widespread adoption for another five or 10 years, companies like IBM, Facebook and Google are investing heavily in the technology—and universities are taking note…”
Schneider on Security: “Some of us — myself included — have proposed lawful government hacking as an alternative to backdoors. A new report from the Center of Internet and Society looks at the security risks of allowing government hacking. They include:
- Disincentive for vulnerability disclosure
- Cultivation of a market for surveillance tools
- Attackers co-opt hacking tools over which governments have lost control
- Attackers learn of vulnerabilities through government use of malware
- Government incentives to push for less-secure software and standards
- Government malware affects innocent users.
The New York Times: Understanding the times Visual investigations based on social media posts require a mix of traditional journalistic diligence and cutting-edge internet skills.
“Visual investigations based on social media posts require a mix of traditional journalistic diligence and cutting-edge internet skills. In an effort to shed more light on how we work, The Times is running a series of short posts explaining some of our journalistic practices. Read more of this series here.
| RISKY BUSINESS
If you want to go
behind-the-scenes of our most famous investigation, the Panama Papers, then you
should watch the latest
eponymous film.
A former boss used to say
people loved knowing ‘how the sausage was made’ (that sausage being our
journalism). If internal workings intrigue you, then the latest Panama Papers
film is for you!
The film’s director Alex
Winter said the risks that reporters and their sources take to bring to light
such issues were at the heart of his story. “How do journalists get the truth
out and speak truth to power in these times?
| CHEAP SEATS IN DC
For those of you in D.C.
(or close), Winter’s film will be aired at The Double Exposure Investigative
Film Festival on October 14 and you can get discounted
tickets! Use the code PAPERSDX.
| GERMANS IN CHINA
Our German partners,
Süddeutsche Zeitung, have continued to investigate how
Siemens (an industrial giant) has operated in China between 2004
to 2014.
The investigation is
highlighted by one deal that was struck between a sales representative and a
hospital director. The sales rep’ paid nearly $1 million in bribes to the
director, which was loaded into boxes then into a car.
Read the original reporting
in German here.
| SECRET EXPENSES
There are 751 members of
the European Parliament and each receives more than $5,000 monthly to cover
expenses such as telephone, postal and internet services.
But
a court has ruled against the public finding
out how MEPs spend that money. It comes after an investigation by a group of
ICIJ members fought for more transparency.