Thursday, April 09, 2020

Panama Papers KILLER SENTENCED

Luxury cars and property purchased with proceeds of 'insidious' NDIS fraud

A Sydney couple have pleaded guilty to defrauding the federal scheme of $1.5 million through a criminal syndicate that earned some members upwards of $50,000 a day.



TAIWAN BANS GOVERNMENT USE OF ZOOM OVER CYBERSECURITY CONCERNS: “Zoom routed some data through servers based in China as well as using developers there, internet security think tank Citizen Lab said in a report last week. Any official data being routed through China poses a major risk for Taiwan. Beijing claims the self-ruled island as part of its territory, and threatens to invade if Taiwan moves to make its independence official. Taiwan’s government rejects China’s claim, viewing the island as a sovereign nation.”

Related: Let’s Zoom Xi. He has questions to answer, Niall Ferguson writes.

GIVING IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS: China forces Italy to buy same coronavirus supplies it had donated to Beijing a few weeks ago.
GIVING IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS: China forces Italy to buy same coronavirus supplies it had donated to Beijing a few weeks ago.



CASH ONLY, PLEASE: G7 Nations Should Sue Communist China for $4 Trillion Over Coronavirus Malfeasance, Report Says

CONNECTING DOTS:  Wuhan Coronavirus – An Origin Hypothesis




“We just never thought our father would pass away because of this,” Jesse Spradlin told the outlet. “But he wasn’t the type of person to just live in fear and let it rob him of the joy of the life that he had.”



A Plague of Madness




ICIJ award-winning Panama Papers investigation was first published four years ago this week. To mark the anniversary, they have taken a deep dive into tax havens and offshore finance – in an effort to keep talking about the systemic inequality they perpetuate

KILLER SENTENCED
The alleged contract killing of investigative reporter Jan Kuiack and his fiancee Martina Kušnírová triggered mass protests, a political crisis and brought down Slovakia’s government. Yesterday, a former soldier, who pleaded guilty to the murders, was sentenced to 23 years in prison. Three other people, including property developer Marián Kočner - who Kuiack had reported on, are standing trial on charges of paying for the murder.
Miroslav Marcek, 37, was sentenced on Monday in Pezinok.I know the place well as Imro lives in Pezinok it is a place where we stopped before the Iron Vurtain escape and it is also only a stone throw away from Nitra my old army barracks taught me many lessons about humanity.


TAX HAVENS EXPLAINED
Four years after we published the Panama Papers, we remain committed to reporting on offshore finance and those who exploit it. Tax havens, and industry professionals, make it possible for the wealthy and well-connected to avoid paying trillions of dollars in taxes. We hope this Q&A explains how offshore finance works, and why it matters.

TAX AND COVID-19
“Tax havens are at the heart of the financial and budgetary crisis,” economist Gabriel Zucman told us. He and other tax experts say now is the time for a more forceful tax response to the coronavirus – as governments stretch their resources to meet demand. “Now is the time to push hard for tax justice,” Tax Justice Network’s Nicholas Shaxson said. The economists we spoke to have a few suggestions for regulators, as they face the pandemic.

‘ABUSIVE’ SEIZURE
Isabel dos Santos says the seizure of her $442m stake in a Portuguese telecommunications company is “excessive” and “clearly abusive.” Portugal’s latest move comes as Angola seeks to recoup more than $1 billion worth of assets that they claim she, her husband and associates siphoned from the nation.



RIGHTS REPRESSED

Some tactics being implemented by governments to address the coronavirus are turning into tools to repress basic human rights. Reporters are being affected in a number of ways around the world. For example, police stormed the house of a reporter in Peru, a journalist was arrested in Serbia, and reporters were attacked in Uganda. Other governments have cut off access to information, passed new repressive laws and asked reporters to cover “positive” stories.

Multinational corporations are devising new strategies to keep their taxes low, saving billions of dollars by navigating around attempts by the U.S. and European countries to tighten the tax net.
Companies that prospered for years with low tax rates are learning how to keep them that way, even as political pressure builds to tax them more. They are doing so by moving intangible assets such as patents and trademarks between subsidiaries and across borders.The moves don’t fundamentally change a company’s operations or pretax profit, but they can generate significant new deductions that can offset income for years or ensure that income gets taxed at lower rates.
 

The Far-Right Helped Create The World’s Most Powerful Facial Recognition Technology HuffPo