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Wednesday, November 03, 2021

A whistleblower’s power: Key takeaways from the Facebook Papers

A Bohemian, being flattered, is a lamb; threatened, a lion. 

-- George Chapman misquoted


How the brain navigates cities MIT News


Business as usual: The price of Gladys Berejiklian’s politics


Australian leader attacks Macron's credibility | TheHill - The Hill


Baseless and reckless’: ATO flags concern on legal professional privilege claims

The ATO has voiced its concern over the likelihood of “baseless and reckless” legal professional privilege (LLP) claims impacting their investigations.Commissioner of Taxation Chris Jordan has flagged the growing concern the ATO has about LLP claims coming to light.


“We fully respect LPP is a fundamental common law right,” Mr Jordan said in his commissioner’s address at the 2021 Tax Institute Tax Summit. 


Josh Frydenberg was alerted less than three months into JobKeeper that unqualified companies were receiving support


 A physician and a philosopher on curating ‘a good death’ STAT (


IRS reporting plan appears doomed after more Democrats oppose it American Banker. “Appears” is why we need the text of the bill.


I recently wrote on the plea deal for Oleg Tinkov for evading tax on renouncing his citizenship.  See Plea Deal with Russian Bank Founder for Tax Perjury Requiring Payment of More than $500 Million (Federal Tax Crimes Blog 10/2/21), here.  Tinkov has been sentenced consistent with the plea deal.  See DOJ Tax Press Release titled Founder of Russian Bank Sentenced for Felony Tax Conviction Arising from Scheme to Evade Exit Tax while Renouncing his U.S. Citizenship (10/29/21), here.

Key Excerpts from the sentencing press release are:

The founder of a Russian bank was sentenced today for his felony conviction for filing a false tax return. As required under his plea agreement, prior to sentencing, Oleg Tinkov, aka Oleg Tinkoff, paid $508,936,184, more than double what he had sought to escape paying to the U.S. Treasury through a scheme to renounce his U.S. citizenship and conceal from the IRS large stock gains that he knew were reportable. This includes $248,525,339 in taxes, statutory interest on that tax and a nearly $100 million fraud penalty. Tinkov was additionally fined $250,000, which is the maximum allowed by statute, and sentenced to time served and one year of supervised release.


 

Follow-up to previous posting – Whistleblower: Facebook is misleading the public on progress against hate speech, violence, misinformation – See Also the Washington Post – “Interviews with dozens of current and former employees and a trove of internal documents show how the social media company inflamed real-world harms.A trove of internal Facebook documents reveals that the social media giant has privately and meticulously tracked real-world harms exacerbated by its platforms, ignored warnings from its employees about the risks of their design decisions and exposed vulnerable communities around the world to a cocktail of dangerous content. Disclosed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by w A whistleblower’s power: Key takeaways from Facebook Papers - Whistleblower Frances Haugen, the Facebook Papers were provided to Congress in redacted form by Haugen’s legal counsel. The redacted versions were reviewed by a consortium of news organizations, including The Washington Post, which obtained additional internal documents and conducted interviews with dozens of current and former Facebook employees. A mix of presentations, research studies, discussion threads and strategy memos, the Facebook Papers provide an unprecedented view into how executives at the social media giant weigh trade-offs between public safety and their own bottom line. Some of the documents were first reported by the Wall Street Journal…”




  • And FastCompany – “Katie Harbath, a CEO of Anchor Change and a former Facebook public policy director, created a document of all the stories published thus far. As of October 25 2021 there were more than 75 articles included in the resource, including the Journal’s series “The Facebook Files.” You can find the date-marked Google Doc here.”

White House – Build Back Better Framework. October 28, 2021: ” The Build Back Better Act will create millions of good-paying jobs, enable more Americans to join and remain in the labor force, spur long-term growth, reduce price pressures and set the United States on course to meet its clean energy ambitions.

Revolt of the Essential Workers Tablet Magazine 

 

‘I quit’ is all the rage. Blip or sea change?(interview) Lawrence Katz, Harvard Gazette

 

How Domestic Labor Robs Women of Their Love Boston Review

 

Can we defeat death? FT. For a price, no doubt, and for some definition of “death.”



Lawyer Who Won $9.5 Billion Settlement Against Chevron Reports to PrisonLawyer Who Won $9.5 Billion Settlement Against Chevron Reports to Prison



U.S. Tax Court's Diversity & Inclusion Series, Tax Trailblazers: Mentoring the Next Generation:


Please join the United States Tax Court for the next in its Tax Trailblazers Series. Judge Albert G. Lauber will interview George K. Yin about his path to—and success in—the field of tax law. Today at 7:00-8:15 PM EST (register here).

George K. Yin is the Edwin S. Cohen Distinguished Professor of Law and Taxation Emeritus at the University of Virginia School of Law. He attended the Bronx High School of Science in New York City, graduated from the University of Michigan’s honors program with a degree in mathematics and economics, earned his JD with honors from the National Law Center at George Washington University, and holds a Master’s Degree in Education from the University of Florida, Gainesville.