The Blast Radius of Jeff Epstein BIG by Matt Stoller. With a focus on Larry Summers and his fabulous career.
$475bn lost to US-backed global gag order shielding corporate tax cheaters
Epstein Gave NY Times Journalist Tips About Trump. Why Did They Never Get Reported? The Intercept
Notes on Harold Brodkey’s 1992 essay Notes on American Fascism, which was dismissed at the time but now seems prescient.
How HR Took Over the World Economist. The Economist catches up with what a colleague has been complaining about for years, rule by HR ladies.
Kash Patel’s GF files $5 million lawsuit against podcaster for ‘insinuation’ she’s Mossad honeypotGrayzone (Chuck L). WTF? Did no one clue them in that the defendant can do discovery?
Byte – A Visual Archive
- “Byte? Before Hackernews, before Twitter, before blogs, before the web had been spun, when the internet was just four universities in a trenchcoat, there was *BYTE*. A monthly mainline of the entire personal computing universe, delivered on dead trees for a generation of hackers. Running from September 1975 to July 1998, its 277 issues chronicled the Cambrian explosion of the microcomputer, from bare-metal kits to the dawn of the commercial internet. Forget repackaged corporate press releases—*BYTE* was for the builders. Inside, you’d find Steve Ciarcia teaching you to build a speech synthesizer from scratch, the inner details of a RISC pipeline, deep dives into the guts of Smalltalk, and Jerry Pournelle’s legendary columns from Chaos Manor. This wasn’t just about what a computer could do, but *how* it did it. The source code of a revolution that continues to this day.
- What? – This zoomable map shows every page of every issue of BYTE starting from the front cover of the first issue (top left) to the last page of the final edition (bottom right). The search bar runs RE2 regex over the full text of all 100k pages. The archive itself is not new, scans of BYTE have long existed on the Internet Archive and elsewhereon the net – but I hope seeing everything in single, searchable place offers a unique perspective.
- Why? “[…] pop culture holds a disdain for history. Pop culture is all about identity and feeling like you’re participating. It has nothing to do with cooperation, the past or the future—it’s living in the present. I think the same is true of most people who write code for money. They have no idea where [their culture came from]—and the Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. —Alan Kay, on Computing, Dr. Dobb’s Interview with Alan Kay
- The relationship between Computing and its history is that of a willful amnesiac. We discard the past as fast as possible, convinced it cannot possibly contain anything of value. This is a mistake. The classic homilies are accurate: Failing to remember the past we are condemned to repeat it – as often as tragedy as farce.”
A taxing time for the next man at the top
Out of the Public Service and into the national presidency, Denis Cortese has new challenges at the ASCPA
When Denis Cortese was New South Wales president of the Australian Society of CPAs, some members were uncertain about how he would handle the delicate issue of tax reform. The reason for their angst was Cortese's job as deputy commissioner of taxation. Although many of the Taxation Office's senior public servants belong to the society, a lot of the membership is on the other side of the fence, representing clients in clashes with the bureaucracy.
Cortese laid concerns to rest by emerging as an enthusiastic advocate of tax reform - albeit one who would sometimes tactfully leave the public criticisms to other society leaders. Now retired from the tax office, he takes over as national president from April 1, and tax reform is going to remain high on the society's agenda. "I strongly believe it's time to change the tax system," Cortese says. "Governments and others have got to sit down and develop a better tax system ... In saying that, I'm not advocating a goods and services tax, but we have to reform the current system - that's a society policy and it's a policy I entirely agree with."
Cortese takes on national leadership during a testing period for the society. Although it has done well in expanding its membership and promoting its post-graduate education programs throughout Asia, it has been embarrassed by a $2.7 million deficit in its latest financial year. The loss included a $1-million write-off of revenues previously overstated. Cortese is not critical of the way society executives have handled the affair. "Every decent organisation at some time or other encounters adversity. The test of the mettle of that organisation is how it deals with that."
He acknowledges the concerns that were expressed by some members when he began his term as NSW divisional president in 1991. "Some practitioners were a bit leery that someone from the tax office was state president. Some journalists questioned how I could handle tax issues and properly represent the membership. My answer to that was that I didn't have to be the spokesperson for every issue." Cortese says one of the things he has been able to contribute to the society's leadership has been a better understanding of how government works. "People were able to benefit from my contact with government."
Cortese appears to cope well with being an enforcer of rules that are not universally popular. He is a board member of the NSW Rugby League, and he also chairs the salary cap committee of the Australian Rugby League. That body occasionally attracts public criticism, much like the tax office. Of the latter, Cortese says: "Cost of compliance is an issue but it's really about the complexity of law and legislative change and whether there is a real clarity about what government is trying to achieve. I do recognise that all governments have an insatiable appetite for revenue. My only plea to people critical of those involved in tax administration is, don't shoot the messenger."
Has the relationship between the public sector and the accounting profession been too adversarial? "My experience has been that there's been much advantage gained from working closely together and trying to get a good understanding of the different perspectives. On some issues, no matter how open the communication and the understanding of each other's point of view, one party is going to remain dissatisfied with the outcome. That's life."
Cortese is proud of the reform that has already happened in the tax office, if not the tax system. "The tax office has gone a long way. I'm not talking so much about organisation structure, but the way the organisation interacts with the community - it takes advice from the community - and the way business is done. The path that it's setting fully recognises the impacts that technology is going to have on the community and the desire for a smaller government presence." He says electronic lodgment of tax returns is an example of the tax office leading the way in more efficient technology.
New technology, including the Internet, will be central to the health of the society, and he has invested heavily in developing on-line services. Cortese says: "Something we need to identify and manage is the different impacts of technology on our membership.
The expectations of younger membership ... not just in reacting to technology but in terms of support, career progression and technical development are quite different to the expectations of our older generation. For the older practitioners, one of the things they are going to be most concerned about is succession planning ... They have to keep pace with what is happening in today's business world."
TAXMAN JUST WANTS TO GET SOME RESPECT
Denis Cortese, the quietly spoken deputy commissioner of taxation in Sydney's city branch, concedes that the tax office and taxpayers will never be good mates. He does, however, want people to respect the office for being fair and helpful. That is why it has been taking out booths at home shows, shopping centres and meetings of elderly and disadvantaged citizens.
Cortese is trying to change people's attitudes towards paying tax. "Some people would never pinch a packet of pins from Coles, but when they do their tax returns a new mentality cames over them," he says. "The tax office wants to help people and let them know what is expected of them."
Cortese's office, one of the biggest in the country, covers Sydney's central business district, eastern suburbs and inner southern and western suburbs. His 1700 staff are responsible for scrutinising the returns of about a million taxpayers and 150,000 companies.
In 1989-90 they collected $16.8 billion dollars in tax -- more than 21% of the national total. Of that, $9.7 billion came from the PAYE scheme (Cortese's office administers the PAYE system for the whole ssate, except for the Parramatta and Penrith regions). Companies paid $3.6 billion, while other individuals contributed $1.2 billion. The rest, about 13% of the total, came from sources such as sales tax, interest withholding tax and dividend withholding tax.
Cortese is pleased with the big-company audit program, which netted the tax office an extra $452 million in taxes and penalties last year. Although he concedes that the office may once have partly deserved its reputation as the scourge of the corporatt world, he says the emphasis is now on conciliation and cooperation.
Some issues though, will continue to go before the courts. "The level of aggro that used to be there doesn't really happen any more," he says. "We prefer to raise issues with companpan now so they can sort out their problems. But we are still after big returns -- that's why we are there."
Each big-company audit costs the tax office about $250,000 a year. The investigations take about two years to complete.
Cortese says the conciliatoto approach does not mean the tax office is getting soft. "Only four years ago the tax office was being accused of being unreasonable in its approach towards settling issues -- that we didn't understand the commercial realities.
"More recently, peopleople saying that we have a better grip on things, that we are more practical and pragmatic. We recognise that in grey areas, it can be better to compromise than head to the High Court." He is keen to see an end to uneconomic cases, such as the recent one in which his office spent about $25,000 taking a case to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to collect$11,000 in tax.
Cortese says that despite some teething problems, the first year of electronic tax lodgment has been a success. He expects 43% of returns to be lodged electronically at the Sydney office by the end of tax collection this year -- well above its aim of 30%. Most of those returns came from about 220 agents.
Next year's stated aim is 45% but Cortese expects more. Other offices will get up to 60% electronic lodgment. This year the Sydney office was aiming to issue 80% of tax refunds within 14 days of receipt of electronic returns. It achieved 94%.
Cortese wants to make it easier for business and individuals to comply with tax laws, and he has a team working on simplifying the statutes. As a reminder of this aim, three books sit on his desk: the 1922-25 Tax Act, which runs to about 50 pages; the 1936 Tax Act, which has about 250 pages; and the 1982 Consolidated Tax Act, which has more than 1250 pages.
"It's a reflection of changes in the Australian business community," he says. "Pre-war life was fairly simple, but life in the 1960s and 1970s became more sophisticated. We are now part of the world community. Maybe we'll have two tax acts some day -- a 50-page one for ordinary people and a larger one for the rest."
Cortese, 53, likens his job to that of a juggler. The balls he must keep in the air are taxpayers, tax professionals (including tax agents and solicitors who practice tax law), his staff and the expectations of government. Of these, he says staff are the most important. "If you look after staff, they will look after the taxpayers," he says. "If you don't look after your staff, then taxpayers will suffer."
Changes to the way the tax office administers collections can mean personnel headaches for Cortese. For instance, if the office goes ahead with plans to decentralise its administration unit for PAYE, prescribed payments tax and fringe benfits tax, Cortese will have about 170 people with nothing to do. "It's important that we address that problem earlier so we can ease the difficulties of retraining staff and finding them other tasks to do," he says. "During the past two years we have looked at every area of the organisation and looked at the jobs that people have, redesigning those jobs where necessary."
He says the office's returns-processing unit is a good example. Not long ago, tax returns would arrive at the office, be opened and then bundled off to the data processing area so their details could be keyed into a computer. Someone would then check the codes on the returns before they were sent back to the data processing area for processing. They would then be sent to another area, where they were checked again before notices were despatched.
"It was like a Henry Ford production line," Cortese says. "Today the returns come in, the mail is opened and sorted, and then a team of people do all those things. They have control over their own work and are responsible for making sure things are right at the end of the day."
Cortese's office has a budget this year of $52 million (down from last year's $57 million). It will spend almost $3 million, or 6% of its salary budget of $45 million, on training, including professional development, and honing skills,,leadership and team-building.
"Nearly everybody in the organisation has, is, or will be going through some form of keyboard training and computer literacy training," he says. "There's also a need to equip more people in the organisation with technical tax and legal skills. That's not just teaching them tax law, but research skills and interpretation of law."
Last year Cortese's office had trouble keeping up with demand in its personal enquiries section, so in March this year an officer development program was introduced there. "We trained about 100 people (including tax commissioner Trevor Boucher in a learning and publicity exercise) and they are available to us as a continuing resource when demand becomes too much," he says.
Cortese's emphasis on service may well stem from his previous jobs. In 1952 he sold shoes in Leichhardt before working for a wholesale grocer. He joined the Public Service in 1954 as a telegram boy and later moved to the repatriation division (now Veterans' Affairs) to work with former prisoners of war and sick ex-servicemen.
This is Cortese's 30th year in the tax office, for which he has worked in Canberra, Hobart and Sydney. He took up his position as deputy commissioner in 1984. He lives in Belrose, on Sydney's North Shore, and arriies at work each day about 7.45am.
Cortese says his office is trying to lift its game in its dealings with tax agents and tax professionals, who play a significant part in tax collection. "We are trying to develop a closer one-to-one relationship with them, especially those with large clientele, be that in terms of tax paid by their clients or the number of returns they lodge."
Cortese has about 12 people (and plans for more) knocking on agents' doors and introducing themselves, drawing the agents' attention to issues and offering the office's services when problems arise. "Agents must know that if they have problems there are people at the tax office who will listen," he says.
He is pleased that not as many of his employees are being lured by big accounting firms and companies. This year he lost only three professionals. "It was a problem some years ago and it's still happening, but the employment market has changed drastically," he says. "Many firms are simply not recruiting, and because there are now people without jobs there is more competition."
Cortese says it "really hurts" whenever an employee leaves. Generally, those that do are top operators. "Many people comment that there is a lack of expertise in the tax office, and yet our staff are always in demand.
"Our salaries are around $35,000 to $40,000, but employees can get another$15,000 to $20,000 extra if they move. One fellow who left told me he didn't really want to leave because he enjoyed the work, but at the end of the day he had a mortgage and three children. It's pretty hard to counter that."
What makes it difficult for Cortese is that tax office employees, being part of the Public Service, have their pay scales tied to those of other public servants. "Maybe the tax office should be a separatt employment market and be dealt with separately," he says.
