Where there is justice, there is peace. Where there is occupation, oppression and injustice, there is bitterness, resentment and rebellion. It is such a simple lesson to comprehend
An article in The Economist expresses concern about four world leaders not because of their individual activites, but because there is evidence that they are coordinating their efforts.
Politicians have a higher duty of care on social media: report
Who is behind Australia’s biggest ticketing company? | The West Report
Ex-Italian MP condemned to 4 years prison for tax evasion and money laundering
Did Sabotage Stall the Navy’s Newest Nuclear Aircraft Carrier? gCaptain
Sports betting will do to America what it’s done to Australia. Jacobin
“It’s not election interference when we do it!” The EU and US are getting desperate to subdue Georgia Tarik Cyril Amar
Czech workers hired as 'slaves' in McDonald's branches and bakeries in UK
Is £90,000 a year a middle-class income?
When being interviewed on the radio, I was told by the broadcaster that £90,000 was only ‘middle-class income’ and not enough for MPs. She was,
Read the full article…
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: What can we learn from election prediction failures of the past?
These cases together remind us that error stalks even the most confident of forecasts and that elite opinion is not always astute or discerning. In such reminders, there is no small value.
Likewise, they emphasize that impressions, “vibrations” and polls signaling landslides can be unsound bases for forecasting outcomes of presidential elections, especially in these days of a polarized U.S. electorate.
They also reveal something about the appeal of prognostication despite the prospect that forecasts will often go sideways. Offering an election prediction implies that this time will be different, that this time the prediction won’t fail. But as these cases attest, that’s not necessarily so.
Hence the continued reminders to forswear all modalities of the cockiness
Wall Street Journal Tax Report, A Tax-Shelter Crackdown Uncovers a Dentist’s ‘Smile High Trust’:
Ryan Ulibarri, a family dentist in Fort Collins, Colo., is in tax trouble that could take a big bite of his time and money [Department of Justice Press Release].
In late August, a Denver grand jury indicted him on six criminal counts for using an “abusive-trust tax shelter” to hide more than $3.5 million of taxable income he earned from 2017 to 2022. He allegedly underpaid more than $1 million of tax over that period.
Now Ulibarri could go to prison for tax evasion, and he could also owe the Internal Revenue Service unpaid taxes plus interest and penalties. Ulibarri, who earlier this month pleaded not guilty to the government’s charges, declined to comment through his lawyer, Joshua Lowther of Lowther Walker.
While most Americans aren’t in the market for tax shelters, the allegations in this case are a reminder of what can happen when taxpayers ignore professional advice and common sense on taxes. They also show how easy it can be for people who want to slash their taxes to delude themselves.
Ulibarri’s indictment is the latest in an IRS crackdown on shelters involving tax-reducing trusts that the agency considers “abusive,” its term for transactions that violate the law. In March, the agency posted an unusual warning about them on its website. The post gives details of typical schemes and says the agency has “detected a proliferation” of them aimed at wealthy individuals, business owners and professionals like doctors and lawyers.
Then in April, an indictment charged six people with conspiring to promote, sell or administer abusive trusts—including Ulibarri’s. In May, an Arizona tax preparer pleaded guilty to preparing and filing over 500 fraudulent returns for about 60 participants in abusive-trust shelters sold by the same promoters. The preparer admitted to helping conceal about $60 million of income, costing the Treasury about $17 million. ...
Ulibarri’s indictment aids the crackdown by tying the scheme to a real taxpayer. It allegedly shows, step by step, what one person did to reduce his tax bills almost to nothing on the advice of a tax-shelter promoter.
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