Philip Wolf (J.D. 2019, UC-Hastings; Tax Associate, Belcher, Smolen & Van Loo, San Francisco), Manoj Viswanathan: The Professor Who Inspired Me to Love Tax, 172 Tax Notes Fed. 1615 (Sept. 6, 2021):
Out of the thousands of different professions, how does one end up choosing tax? I can tell you exactly how it happened with me. During my second semester of law school, I was permitted to take one elective class. I selected basic income taxation. Although I knew nothing about the subject, I sensed it might somehow be helpful to my goal of starting a business one day. Little could I have imagined where the class would lead me!
In our first session, in walked the ebullient yet sincere professor, Manoj Viswanathan, or as he asked us students to call him, “Professor V.” Every lecture, Professor V. emphasized how everything we’d learn in his class would be practical and relevant in the real world. Time seemed to melt away in each Tuesday and Friday lecture, and I caught myself pondering what he’d said many hours after each class. It was Professor V.’s introductory tax class that would make me decide to change my career plans and become a tax lawyer.
Top 100 Must-Follow Tax Twitter Accounts
We’re working hard to protect the integrity of the tax profession and to ensure a level playing field. Currently we have 40 litigation cases on hand with two ongoing civil penalty matters in the Federal Court. We’re also managing 37 appeals in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and Federal Court. Read two of our recent cases about how the Federal Court ordered unregistered tax preparer Jessa Van Stroe (aka Jessa Layola) to stop preparing and lodging income tax returns and sentenced unregistered tax preparer Kent Scott Hacker to seven months jail.
THE HARDEST THING TO UNDERSTAND IN THE WORLD IS THE INCOME TAX” – ALBERT EINSTEIN
ATO’s talent program slated to begin in February
Australian Taxation Office - Assistant Commissioner - ExecutiveCareer
Mortgage stress soars as RBA says tax system pushes up house prices
VentureBeat - Study finds remote work is boosting productivity: “The pandemic is changing tech priorities for many companies, according to a new report from independent research firm Omdia. Enterprises rated cybersecurity and hybrid work as the top initiatives at their organizations, with customer experience, business processes, and better empowering frontline workers following close behind. Omdia’s Future of Work survey, which compiled over 300 responses from executives at large companies, implies that working away from traditional offices will become the new norm. Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they’ll either be primarily home-based or adopt a hybrid work style, while 68% of enterprises believe employee productivity has improved since the move to remote work. The report agrees with the conclusions of a recent Stanford study that found working from home increased productivity among a group of 16,000 workers by 13% over the course of nine months. Attrition rates were also cut by 50%, with employees citing a quieter, more convenient working environment as a major advantage. “The world of work has undergone significant change due to the disruptions brought about by the pandemic,” Omdia principal analyst Adam Holtby said in a press release. “Our research shows that people, process, place, and technology transformation are the foundation upon which successful digital workplace ecosystems are created.”…
France recalls ambassadors from US and Australia in protest over submarine deal South China Morning Post
Chinese Major-General worked with fired scientist at Canada’s top infectious disease lab.“The joint research conducted by Major-General Chen Wei and former Canadian government lab scientist Xiangguo Qiu indicates that co-operation between the Chinese military and scientists at the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) went much higher than was previously known. The People’s Liberation Army is the military wing of China’s ruling Communist Party.”
I suspect that one reason we’re hearing such muted criticism of the Chinese over the Covid debacle is that so much of the western “public health” community was in bed with them. I also suspect that this isn’t by accident, but by design.
Aukus: France recalls envoys amid security pact row BBC
Emergent Ventures winners, sixteenth cohort
Phoebe Yao, founder and CEO of Pareto, “a human API delivering the business functions startups desperately need.” She was born in China, formerly of Stanford, and a former classical violist. (By my mistake I left her off of a previous cohort list, apologies!)
BeyondAging, a new group to support longevity research.
Trolltunga, or “Troll Tongue,” is a famous rock formation in Norway that’s used often for breathtaking photos. Photographer Priscila Valentina was recently asked by a couple to shoot wedding photos at the cliff. After the ridiculous challenge of hauling her photo gear to the spot, Valentina managed to capture a series of epic wedding photos of a lifetime.
Sam Enright, for writing, blogging, and general career development, resume here. From Ireland, currently studying in Scotland.
Zena Hitz, St. John’s College, to build The Catherine Project, to revitalize the study of the classics.
Gavin Leech, lives in Bristol, he is from Scotland, getting a Ph.D in AI. General career support, he is interested in: “Personal experimentation to ameliorate any chronic illness; reinforcement learning as microscope on Goodhart’s law; weaponised philosophy for donors; noncollege routes to impact.”
Valmik Rao, 17 years old, Ontario, he is building a program to better manage defecation in Nigeria.
Rabbi Zohar Atkins, New York City, to pursue a career as a public intellectual. Here is one substack, here is another.
Basil Halperin, graduate student in economics at MIT, for his writing and for general career development.
Gytis Daujotas, lives in Dublin, studying computer science at DCU, for a project to make the Great Books on the web easy to read, and for general career development. Here is his web site.
Geoff Anders, Leverage Research, to support his work to find relevant bottlenecks in science and help overcome them. A Progress Studies fellow.
Samantha Jordan, NYU Stern School of Business, with Nathaniel Bechhofer, for a new company, “Our platform will accelerate the speed and quality of science by enabling scientists to easily manage their data and research pipelines, using best practices from software engineering.” Also a Progress Studies grant.
Nina Khera, “I’m a teenage human longevity researcher who’s interested in preventing aging-related diseases, especially those related to brain aging. In the past, I’ve worked with companies like Alio on computation and web-dev-based projects. I’ve also worked with labs like the Gladyshev lab and the Adams lab on data analysis and machine learning-based projects.” Her current project is Biotein, about developing markers for aging, based in Ontario.
Lipton Matthews, from Jamaica, here is his YouTube channel, for general career development.
The economics of “Buy Now, Pay Later.”
Chinese language girlie man Orwellian update.
Where is Novavax? Read through the responses.