High in the oak tree
A peregrine preens itself,
Looks about, flies off
Washington Post: “…Since his first month in office, with his first weekend forays to his private retreat in Florida — Mar-a-Lago — questions have been raised about the cost of those trips. This isn’t simple to figure out, given that the total includes costs incurred by various government agencies as well as costs associated with Trump’s Secret Service protection. Although estimates of the cost existed, it would require a great deal of information from across the government to come up with an accurate total. The Government Accountability Office gathered that information. On Tuesday, it released a report looking only at Trump’s first four trips to Mar-a-Lago as president: on Feb. 3-6; Feb. 10-12; Feb. 17-20; and March 3-5, 2017.
Strongest Measures Axed in EU Golden Visa Report
For almost a decade, corrupt politicians and wealthy businessmen have purchased European passports using dirty money. In January, the European Commission finally delivered its response. But rather than urging action, many of its toughest demands were withdrawn
Germany reveals plan to stop foreign takeovers DW
Understanding insecure work in Australia
This discussion paper outlines the nature of insecure work in Australia. It defines how we got here, and what the impact of such widespread workplace insecurity is on Australia’s workers and its economy.
“As the trials of Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos illustrate, corruption among high-profile public officials continues to be a concern in the United States. Likewise, recent examples abound of powerful executives in the private sector abusing positions of trust for personal gain. Faced with this reality, Congress has shown consistent interest in policing public- and privatesector corruption, enacting a number of criminal provisions aimed at holding corrupt officials accountable for their actions under federal law.
Why millions of people are getting hit with a surprise tax bill this year Vox
Tax crackdown on IT contractors now snares non-technology businesses
Washington Post: “…Since his first month in office, with his first weekend forays to his private retreat in Florida — Mar-a-Lago — questions have been raised about the cost of those trips. This isn’t simple to figure out, given that the total includes costs incurred by various government agencies as well as costs associated with Trump’s Secret Service protection. Although estimates of the cost existed, it would require a great deal of information from across the government to come up with an accurate total. The Government Accountability Office gathered that information. On Tuesday, it released a report looking only at Trump’s first four trips to Mar-a-Lago as president: on Feb. 3-6; Feb. 10-12; Feb. 17-20; and March 3-5, 2017.
Strongest Measures Axed in EU Golden Visa Report
For almost a decade, corrupt politicians and wealthy businessmen have purchased European passports using dirty money. In January, the European Commission finally delivered its response. But rather than urging action, many of its toughest demands were withdrawn
Germany reveals plan to stop foreign takeovers DW
25 JAN 2019
The unexplained detention of author and diplomat, Yang Hengjun, has raised more questions about the motives of a Chinese government under stress from within and without
Understanding insecure work in Australia
This discussion paper outlines the nature of insecure work in Australia. It defines how we got here, and what the impact of such widespread workplace insecurity is on Australia’s workers and its economy.
ATO Tax Accountants TLK Partners in Kingsgrove Explain Business ...
PRWire (press release) - 29 Jan 2019
The Taxman is Coming After You and He Could be Wrong, Warns Accounting Professional Thomas Mousa of TLK ...
I study optimal income taxation when human capital investment is imperfectly observable by employers. In my model, Bayesian employer inference about worker productivity drives a wedge between the private and social returns to human capital investment by compressing the wage distribution. The resulting positive externality from worker investment implies lower optimal marginal tax rates, all else being equal. To quantify the significance of this externality for optimal taxation, I calibrate the model to match empirical moments from the United States, including new evidence on how the speed of employer learning about new labor market entrants varies over the worker productivity distribution. Taking into account the spillover from human capital investment introduced by employer inference reduces optimal marginal tax rates by 13 percentage points at around 100,000 dollars of income, with little change in the tails of the income distribution. The welfare gain from this adjustment is equivalent to raising every worker’s consumption by one percent.
Liberal Party flew backbencher Ann Sudmalis home from New York ...
Rutger
Bregman's tax speech went viral, but it didn't go down well in Davos
When historian Rutger Bregman suggested wealthy people should pay more tax at last week's World Economic Forum in Davos, his speech went viral. But he says his comments did not go down well with those in the room at the event, which was attended by world leaders and heads of business. What we have there are billionaires with totally corrupt business models. They're not paying their workers a living wage, they're avoiding their taxes, they're polluting the environment. And then to distract from all that, they say, 'Oh, I've got a nice plan for some education for girls in Uganda', or whatever.
When historian Rutger Bregman suggested wealthy people should pay more tax at last week's World Economic Forum in Davos, his speech went viral. But he says his comments did not go down well with those in the room at the event, which was attended by world leaders and heads of business. What we have there are billionaires with totally corrupt business models. They're not paying their workers a living wage, they're avoiding their taxes, they're polluting the environment. And then to distract from all that, they say, 'Oh, I've got a nice plan for some education for girls in Uganda', or whatever.
In his book, Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get
There, Bregman argues that we can construct a society with visionary
ideas that are, in fact, wholly implementable. Every milestone of civilisation
– from the end of slavery to the beginning of democracy – was once considered a
utopian fantasy. He contends that new utopian ideas such as universal basic
income and a fifteen-hour work week can become reality in our lifetime. I'm not against philanthropy, I mean, by all means come up with
all those wonderful plans. But pay your taxes first.
Arguably
Australias most significant whistleblower, the man who forced both our
major political parties to alter their small business taxation ...
