A man's first duty, a young man's at any rate, is to be ambitious.
- G. H. Hardy (1877-1947)Promoter penalties, whistleblower, TPB reforms pass Parliament
Mystery in the Alps: A Chinese Family, a Swiss Inn and the World’s Most Expensive Weapon: Switzerland agreed to buy F-35 jet fighters to park on a remote runway. Then the U.S. zeroed in on the Wangs, who owned the rustic hotel next door. “The truth of whether the Wangs were small-time innkeepers or a secret weapon in Beijing’s decadelong effort to capture one of America’s most closely protected military secrets may never be known. The case boils down to whether the family was interested in the view from the hotel’s front, or its back.”
“Cyberattacks have more than doubled since the pandemic. While companies have historically suffered relatively modest direct losses from cyberattacks, some have experienced a much heavier toll. US credit reporting agency Equifax, for example, paid more than $1 billion in penalties after a major data breach in 2017 that affected about 150 million consumers. As we show in a chapter of the April 2024 Global Financial Stability Report, the risk of extreme losses from cyber incidents is increasing. Such losses could potentially cause funding problems for companies and even jeopardize their solvency.
The size of these extreme losses has more than quadrupled since 2017 to $2.5 billion. And indirect losses like reputational damage or security upgrades are substantially higher. The financial sector is uniquely exposed to cyber risk. Financial firms—given the large amounts of sensitive data and transactions they handle—are often targeted by criminals seeking to steal money or disrupt economic activity. Attacks on financial firms account for nearly one-fifth of the total, of which banks are the most exposed…”
Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping pledge new era, cast US as Cold War hegemon Business Standard
Democracy Corrupted: Apex Corruption and the Erosion of Democratic Values (PDF) Stanford University Graduate School of Business Research Paper No. 4166. From the Abstract: “The undermining of democratic values produces latent effects that even cumulate four months later. Seeking solutions, priming national identity proved an unsuccessful antidote, but providing exposure to national stock index funds holds some promise.” Oh
Thursday, May 16, 2024
Fourth Circuit Affirms Criminal Tax Sentences in Unpublished Opinion that Is Good for Teaching (5/162/24)
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In United States v. Rice, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 11329, 2024 WL 2078454 (4th Cir. 5/9/24), CA4 here and GS here, an unpublished opinion, the Court affirmed the Rices’ convictions and sentencing. Normally, I don’t write on unpublished opinions, but I thought this opinion had some interesting facets which are good teaching opportunities for students or relatively new tax crimes practitioners.
First, the opinion says at the opening (slip op. 3):
James and Susan Rice (collectively, Appellants) appeal their conviction and sentence on ten counts relating to their failure to file tax returns and failure to pay employment taxes to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Finding no error, we affirm.
Second, the Court provides a short summary of the facts, among which was the following (slip op. 4):
Appellants were jointly represented by trial counsel.