Thursday, March 31, 2022

This and that from here and there

 

In the beginning was the Lie and the Lie was made news and dwelt among us, graceless and false.

— Malcolm Muggeridge, born  in 1903

25 Cryptocurrencies You Should Know About MakeUseOf – Here’s an over  of the most prominent cryptocurrencies: when they started, who founded them, and other interesting facts: “There are tens of thousands of cryptocurrencies and that number grows by the day. However, most of these cryptocurrencies aren’t significant and amount to nothing more than a personal project; it’s relatively easy to make a cryptocurrenc nowadays, so there’s no surprise that there are so many. Less than 3,000 of these cryptocurrencies have any meaningful market cap. Most don’t have any market cap at all, as they have no coins in circulation. At the time of writing, the largest crypto remains Bitcoin—it’s certainly the coin most people are aware of, even if they don’t understand cryptocurrency. To help you get a better grasp on the crypto market, we’ve rounded up a list of the top 25 cryptocurrencies worth knowing about, which account for more than 90% of the value of the entire industry.




Newly Released Pfizer Documents Reveal COVID Jab Dangers





This and that from here and there

More things to seek out / cut it all out with the Light Phone II / K-Pop HQ / The Journey of Loop’s Robert Hampson from Shoegaze to Avant-Garde and Back Again / sort of related, the most important guitar pedal of the last 20 years / a selection of podcast recommendations / Lovely Precise Watercolor Paintings of Hotel Rooms (at Kottke) / The Aero Wheel Edition: On Fashion Cycles, Conservation of Energy, and Wheel Design / a collection of automotive firsts / support the Midronome / we love the Aerial Photo Explorer (via BBC) / combine with Peter Marshall’s photostream for some London nostalgia / some artists: Sasha Mihajlovic / Gordon Harrison / Tim Benson / Christopher Le Brun / Charlotte Verity / Drive & Listenaround the world / a collection of Fallacies / Fangio’s 300SL / pixel art at Room on the left _ / Paper Blogging, a blog (a blog!) about physical things. For example, the work of Eric Carle. The work of Ed Emberley / sort of related, how to draw a nose / Lost Objects: 50 Stories About the Things We Miss and Why They Matter.

The estate of George Orwell has approved a feminist retelling of Nineteen Eighty-Four

 The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you'll do yourself a service.

— Stephen Sondheim, born  in 193


Where To Turn When You’re A Breakout Movie Star Who Doesn’t Have A Ticket To The Oscars

TikTok, of course. (But honestly, how the heck did this happen?) - Variety

Why CODA Should Indeed Win The Best Picture Oscar

"There is some sniffiness out there towards Coda as best picture material: the feeling that it’s too blatant a crowdpleaser, machine tooled to leave viewers with a warm, squishy feeling. II hits familiar beats. But Coda is a landmark in deaf culture and representation." - The Guardian (UK)



 Pete Recommends Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, March 20, 2022 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Report: Cybersecurity teams need nearly 100 days to develop threat defenses; Russian General Killed After Using Unsecured Phone; A sustainable look at secure device destruction; and Ukraine reportedly adopts Clearview AI to track Russian invaders.



– Hypersonic Weapons: Background and Issues for CongressUpdated March 17, 2022: “The United States has actively pursued the development of hypersonic weapons—maneuvering weapons that fly at speeds of at least Mach 5—as a part of its conventional prompt global strike program since the early 2000s. 
In recent years, the United States has focused such efforts on developing hypersonic glide vehicles, which are launched from a rocket before gliding to a target, and hypersonic cruise missiles, which are powered by high-speed, air-breathing engines during flight. As former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Commander of U.S. Strategic Command General John Hyten has stated, these weapons could enable “responsive, long-range, strike options against distant, defended, and/or time-critical threats [such as road-mobile missiles] when other forces are unavailable, denied access, or not preferred.” 
Critics, on the other hand, contend that hypersonic weapons lack defined mission requirements, contribute little to U.S. military capability, and are unnecessary for deterrence. Funding for hypersonic weapons has been relatively restrained in the past; however,both the Pentagon and Congress have shown a growing interest in pursuing the development and near-term deployment of hypersonic systems. 
This is due, in part, to the advances in these technologies in Russia and China, both of which have a number of hypersonic weapons programs and have likely fielded operational hypersonic glide vehicles—potentially armed with nuclear warheads. Most U.S. hypersonic weapons, in contrast to those in Russia and China, are not being designed for use with a nuclear warhead. As a result, U.S. hypersonic weapons will likely require greater accuracy and will be more technically challenging to develop than nuclear-armed Chinese and Russian systems…”



To be or not to be Risk Ready: Australia’s carbon credit scheme ‘largely a sham’, says whistleblower who tried to rein it in

We must mistrust utopias: they usually end in holocausts.
— Mario Vargas Llosa, born  in 1936

Born behind the Iron Curtain, Zuzana Palovic’s family fled the communist regime as political refugees, before becoming naturalized citizens in Canada. 



To be risk ready 



KEY POINTS

  • Anonymous launched a new cyberattack against Russia
  • The hacktivist collective hacked the emails of Russian construction company Rostproekt
  • Anonymous also launched a new website where all of its upcoming leaks will be dumped

Anonymous Starts 'Huge' Data Dump That Will 'Blow Russia Away,' Leaks Rostproekt Emails


‘Testosterone-Fueled Bear Pit’ Discourages Women From Economics Bloomberg


Fifty years later, is Montana’s ‘Right To Know’ working? Montana Free Press




Why this economic war on Russia breaks all rules of the game Responsible Statecraft. A must-read.


Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to address Australian parliament


BlackRock’s Fink says Ukraine war marks end of globalisation FT


Putin and Xi Exposed the Great Illusion of Capitalism Bloomberg


Overextending and Unbalancing Russia RAND Corporation. From 2019, still germane


Imperialism and the Weaponization of EmpathyBlack Agenda Report


Where Russia has been sanctioned Axios


Russian Gas Exports to Europe: In the Eye of the Storm Valdai Discussion Club


Foreigners banned from selling Russian stocks as market set for limited reopening Reuters


Putin’s oligarchs have an escape route: UAE, Israel and South Korea The New Arab

* * *

Exclusive: Sources Say Oligarch Funded Scheme to Paint Swastikas in Ukraine Rolling Stone. Paragraph one: “sources.” Two: “multiple sources,” Three: “multiple sources, including U.S. intelligence reporting.” Oh, come on.


Like, Share, Recruit: How a White-Supremacist Militia Uses Facebook to Radicalize and Train New Members Time.





Tulip Workers Strike in Washington State – 5,000 Sacramento School Workers Strike – 600 Obamacare Workers Walkout in Miss. & La.Payday Report

 

Wearing shoes in the house is just plain gross. The verdict from scientists who study indoor contaminants The Conversation


US formally accuses Russian forces of committing war crimes in Ukraine ABC. Somebody wants a long war. I wonder who?


Military briefing: the make-or-break fight for the Donbas FT. Coverage of the “cauldrons” breaks through to the mainstream, albeit framed as a change in strategy.


Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 24 Institute for the Study of War. New map of Mariupol.

 

Chechen Leader Says Hoisted Russia Flag At City Hall In Ukraine’s Mariupol Agence France Presse. Flags on buildings are digital evidence I will accept (given acceptable provenance, which the Chechen leader’s Telegram account is not).

 

Ukraine war latest: Ukrainian forces reoccupy towns near Kyiv, says UK defence ministry FT. They would, wouldn’t they?

 

‘Marshal Mud’ will slow not stop Russia’s onslaught Asia Times. Would explain why Russian troops are digging in, too.

 

Legion of the damned: Inside Ukraine’s army of misfits, veterans, and war tourists in the fight against Russia Task and Purpose

 

Weapons for Ukraine’s Fight Against Russia Flow Through Small Polish Border Towns WSJ


Economic Warfare: A Brief History Stokes Family Office

 

UPDATE 2-US, EU strike LNG deal as Europe seeks to cut Russian gas Reuters. See NC here

 

Only a Financial NATO Can Win the Economic War Foreign Policy

 

Concern Turkey becoming Russia sanctions evasion haven ‘growing in Europe’ Intellinews


Media watch: when parallel lines converge, stand clear! Glibert Doctorow. Important

 

Ukraine war: US, Nato prepare for Russian nuclear incident South China Morning Post

*

Pentagon Drops Truth Bombs to Stave Off War With Russia Consortium News 

 

The west is rash to assume the world is on its side over Ukraine Edward Luce, FT

 

Static and Signal: Part One Verso

 

Finis Europa The American Conservative




LPP & Budget’s business measures will keep ATO flooded with enquiries - Tax dodgers face crackdown, retirees get super relief extended

 

Tax dodgers face crackdown, retirees get super relief extended

Aleks Vickovich
Aleks VickovichWealth editor

The Australian Taxation Office will receive a $650 million boost to extend a crackdown on high-net-worth individuals and those using trusts and overseas jurisdictions to avoid tax.

In a concession to a core Coalition constituency, the government has extended the minimum pension drawdown requirement for another year, allowing wealthy retirees to retain their superannuation balances without having to sell their assets.

In the federal budget, the government has pledged $325 million in 2023-24 and $327.6 million in 2024-25 to allow the ATO’s so-called Tax Avoidance Taskforce to operate for another two years until June 2025.

The six-year-old taskforce targets high-net-worth individuals, as well as multinational companies, private firms and trusts that may not be complying with tax obligations.

It also regulates specialist tax advisers and other professionals who may be promoting tax avoidance schemes. The taskforce’s work in reining in tax dodgers is expected to add $2.1 billion to the budget bottom line.

The government is also committing to extend its previous changes to the superannuation minimum drawdown requirement for another year.

“The government has extended the 50 per cent reduction of the superannuation minimum drawdown requirement for account-based pensions and similar products for a further year to June 30, 2023,” the 2022-23 budget documents said.



Drawdown rates

“The minimum drawdown requirements determine the minimum amount of a pension that a retiree has to draw from their superannuation in order to qualify for tax concessions.”

Drawdown rates range from 4 per cent to 14 per cent depending on age. The extension of the halved rate would drop the rate from 7 per cent to 3.5 per cent for someone aged between 80 and 84.

The move – foreshadowed by The Australian Financial Review on March 25 – is expected to apply to 1.8 million superannuation accounts and cost $52.8 million over the forward estimates period. It was billed in the budget papers as a measure to “support retirees”.

But the SMSF Association, which represents self-managed superannuation fund trustees and their accountants and advisers, confirmed that the measure was aimed at wealthy individuals.

“Retirees who may have other sources of income [other than pensions], or who simply don’t need to draw down the normal minimum amount each year, will benefit most,” said Peter Burgess, the association’s deputy chief executive and director of policy and education.

Impact of volatility

“For retirees who don’t need to withdraw the normal prescribed minimum amount, this measure will enable them to withdraw less from their super pension account than would otherwise be required. This means they can retain more in their super pension account – which is a tax-free requirement – for longer.”

Mr Burgess said the extension would help retirees “manage the impact of volatility in financial markets” by ensuring they do not need to hastily sell assets to satisfy the drawdown requirements.

Certified financial planners said the extension would be welcomed by some wealthy clients. “Retirees should be drawing the pension payments needing to fund their lifestyle,” said Corey Wastle, founder of Verse Wealth. “If drawing the temporary minimum affords enough income to do that, then this is likely a good option.”

Fellow CFP Josh Dalton of Dalton Financial Planners added: “The good thing about account-based pensions is that the retired member is in control and should they want to increase their payments above the minimum, they can.”

The measure comes as the government revised its tax receipts from superannuation funds up by $3 billion in 2022-23 and $8.6 billion across the four years to 2025-26.

Tax receipts from super funds rose by 89.6 per cent in 2021-22 after “substantial one-off capital gains” from the unexpected sharemarket rallies that followed the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The growth also reflects higher employment earnings, which trigger a higher tax on contributions.

However, tax receipts from super funds are expected to decline by 36.2 per cent in 2022-23


Budget nights are typically carefully choreographed affairs. The set-piece speech, the slaps on the back, the rush of TV interviews, all capped off with handshakes and happy snaps at a party fundraiser


Budget’s business measures will keep ATO flooded with enquiries


Federal Budget 2022-23: what does it mean for you? Commentary from our tax experts


ATO goes into debt collect overdrive


Legal Professional Privilege: another win for the Australian Commissioner of Taxation?

On 25 March 2022, Moshinsky J, sitting in the Federal Court of Australia, handed down a much‑anticipated judgment in the ongoing dispute between the Commissioner of Taxation (the Commissioner) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in relation to legal professional privilege (LPP).

The decision in Commissioner of Taxation v PricewaterhouseCoopers & ors [2022] FCA 278 arises out of an application by the Commissioner for a declaration to the effect that approximately 15,500 documents held by PwC Australia or their clients (certain members of the JBS Australia group of companies (the JBS Parties) were not covered by LPP.

While the judgment is (for now) heavily redacted and the Judge’s reasons are not fully available to the public, the decision will be welcomed by clients of multi-disciplinary practices (such as some large accounting firms) that provide legal and non-legal services, insofar as it suggests they may be able to establish a lawyer-client relationship sufficient to support a claim for LPP. 

At the same time, the judgment appears to vindicate the Commissioner’s decision to challenge the JBS Parties’ claims of LPP, as the Judge found that over half the sampled documents which were the subject of claims of LPP were not in fact privileged. 

Partner JP Wood and Senior Associates Bradley Baker and Olivia Doray consider the decision and its implications below. 

The Application

The Commissioner relied on three grounds to dispute the LPP claims:

  1. The form of the engagements by which PwC Australia purported to provide legal services to the JBS Parties did not establish a relationship of lawyer and client sufficient to ground a claim for LPP.
  2. As a matter of substance, the services provided by PwC Australia to the JBS Parties were not provided pursuant to a relationship of lawyer and client sufficient to ground a claim for LPP.
  3. The documents in dispute did not record communications made for the dominant purpose of giving or obtaining legal from one or more lawyers (of PwC Australia).

The Decision – general grounds

If the first two general grounds had been made out, they would have determined the whole application.  However, Moshinsky J decided them against the Commissioner. 

As indicated above, his reasons for doing so have been redacted, for now.  However, he appears to have considered the following matters to be relevant:

  • PwC Australia’s umbrella engagement agreement and nine “statements of work” identified the work to be carried out for the JBS Parties and described that work as “legal services”;
  • the statements of work identified Australian legal practitioners and non-legal practitioners as the team that would carry out the work; and
  • they also indicated that the JBS Parties appointed the non‑legal practitioners as their agents for the purpose of communications to and from the legal services team, including giving instructions and receiving legal advice, in order to assist in the provision of the legal services.

In short, Moshinky J declared he was satisfied a lawyer-client relationship existed between some of the PwC lawyers and one or more of the JBS parties sufficient to support a claim for LPP.

The Decision – sample documents

It was then necessary for the Judge to consider a sample of the documents in dispute.  The process for doing that was broadly as follows:

  • The Court set down a hearing to consider 100 sample documents.
  • 50 were to be selected by the Commissioner and 50 by the JBS Parties.
  • For obvious reasons, the Commissioner and his lawyers did not have access to the documents themselves but had access to a schedule that listed the documents and provided some details about them. 
  • The Court appointed three barristers as amici curiae to assist the Court with the LPP claims.
  • The JBS Parties provided the Court with a copy of the sample documents and an index in chronological order.
  • The process for identifying the 50 sample documents was described as “somewhat iterative”.  After the Commissioner had served an initial list of 50 sample documents, the JBS Parties withdrew their claims of privilege over some of those documents, resulting in the Commissioner having to identify more documents to complete his list.  This occurred twice more in relation to the Commissioner’s list and the JBS Parties also revised their list of sample documents, following which, the lists were filed with the Court. 
  • However, the JBS Parties then withdrew their claims of privilege over some documents in the revised lists and parts of other documents, resulting in the revised lists including documents over which privilege was no longer claimed.
  • Moshinsky J read the sample documents.
  • Parts of the hearing were conducted without the Commissioner and his lawyers being present, as it was necessary to refer to the contents of documents over which privilege was claimed.  The amici curiae made submissions at the hearing, which were provided to the Court on a confidential basis.

The judgment attaches a list of the sample documents, together with the judge’s conclusion as to privilege.  Moshinsky J found that many of the sample documents were privileged but many were not, as the communication was not (and did not record) a communication made for the dominant purpose of giving or receiving legal advice.  In summary:

  • 49 were privileged;
  • 6 were partly privileged; and
  • 61 were not privileged.

Key Takeaways

Of the 934 paragraphs that make up the judgment, only 39 paragraphs have been released to the public.  That limits any detailed analysis of the Judge’s reasons for judgment.  However, the following key takeaways can be offered:

  • The decision may come as a relief to many taxpayers and multi-disciplinary practices, insofar as it indicates that such practices may in principle be able to establish a lawyer-client relationship sufficient to support a claim of LPP, where legal practitioners are involved in delivering the work, notwithstanding the involvement of non‑legal practitioners. 
  • While the structure and terms of the engagement may assist in determining the existence of a lawyer-client relationship, the description of the services as “legal services” in the terms of engagement will not determine the privilege issue. 
  • Only where the lawyer-client relationship is found to exist, will it be necessary to consider claims for privilege over individual documents.  In the context of ATO audits and investigations, in the absence of actual or contemplated litigation, the relevant test will be whether the communication was made for the dominant purpose of giving or receiving legal advice.
  • This case highlights the potential difficulties in claiming privilege over very large volumes of documents, particularly where they relate to communications involving legal and non-legal practitioners.  According to the judgment, privilege was claimed by the JBS Parties over some 44,000 documents, and the Commissioner disputed the claims of privilege over some 15,500 of those documents.  Not only did the JBS Parties withdraw multiple claims of privilege in the run up to the hearing, but the Judge found that more than half of the sample documents over which privilege had been claimed were not privileged.  It remains to be seen how this decision will impact on the process for determining the JBS Parties’ claims of privilege over the balance of the documents. 
  • This is not the first time claims of privilege over large volumes of documents have been made and challenged in the Federal Court.  CUB Australia Holding Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Taxation [2021] FCAFC 171 involved a claim for privilege over 20,000 documents and a challenge by CUB to the Commissioner’s powers to require details of those documents for the purpose of assessing CUB’s claims of LPP.  Moshinsky J handed down judgment in favour of the Commissioner on 21 September 2021. 
  • While recent cases have assisted in clarifying some general principles relating to claims of LPP, it seems likely that the Commissioner will continue to challenge claims of LPP over individual documents, where the basis for the claim is unclear.  
  • Further, where large volumes of documents are involved, the task of assessing and making claims of privilege will continue to give rise to practical and logistical challenges, as well as time and cost issues.  Technological solutions, such as AI/automated computer processes, may assist in identifying potentially privileged documents, but may not be sufficient by themselves to ensure that a claim for LPP is valid, without review by experienced legal practitioners. 
  • The ATO issued a draft protocol for making claims of LLP in September 2021.  The draft protocol recommends what information taxpayers and their advisors should provide to the ATO in respect of documents over which LPP is claimed and the process by which that claim is made, to assist the Commissioner to assess whether to accept or challenge the claim.  Among other things, the protocol expresses concern at claims of LPP made over communications arising out of certain arrangements, such as arrangements that route communications through lawyers merely for the purpose of obtaining privilege.
  • The Law Council of Australia has in turn expressed concern that the draft protocol overreaches in the amount of information that the ATO recommends is provided by taxpayers and their lawyers (and, presumably, accountants) to maintain the claim for LPP. 
  • The outcomes of recent cases are only likely to increase the Commissioner’s skepticism of “blanket” claims of privilege and increase its willingness to challenge those claims.  Together with the controversy over the ATO’s draft protocol, they suggest that taxpayers may need to review their processes for claiming LPP, including the arrangements under which the documents came into existence and the purpose for which they were produced.  In addition, they will need to consider carefully how they propose to demonstrate to the Commissioner that their claims of LPP are valid, failing which further court actions seem likely.