Monday, July 08, 2019

Fingerprinting’ to Track Us Online Is on the Rise. Here’s What to Do.

“For those who confuse you, recognize that their confusion is theirs and your clarity is yours.”
― Barbara Marciniak, Family of Light: Pleiadian Tales and Lessons in Living
“According to history, quite a few times simple man turned out to be the significant man.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words   
THE CHINESE ARE NOT OUR FRIENDS: Almost a Third of World’s Top VPNs Are Secretly Owned By Chinese Firms, Study Finds.


Defence Force: Chinese warships heading to Australia to spy on US-Australian military exercises - NEWS.com.au


Federal police forced Qantas to hand over the private travel records of an ABC journalist - Sydney Morning Herald


ATO says employers using Uber for staff can't get tax breaks, but those using 'taxis' can - ABC News

ATO hangs up amid flood of calls from 'excited' taxpayers seeking bonus

ATO flooded with 90000 calls as tax cuts pass, but urges patience ...
ABC
The Australian Financial Review 



The New York Times – Advertisers are increasingly turning to an invisible method that pulls together information about your device to pinpoint your identity. “Fingerprinting involves looking at the many characteristics of your mobile device or computer, like the screen resolution, operating system and model, and triangulating this information to pinpoint and follow you as you browse the web and use apps. Once enough device characteristics are known, the theory goes, the data can be assembled into a profile that helps identify you the way a fingerprint would.
The Verge – What is a tracking pixel and what was Superhuman up to? I it true that an app called Superhuman lets me spy on people using email? That’s what we heard, too: When you sent an email using this $30-a-month invite-only app, it automatically tracked every time a recipient looks at that email, and even showed you their location. 




Oxbow WalmartCharles Middleton has spent almost 10 years wondering whether becoming a whistleblower to the IRS was worth it.

A former senior tax executive at Walmart and billionaire Bill Koch’s Oxbow Carbon, Middleton in 2009 filed the first of several confidential claims he’s made against his employers. He asserted, in hundreds of pages of documents obtained by Bloomberg Tax, that those companies engaged in questionable practices that he estimated resulted in more than $250 million in tax dodges by Walmart and $350 million by Koch’s business—allegations both companies vehemently deny.

As far as Middleton knows, the claims haven’t been resolved, according to the documents and one of his lawyers. He’s not sure how they’re progressing because the IRS has kept him mostly in the dark, he said in several of the documents.

Middleton’s cases reflect a level of secrecy particular to the IRS’s whistleblower program. Tax code Section 6103 prohibits IRS employees from disclosing tax information about an individual or company—which the IRS, according to reports from its whistleblower office, interprets as a need to limit interaction after claims are filed.

Lawyers say the limited communication can leave hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes uncollected and frustrate people like Middleton who put their careers on the line. “And you don’t want a lot of whistleblowers out there bad-mouthing the program,” because new whistleblowers won’t come forward, said Stephen M. Kohn, an attorney at Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, who represents such individuals.

The agency, in most cases, has a one-interview policy with whistleblowers, according to Kohn and the IRS’s own reports. After that it’s the “Black Hole of Calcutta,” Kohn said, referring to the dungeon in India where British prisoners were held in the mid-1700s. 
Markovic (Texas A&M), Rise of the Robot Lawyers?, 61 Ariz. L. Rev. 325 (2019)

The House sued the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service on Tuesday, demanding access to President Trump’s tax returns and escalating a fight with an administration that has repeatedly dismissed as illegitimate its attempt to obtain the financial records.

The lawsuit moves the dispute into the federal courts after months of sniping between the Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee, which requested and then subpoenaed the returns, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The case may ultimately go to the Supreme Court, and its outcome is likely to determine whether financial information that Mr. Trump has kept closely guarded in spite of longstanding presidential tradition will be viewed by Congress and, ultimately, the public.


Lesson From The Tax Court: Yachts Are Pigs
By Bryan Camp
You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.  According to Wikipedia, that is a late 20th century update to an older expression "A hog in armour is still but a hog.”  Both convey the same idea: superficial alterations do not change the essence of a thing.   
Two recent cases from
The Hill op-ed:  Chuck Grassley Is Bullying the Congressional Research Service, by Edward Kleinbard (USC):
CRS

Despite his sweater vests and carefully cultivated demeanor, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has more in common with President Trump than is generally appreciated. Grassley is willing to adopt and broadcast a self-evident big lie, as he did when he promoted the “death panels” smear of the Affordable Care Act; he is unwilling to apologize when caught out, as again was the case in the ACA debate; and he is a bully. Unlike Trump, however, Grassley chooses his targets judiciously, by aiming at those who are least able to defend themselves, including congressional staffers.
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