Thursday, February 02, 2023

Tudge of Robodebt- Donziger: Assange Case a Fraud From A to Z

I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own
~ Nikola Tesla

Alan Tudge tells Robodebt royal commission he was not responsible for department's failures to ensure scheme was lawful


Chinese money-laundering gang is BUSTED in Australia: Designer clothes, luxury jewellery and lavish properties worth over $150million seized


The Magical Mossad Mystery Tour The Tablet


Turkey’s influence in Africa on the rise Andalou Agency. From 2021, still germane. Handy map



Donziger: Assange Case a Fraud From A to ZConsortium News


Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research: Working Paper, Measuring and Mitigating Racial Disparities in Tax Audits. Hadi Elzayn; Evelyn Smith; Thomas Hertz; Arun Ramesh; Robin Fisher; Daniel E. Ho; Jacob Goldin. Publication


Jeesoo Nam (USC; Google Scholar) presented Just Taxation of Crime: Should the Commission of Crime Change One's Tax Liability? at Indiana-Maurer last Friday as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium hosted by Leandra Lederman:

Jeesoonam1The tax law treats criminals differently from non-criminals. Should it? Under the public policy doctrine, for example, various tax deductions are disallowed if they are closely tied to criminal activity. Criminal activity is, in multiple ways, tax disadvantaged compared to non-criminal activity.

This Article considers a variety of possible justifications. (1) The tax disadvantage provides an incentive not to commit crime. (2) The tax disadvantage helps to bring deserved punishment to the criminal. (3) Criminals have given up their right not to be taxed. (4) Criminals have taken an unfair advantage and so must be stripped of that unfair advantage. (5) Criminals deserve to bear the costs that they culpably and wrongfully created.



A collaborative list curated by Francesco Zaffarano [with over 750 entries] – this is a global list and includes journalists and media across sectors who are posting on Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok. This project does not include those on Mastotodon



NIST AI 100-1 Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0) January 2023 – “…As directed by the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 (P.L. 116-283), the goal of the AI RMF is to offer a resource to the organizations designing, developing, deploying, or using AI systems to help manage the many risks of AI and promote trustworthy and responsible development and use of AI systems. The Framework is intended to by voluntary, rights preserving, non-sector-specific, and use-case agnostic, providing flexibility to organizations of all sizes and in all sectors and throughout society to implement the approaches in the Framework


IMF urges Australia to restrict tax breaks for the family home

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is encouraged to to wind back capital gains tax breaks for the family home and to broaden the GST to ease the burden on workers paying income tax and boost the economy.

John Kehoe
John KehoeEconomics editor

The International Monetary Fund has urged Treasurer Jim Chalmers to wind back capital gains tax breaks for the family home and to broaden the GST, to pay for easing the tax burden on workers and increase the economy’s speed limit.

The local economy is tipped by the IMF to tread a “narrow path” to avoid recession but to expand at just 1.6 per cent this year, with unemployment forecast to edge up to 4 per cent because of rising interest rates and weaker consumer spending.

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Housing tax breaks are under scrutiny. AFP

“Tighter financial conditions, erosion of real incomes amid high inflation, declining housing prices, and soft global growth point to a significant deceleration in Australia,” the IMF executive board said in its annual review of Australia.

To assist the Reserve Bank reduce inflation, the fund encouraged the Treasurer to further show fiscal restraint in the May budget by banking all revenue upgrades from high commodity export prices to repair the budget deficit.

The fund said the government’s review of the $35-billion-a-year National Disability Insurance Scheme should consider introducing co-payments or means testing to make it financially “sustainable” and avoid “crowding out” other worthy government spending.

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ATO turns screws on popular trusts amid tax evasion claims

 

ATO turns screws on popular trusts amid tax evasion claims

Complex trust structures are under renewed scrutiny as the tax office breathes new life into old anti-avoidance laws.


Duncan HughesReporter
SavShare

The $2.2 trillion trust sector is under growing scrutiny from the Australian Taxation Office amid concerns that as trusts become increasingly popular, they are being more blatantly used for tax manipulation by individuals and companies.

In the latest cases, involving allegations that arrangements with trusts and companies were being primarily used to avoid tax, the ATO has used anti-avoidance provisions to challenge discretionary distributions by trustees.

The federal government has provided additional funding for the ATO to extend its tax avoidance taskforce to scrutinise wealthy individuals for tax avoidance, Simon Letch

Peter Bobbin, a taxation and superannuation lawyer and consultant with Coleman Greig Lawyers, says: “The ATO has no problems with the reasonable use of discretionary trusts. But anything very complex where some steps are not explainable as ordinary is a problem.”

The ATO has recently launched two high-profile cases involving anti-avoidance measures under section 100A of the Tax Act using previously published rulings and statements about its application, according to tax specialists.

Trusts are the nation’s most used investment and business structures involving anything from a family will to multi-billion-dollar managed investments schemes owning major infrastructure and buildings.

There were more than 900,000 trusts with assets of around $2.2 trillion in the 2019-2020 tax year, according to the ATO, with beneficiaries ranging from the nation’s wealth families to most superannuation fund members. Of these, around 745,000 were discretionary trusts, with about 558,000 reporting assets of $836 billion in that financial year.

“The ATO is intent on breathing new life into anti-avoidance and is also applying other tax anti-avoidance rules that target contrived tax arrangements,” Bobbin says.

“Where appropriate, the ATO will argue that certain tax consequence circumstances are also a sham.”

The latest ATO case, Guardian AIT, and another awaiting an appeal decision, BBlood, both involve alleged anti-avoidance measures and trust distributions that have the sole or dominant purpose of avoiding tax.

The Guardian case involves a “washing machine” arrangement where a trust earns income, distributes it to a beneficiary company in which it owns shares and the income is then returned to the trust as a dividend.

Frank Hinoporos, head of tax at legal firm Hall and Wilcox, says this trust structure made it likely to land in the ATO’s “red zone”, which means it would be closely reviewed because of suspicions that it was intended to unlawfully reduce tax, or that an individual or entity other than the beneficiary was gaining advantage.

The ATO lost the case because there was no evidence of an agreement between the trust and the company that any dividends from the company would return to the trust, despite this happening.

Hinoporos says the court scrutinised advice and recommendations that the taxpayer received from his accountant in connection with the making of distributions as part of year-end tax planning.

He adds: “The outcome in any case involving tax avoidance will depend very much on the facts. This should not be interpreted as a blanket sanction to arrangements like this. So be cautious.”

Mark Molesworth, a tax partner at global consultancy BDO, adds: “An adviser’s intention cannot be imputed to the client unless the client knows of that intention. That is contrary to the ATO’s recently finalised guidance.”

Molesworth says the ATO will need to “rethink and redraft” recently issued guidance on section 100A.

He says: “Unfortunately there is no clear guidance available to trustees concerning the application of the anti-avoidance provisions to the discretionary distributions. Ordinary Australian taxpayers who use discretionary trusts need clearer guidelines on what is acceptable and what is not.”

In Bblood, the ATO successfully argued that section 100A applied because the trust’s structure was too complex to be explainable as “an ordinary commercial or family dealing”. The case is under appeal.

The ATO declined to comment on both cases. But the federal government has provided additional funding for the ATO to extend its tax avoidance taskforce to scrutinise wealthy individuals and private groups for tax avoidance and non-compliance.

Tax investigators can dive deep into a trust’s payments as far back as necessary, rather than being restricted by the current limit of two or four years.

Trusts are popular with families wanting tax-effective structures to hold and manage their assets, including small businesses. They can be set up by a person or couple, who are usually the trustees, to hold assets for their children and other descendants.

The growing use of trusts for estate planning also came under recent court review.

The third high-profile case involves the role of trustees in popular family trusts after a landmark decision found that a trustee of a $23 million fund set up by ageing parents had failed to show “real and genuine consideration for two of their children”. The decision challenged what trustees should consider when making distributions, how they communicate that decision to beneficiaries and possible avenues for aggrieved beneficiaries to challenge their decisions.

Tax specialists claim the lessons for trustees from the most recent cases include:

  • “Anything very complex where some steps are not explainable as ordinary is a problem,” says Bobbin, who is a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. “Trusts are not and never have been ‘the problem’ in tax – it is the use of these by a small minority that is giving trusts a tax-bad name.”
  • “Beware of the professional who gets excited by the tax planning – their purpose may become the problem that the ATO relies upon,” adds Bobbin.
  • Anti-avoidance section 100A cases are fought and won on the facts and evidence. Courts will examine the evidence forensically, including documents and advice prepared a long time ago, says Hinoporos. Different facts may lead to different outcomes, he says.
Long-living Baby Boomers are also increasingly gifting bequests during their lives to help their children or grandchildren when they need it most.

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Duncan Hughes is a Walkley award-winning personal finance reporter, based in our Melbourne newsroom. Connect with Duncan on Twitter. Email Duncan at duhughes@afr.com.au
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Wednesday, February 01, 2023

Dubai arrests 447 people for counterfeit goods worth billions

 FT ‘ Global fixer of corrupt energy deals sentenced to year in US prison - SMH - Bribery is part of the game’: Unaoil executive pleads guilty, but avoids long jail stint


Stories

 FTC reviews data on ages of scam victims
  • Older people not more likely to be victims overall
  • Younger people more likely victims of online shopping, crypto investments; romance scams; fake checks, job scams
  • Older more likely victims of sweepstakes/lotteries, grandparent scams; tech support
Tampa, Florida: Nigerian man who was treasurer of the Ontario Black Axe chapter gets 17 ½ years prison
  • Also ordered to forfeit $10.6 million
  • Mainly was involved in romance frauds
  • Recruited at least ten money mules to send victim funds on to Hong Kong, China, Canada and Nigeria
  • Thanks given to Toronto Police Service and Toronto Strategic Partnership
DOJ, FBI meet with India’s Central Bureau of Investigation to deepen ties in fight against cyber fraud and call centers calling the US



Ransomware payments went down sharply in 2022, from $756.6 million in 2021 to $456.8 million in 2022; more just refusing to pay?
 
Consumer issue of the week: Robocalls.  Great news on this front!  I decided to keep track of robocalls since the first of the year.  So far I have not received any prerecorded calls on either my land line or my cell phone. I did get one live caller trying to sell investments in gold, but none about extended warranties, tech support, or anything else. So someone has been doing good work.  I also recently saw this, which you might find useful. Is that robocall a scam? Searchable database allows you to see if a number calling you has been the subject of a complaint to the FCC
.
 
New links!
Fraud Studies: Here are links to the studies I’ve written for the Better Business Bureau: puppy fraud, romance fraud; BEC fraud, sweepstakes/lottery fraud,  tech support fraud, romance fraud money mules, crooked movers, government imposters, online vehicle sale scams, rental fraud, gift cards,  free trial offer frauds,  job scams,  online shopping fraud, and crypto scams
 
Fraud News Around the worldHumor FTC and CFPB  Virus Benefit Theft Business Email compromise fraud IRS and tax fraudRansomware  Data Breaches Bitcoin and cryptocurrencyATM SkimmingJamaica and Lottery FraudRomance Fraud and SextortionPeople:         
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Meet the archive moles

Bears were mysteriously missing toes. These scientists cracked the case. WaPo


Meet the archive moles Prospect, Lucy ScholesProspect, Lucy Scholes: There’s a growing band of people digging through library stacks and second-hand bookshops in search of lost classics. I’m one of them..Most of the time, my work feels more like that of a detective than an editor. Falling down endless online rabbit holes is an occupational hazard. I read old reviews in digitised newspaper archives, and trawl obituaries, looking for interesting titbits. Internet Archive—the non-profit digital library that houses millions of books—is an indispensable resource, not least because so many of the titles it holds can’t be easily found IRL. But none of this would work without access to various bricks-and-mortar collections, especially the London Library. You’ll find me in the stacks, rootling out books that—as revealed by the stampings inside—no one’s read since the 1980s, or earlier. Faber’s classics and heritage editor Ella Griffiths’s playful description of herself as an “archive mole” feels spot on. Our endeavours might be dusty, but it’s easy to become addicted to the thrill of the chase, which is made all the more exciting because serendipity plays such a pivotal role. Griffiths was browsing the shelves of Faber’s in-house archive when her eye was caught by the striking post-apocalyptic cover of their original English-language edition of Termush, Danish author and playwright Sven Holm’s 1969 dystopian novella. She’s now reissuing the book under the new Faber Editions series—which spotlights radical rediscovered voices from history—this May…”



Hiss story: The last snake-handling church in West Virginia – in pictures Guardian


Even Reality TV Hosts Are Being Replaced By Robots Vice

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AI accountability

Efforts to hack the ATO’s systems have climbed significantly over the last five years. Second commissioner Jeremy Hirschhorn told a conference in October there are three million hack attempts every month.

$32m extension to Tax Office cyber deal


Viral taxation claim is cheap nonsense 31 January 2023 AD


Commissioner Věra Jourová most influential woman in Czech Republic


Secret Agent Man: The Mysterious Charlie McGonigal SpyTalk


Bill Shorten: 1.4m Australians rely on myGov each day. The myGov Audit Report tells us it can be reimagined, and recognised as critical government infrastructure

AQ: What's a Proxy? Using Relatives, Shell Companies, and Other Stand-Ins to Hide Illicit Wealth

One of the most effective ways to hide your ownership of valuable assets is to get someone – or something – to stand in as your “proxy.” Bad actors make regular use of these representatives to stash illicit wealth and move it around the world.


The shift in Europe, Tanks and What is Really Important about Them Phillips’s Newsletter. Interesting:

I do think the pressure that was applied by the Nordics, Baltics and Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, etc, really do matter, and going forward their outlooks will play an outsized role in the establishment of Europe’s security priorities. This is because they have a common outlook that will hold them together, and secondly because they are together one of the richest groupings in Europe and they will grown relatively richer in the future. This wealth has lead them to construct some of the most powerful military forces on the continent.

Ah. The Intermarium folks. Adjacent to this crowd:

Václav Havel (d. 2011) was a founder of the Visegrad Group. I wonder what he would think….




NIST AI 100-1 Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0) January 2023 – “…As directed by the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 (P.L. 116-283), the goal of the AI RMF is to offer a resource to the organizations designing, developing, deploying, or using AI systems to help manage the many risks of AI and promote trustworthy and responsible development and use of AI systems

First They Came to Ruin Bondi —- Bondi’s building boom leaves residents fearing for their homes


Who is locally influential these days?

by  Tyler Cowen

Who do people think are influential in their own community? This question is important for understanding topics such as social networks, political party networks, civic engagement, and local politics. At the same time as research on these topics has grown, measurement of public perceptions of local influence has dried up. Years ago, researchers took active interest in the question of community influence. They found that most ordinary Americans could identify a person who they thought had influence in their community. Respondents usually named business leaders. Where does the public stand today? In three different ways, we ask respondents who has local influence. The vast majority of respondents today cannot think of anyone. Those who do identify someone as influential rarely choose a businessperson. This article aims to reintroduce the public opinion of community influence and situate findings in related scholarship.

Here is the new article by Joshua Hochberg and Eitan Hersh.  David Brooks, telephone!  Don’t even ask how the “religious leaders” fare in the polling…


American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) – “Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been implemented for hundreds of use cases across the Federal government. Given this increased adoption, Federal leaders have an opportunity to lean in to take responsible and prudent measures to address AI accountability in the context of their unique mission. This paper outlines minimum requirements and related policy guidance and provides recommendations on actions agencies can take to proactively manage risks associated with AI accountability… Artificial Intelligence (AI) Accountability is an important opportunity for agencies because AI capabilities present risks not anticipated by other federal regulations and policies. Federal organizations intending to build, acquire, or consume AI capabilities should understand AI governance, in respect to accountability. Federal guidance does not currently provide a precise definition of Artificial Intelligence (AI) accountability. Agencies therefore have a lot of latitude and a significant opportunity to lean in and take responsible and prudent measures to address AI accountability in the context of their unique mission. This paper describes the current federal AI accountability landscape as the set of activities federal agencies take to ensure the proper functioning of the AI systems that they design, develop, purchase, operate or deploy. Failure to plan for accountability in the adoption of AI may result in greater risks. Executive Order (EO) 139601, the only governing document requiring action on AI accountability, lists minimum requirements, including those pertaining to AI accountability, specifies safeguards on the proper use and functioning of AI in the Federal Government. Other guidance, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) AI Risk Management Framework (RMF) and Government Accountability Office (GAO) AI Accountability Framework, provides valuable guidance for federal managers who are looking to proactively lean in to manage key risks posed by their agency’s use of AI..”

How to Delete Your House’s Pictures From Sites Like Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor Lifehacker: “Our personal data shows up in so many public online spaces. But while there are ways to review and delete your data from social media profiles or even Google search, one place you may not think to check is your property’s listing on sites like Redfin, Zillow, or Realtor.com. While it’s unlikely someone will lift sensitive data like, say, your billing information from these apps or websites, they can be used by identity thefts, scammers, or even stalkers to verify your address and see what the house looks like, both inside and out. Luckily, you can remove photos of your home from listing property sites like Realtor.com, Redfin, and Zillow. Doing so can keep you (or your tenant’s) personal info safe…”


Doctoral Research – University of Toronto – Databound: Histories of Growing Up on the World Wide Web. Author: Mackinnon, Katherine. Advisor: Shade, Leslie R. Department: Information Studies. Issue Date: Nov-2022 – “Abstract (summary): For the past 30 years, young people have been growing up, existing, and producing data online. Their digital traces are distributed sporadically across the live and dead web, in corporately owned digital spaces, institutional holdings, and web archives.

 How these traces are theorized, studied, aggregated, deployed, or destroyed deserves increased public and academic attention. In this dissertation I argue that data is inextricably attached to people, both in the ways that it represents them and in the ways that they desire and deserve meaningful control over it. To this end, I propose an ethico-methodological intervention called an “archive promenade,” and developed Care Ethics Scaffolding for research with archived youth data that engages with feminist ethics of care to bring people back in relation with their data when researching the historical web. How an individual’s digital traces came to be, and the ways in which they are connected or distanced from their data, is explored throughout Chapters 3-5 where I demonstrate findings from my qualitative research project, called Early Internet Memories. 

In this project, I asked millennial participants (b. 1981-1996) who grew up in Canada to describe their memories of growing up online and the digital spaces that they once used to occupy. I also demonstrate how relationships between young people and the internet are not inevitable but rather constructed through government and commercial interests in promoting and creating an ideal child subject to support the growth and development of a new industry. These relationships were also multiple and varied, reflecting intersections of race, gender, class, age, and geographic location, which worked to differentiate many young people’s experiences and memories of the web.

 I argue that by exploring these histories of growing up online, we can see the processes by which people become databound: attached to the data they have produced throughout their lives in ways that they both can and cannot control through their ability to socially modulate and determine their information privacy. This framing assists in theorizing the long-term implications of online engagement, digital privacy, and the effects of datafication on life and livability on the web.”

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