“If the opposition is attacked, undermined, disorganised and divided to the point where it becomes unelectable or incapable of forming an alternative government, we are no longer in a situation where unpopular leaders can be voted out” — Jonathan Wolff (Oxford) on the importance to a democracy of “treating opponents as legitimate adversaries, not treasonous enemies”
Washington Post The weirdest and wildest political moments of 2021: “Everything you’re about to watch really did happen this year.”
HMRC's Fraud Investigation Service has recovered more than £1 billion from the proceeds of crime
Launched in April 2016, the department’s Fraud Investigation Service (FIS) has now recovered assets equivalent to funding around 20,000 NHS nurses for an entire year.
FIS has been proactively pursuing the suspected proceeds of crime using enforcement powers, both criminal and civil, to disrupt the movement of cash and assets. Since 2016, more than 1,200 seizures of cash and assets have been made while on operational duty, including gold bars worth £750,000 from a passenger at Manchester Airport and £48,000 found in a freezer drawer, hidden among chicken nuggets at a house in Blackpool.
The irony of course is that, while our governors are demanding the governed to take “personal responsibility”, they have not only been shirking it by outsourcing, but this shirking of their one role – to govern – has turned out to be a costly failure.
Whopper Returns: Tax Office fee bonanza the latest in the privatisation of government
UK must radically reform to cease being haven for kleptocrats, report says
London think tank Chatham House says that professional enablers exploit weaknesses in the country’s anti-money laundering regulations to prop up corruption and authoritarian interests.
New York Times, The Peanut Butter Secret: A Lavish Tax Dodge for the Ultrawealthy:
A tax break aimed at small businesses has become a popular way for Silicon Valley founders and investors to avoid taxes on their investment profits.
This is the story of the incredible cloning tax break.
In 2004, David Baszucki, fresh off a stint as a radio host in Santa Cruz, Calif., started a tiny video-game company. It was eligible for a tax break that lets investors in small businesses avoid millions of dollars in capital gains taxes if the start-ups hit it big.
Today Mr. Baszucki’s company, Roblox, the maker of one of the world’s most popular video-gaming platforms, is valued at about $60 billion. Mr. Baszucki is worth an estimated $7 billion.
Bloomberg, A Look at How Far Basic Income Has Come
- Bloomberg, China Hits Top Influencer With $210 Million Fine Over Taxes
- Bloomberg, Could Tax Cuts Turbocharge Solar Power?
- Bloomberg, Crypto Investors Get Temporary Tax Win as Biden Plan Stalls
- Bloomberg, Ex-Credit Suisse Bankers Lose Bid to Boost $2.6 Billion Tax Fine
- Bloomberg, EU Eyes New Powers to Block Breaks for Corporate Tax Dodgers
- Bloomberg, Global Minimum Tax Nears Reality as OECD Sets Model Rules
- Bloomberg, States Target Taxes Being Missed on Off-the-Radar Digital Sales
- CNBC, The Rich Benefit as Democrats Retreat From Tax on Unrealized Capital Gains
- Tax Foundation, A Holiday Tradition: Tax Extenders Slated to Expire at End of 2021
- Tax Foundation, What Do Global Minimum Tax Rules Mean for Corporate Tax Policies?
- TaxVox, Cities Provide an Early Look at How Governments Are Advancing Racial Equity
- TaxVox, Is the TCJA Here to Stay?
- Washington Post, Manchin Told White House He Would Support Version of Tax on Billionaires
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 26, 2021 – Privacy and security issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: These 6 tips will help you spot misinformation online; Synthetic identity fraud: What is it, and why is it harmful?; Trafficking and Money Laundering: Strategies Used by Criminal Groups and Terrorists and Federal Efforts to Combat Them; Cyber insurance trends; and Verizon wants your browsing history so bad, it created a new program and opted you in.
The physical office is dead (long live the office)
Tech Republic: “The office seems like an immutable fact of corporate life, to the point that it’s been parodied in popular culture ranging from the antics of Dilbert and his pointy-haired boss to the eponymous TV series in the US and UK. One could almost be forgiven for assuming that shiny buildings filled with drab cubicles are the only way to execute work in a modern society productively. The primacy of the physical office was unquestioned until the COVID pandemic proved beyond any doubt that former cubicle dwellers could be productive when unchained from their stale coffee and questionable “fungal growth experiments” in the break room refrigerator. With remote productivity now “settled science,” many have suggested that offices still bear relevance as collaboration and innovation spaces, where employees will bounce from chance encounter to chance encounter, leaving a wake of innovative cross-organizational collaboration…However, if you’ve recently visited a physical office, you’re more likely to see isolated individuals hunched over a keyboard with headphones connected to a Zoom meeting than dozens of ad hoc collaboration moments. You may also have found that the office you remember as being “not so bad” is a much more frustrating place…”
- Wittgenstein’s Tractatus turns 100 — 10 philosophers provide brief remarks on the book
- The year in physics — a review at Quanta Magazine
- Are you worried about the development of “robots single-mindedly intent on pursuing their own goals without any regard for the collateral damage”? — they–or something relevantly similar to them–are already here, argues Gabriele Contessa (Carleton)
- The two iron laws of college reading — from Harry Brighouse (Wisconsin)
- “If the opposition is attacked, undermined, disorganised and divided to the point where it becomes unelectable or incapable of forming an alternative government, we are no longer in a situation where unpopular leaders can be voted out” — Jonathan Wolff (Oxford) on the importance to a democracy of “treating opponents as legitimate adversaries, not treasonous enemies”
- “What should we, then, think of such a dogmatic person’s dogmatism? How should we evaluate this character trait from an epistemic perspective?” — Mandi Astola (Eindhoven) on the value of distinguishing between the epistemic traits of individuals and those of the groups of which they’re a part
- “It is far better never to contemplate investigating the truth about any matter than to do so without a method” — Richard Marshall interviews Rene Descartes at