“When I was five years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy”. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” – John Lennon
From disbelief to dread: the dismal new routine of life in Sydney’s smoke haze Guardian
Taxing Tech: The Future of Digital Taxation, by Lilian Faulhaber (Georgetown)
Over
a decade before thousands of protesters gathered in Zuccotti Park in
New York in 2011, a little-known researcher in France sat down to write
about income inequality in a new way. “The focus of our study consists
in comparing the evolution of the incomes of the top 10%, the top 1%,
the top 0.5%, and so on,” Thomas Piketty wrote in a paper in 1998. With
his long-term co-author, Emmanuel Saez, Mr Piketty pioneered the use of
tax data over survey data, thereby doing a better job of capturing the
incomes of the richest. He revealed that “the 1%” had made out like
bandits at the expense of “the 99%”. His research gave Occupy Wall
Street its vocabulary.
Pulp fiction? Film noir? No, it's Casey council, and it's all too real
At the centre of this pot-boiled political thriller is an ageing, gold chain-wearing, Ferrari-driving developer by the name of John Charles Woodman.
Samantha Jacoby (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities), Policymakers Should Ensure Pass-Throughs Pay More of Taxes They Owe:
High-income
taxpayers drive much of the “tax gap” — the gap between what taxpayers
owe and what they voluntarily pay on time — finds a new paper from
Professor Natasha Sarin and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers [Shrinking the Tax Gap: Approaches And Revenue Potential], citing new IRS data
for 2011 to 2013. That’s unsurprising, because the tax gap’s single
largest source is the underreporting of pass-through income (income from
sources such as S corporations, partnerships, and sole
proprietorships), which overwhelmingly flows to wealthy households. IRS
auditors looking to curb tax evasion as well as policymakers looking to
close tax loopholes should make pass-throughs a prime target. ...
Taxpayers
who didn’t file a return and those underpaying the IRS accounted for 20
percent of the gross tax gap, and income underreporting the other 80
percent, the latest IRS data show. Pass-throughs accounted for nearly
half (44 percent) of the underreporting gap, counting both underreported
income and self-employment taxes.
Using History to Understand Hidden Wealth in the UK
Between 1920 and 1992, English elites concealed 20-32% of their
wealth. Accounting for hidden wealth eliminates one-third of the
observed decline of top 10% wealth share over the past century.
Ten years after Labor dumped me as premier, it's high time it cleaned up its act
As Labor confronts its demons, its former NSW leader writes on what it needs to do to regain the faith of voters.
Police chief questioned at royal commission, denies 'attempt to conceal' Lawyer X info
Hong Kong: A different kind of Cold War Asia Times
China Hints U.S. Blacklist Imminent in Threat to Trade Talks Bloomberg
Who Pays the Tax on Imports from China? The Big Picture
Billionaires only, please! London vault for the ultra-rich opens Guardian
Uber Says 3,045 Sex Assaults Were Reported in U.S. Rides Last Year NYT. “‘The numbers are jarring and hard to digest,’ Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer, said in an interview. ‘What it says is that Uber is a reflection of the society it serves.'”
Unfree Agents The Baffler
“Booming” Economy Means More Bad Jobs and Faster Race to the BottomBlack Agenda Report
Rev. William Barber on the Political Power of Poor People: ‘We Have to Change Our Whole Narrative’ New York Magazine
Leigh Osofsky (North Carolina), Constructing Doctrines For Modern Legislative Realities (JOTWELL) (reviewing Jesse M. Cross (South Carolina), The Staffer's Error Doctrine, 56 Harv. J. on Legis. 83 (2019)):
Jesse Cross’s recently published article, The Staffer’s Error Doctrine,
is an important contribution to this body of work. In this article,
Cross provides a deep account of how Congress has come to rely upon what
Cross calls a “staffer delegation model.” Cross explains that Congress
has not always relied so extensively on congressional staff to draft
legislation. Rather, Congress previously used a mix of committees and
delegation to agencies. Cross argues that concern over executive power,
along with expanded internal bureaucracy, has prompted Congress instead
to increasingly turn to an army of congressional staffers to draft
legislation. As Cross explores, members of Congress have acknowledged
that this turn to staffers gives staffers not only clerical tasks, but
also significant power to make policy through legislation. And, as Cross
persuasively argues, this is a systematic byproduct of a Constitution
that creates generalist legislators, notwithstanding a world that
increasingly requires subject-matter experts to create good law. ...
