Mr Jordan again foreshadowed the finding when in March he accused tax agents of presiding over more rorting than people who prepare their own returns.
Mr Jordan again foreshadowed the finding when in March he accused tax agents of presiding over more rorting than people who prepare their own returns.
As the Australian Taxation Office's first ever estimate of the "tax gap" for individuals shows, over-claiming of work and other expenses is a national sport worth $8.7 billion a year.
For every $1 in tax avoided by multinationalsand other large companies, $3 is cheated by individual taxpayers, much of it aided and abetted by accountants.
Private Inequity: How a Powerful Industry Conquered the Tax System:
There were two weeks left in the Trump administration when the Treasury Department handed down a set of rules governing an obscure corner of the tax code.
Overseen by a senior Treasury official whose previous job involved helping the wealthy avoid taxes, the new regulations represented a major victory for private equity firms. They ensured that executives in the $4.5 trillion industry, whose leaders often measure their yearly pay in eight or nine figures, could avoid paying hundreds of millions in taxes.
The rules were approved on Jan. 5, the day before the riot at the U.S. Capitol. Hardly anyone noticed.
The Trump administration’s farewell gift to the buyout industry was part of a pattern that has spanned Republican and Democratic presidencies and Congresses: Private equity has conquered the American tax system. ...
While intensive examinations of large multinational companies are common, the I.R.S. rarely conducts detailed audits of private equity firms, according to current and former agency officials.
Such audits are “almost nonexistent,” said Michael Desmond, who stepped down this year as the I.R.S.’s chief counsel. The agency “just doesn’t have the resources and expertise.”
Dorothy A. Brown (Emory), What ProPublica Missed about Taxing Rich White Men:
On June 8, 2021 Pro Publica published a piece about the taxes paid — or rather not paid — by the richest men in America. All the people discussed were men — and all of them white, yet no mention of race (or gender) was to be found in the story. Policies supporting wealth building in America have always been designed by rich white men for their benefit. Never is that more true than when it comes to tax policy as I show in my book, The Whiteness of Wealth: How The Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans — And How We Can Fix It. Rich white men fight for tax loopholes that they then benefit from. ...
The American system of wealth building includes a tax system shaped by rich white men and inevitably results in other rich white men keeping more of their wealth because they legally pay little to no taxes. Paying taxes it seems is what the rest of us do. Pro Publica is following a colorblind path that most business and tax reporters unfortunately take. Those reporters consistently ignore the significant explanatory power that systemic racism can have in helping their readers understand why the winners tend to be rich white men. They should do better — but until they do, I’m going to keep calling it out. Who’s with me?
Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:
- Dorothy Brown And David Cay Johnston Discuss Yesterday's ProPublica's Report On The Tax Secrets Of The .001%
- Dorothy Brown On The ProPublica Tax Report, Racial Justice, And The Gig Economy
Following up my previous post, ProPublica: America's Richest People Pay Little To Nothing In Federal Income Taxes:
Wall Street Journal editorial, Return of the IRS Scandal:
That didn’t take long. Less than half a year into the Biden Presidency, the Internal Revenue Service is already at the center of an abuse-of-power scandal. That news broke Tuesday when ProPublica, a website whose journalism promotes progressive causes, published information from what it said are 15 years of the tax returns of Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and other rich Americans.
Leaking such information is a crime, since under federal law tax returns are confidential. ProPublica says it received the files from “an anonymous source” and doesn’t know who provided them, how they were obtained, or what the source’s motives are.
FBAR Civil Willful Penalty Sustained Against Long Time Accountant and Tax Preparer Who Claimed He Did Not Have Time to Read the Schedule B Instructions
Experts Doubt Ethical AI Design Will Be Broadly Adopted as the Norm Within the Next Decade
Pew: “A majority worries that the evolution of artificial intelligence by 2030 will continue to be primarily focused on optimizing profits and social control. They also cite the difficulty of achieving consensus about ethics. Many who expect progress say it is not likely within the next decade. Still, a portion celebrate coming AI breakthroughs that will improve life..”