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thinkahol *

Tax havens' arguments in their defence - and why they are wrong | Treasure Islands: Tax... - 0 views

treasureislands.org/the-arguments

Tax havens' arguments in their defence - and why they are wrong | Treasure Islands: Havens the men who stole world A book by Nicholas Shaxson

shared by thinkahol * on 13 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 13 Sep 11
     
    Treasure Islands is highly critical of the offshore system and will inevitably be attacked by users and supporters of tax havens. I tackle some of the commonest myths about tax havens in Chapter 10, but this is a wide-ranging area and there wasn't nearly enough space to do justice to the array of is…
thinkahol *

US Uncut -- a Grassroots Uprising Against Corporate Tax Deadbeats | | AlterNet - 0 views

www.alternet.org/...gainst_corporate_tax_deadbeats

US Uncut -- a Grassroots Uprising Against Corporate Tax Deadbeats | AlterNet

shared by thinkahol * on 23 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 23 Feb 11
     
    The IRS estimates that individuals and corporations currently hold $5 trillion in tax haven countries. Nearly two-thirds of corporations pay no taxes at all, and the great vampire squid, Goldman Sachs, which received $10 billion dollars in taxpayer money during the bailout, negotiated their tax rate down to one percent. The entire tax haven scam costs taxpayers as much as $100 billion per year.
Skeptical Debunker

Switzerland Keeping the Secrets of Alleged Tax Evaders - Yahoo! News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/...08599196842500

Swiss banks tax cheaters

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 07 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Pick a dictator, almost any dictator - Cuba's Fulgencio Batista, the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos, Haiti's Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier, the Shah of Iran, Central African Republic Emperor Jean-BÉdel Bokassa - and they all have this in common: they allegedly stashed their loot in secret, numbered accounts in Swiss banks, safely guarded by the so-called Gnomes of Zurich. This association - of bank secrecy and crime - has been fed into the public's imagination by dozens of books and movies. It's a reputation that rankles the Swiss, who have a more benevolent view of their commitment to privacy - one that happens to extend to tax privacy. Don't ask, because we won't tell. But the dramatic federal investigation of Switzerland's UBS has blown the lid off bank secrecy - and revealed how Swiss banks abet tax evasion on a far more widespread, if more banal, level. Over the past two decades, these secret banking services have been peddled progressively downmarket - first to the lesser-known fabulously wealthy, then to just the wealthy; more recently, private bankers have been tripping over themselves soliciting business from doctors, lawyers and other folks who are what the biz generally calls "high net worth" individuals. "The IRS has been concerned for decades that a combination of a global economy, the Internet, offshore banking, was really going to take offshore tax evasion from the old so-called 'gentlemen's sport' to tax evasion for the masses," says Mark Matthews, a former deputy IRS commissioner and now a tax attorney with Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP.
  • Skeptical Debunker on 07 Mar 10
     
    The federal investigation into UBS, which led to a $780 million fine and an agreement to turn over the names of more than 4,450 suspected tax cheats, is now in tatters after Swiss courts ruled against the executive-branch deal. To get around it, a special law has been proposed to accomplish the handoff, but that may not get anywhere in the legislature either. One outcome is already known: tax evasion had become a key service of the Swiss economy, not some isolated event. "They have been outed completely because a very large chunk of their business has been shown to include people cheating on taxes," says Jack Blum, a tax-haven expert. Being "reasonably conservative," he estimates 30% of Swiss banking is related to tax evasion, a figure that jibes with recently released bank data. These revelations come as the financial meltdown has punched a huge hole in projected revenues for governments, which are suddenly a whole lot less tolerant of tax cheats. That's particularly true in Germany, whose wealthy account for a significant portion (at least 10%) of the $1.8 trillion in Swiss banking assets. That translates into hundreds of millions in lost revenue and is the reason the German Finance Minister recently thundered, "There's no future for bank secrecy. It's finished. Its time has run out." The Swiss are not going to be so easily convinced. The Swiss government has already warned that it will not cooperate with German authorities if they go ahead with plans to purchase purloined data about Germans with Swiss bank accounts.
thinkahol *

Organizing Help Wanted | Common Dreams - 0 views

www.commondreams.org/...10-0

Organizing Help Wanted | Common Dreams

shared by thinkahol * on 10 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 10 Feb 11
     
    Right now, according to a number of studies, we are losing about $100 billion every year because corporate America and the very wealthy are stashing their money in tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. We should be aware that in 2009, ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profits and not only did the company not pay anything in taxes, it got a $106 million refund from the IRS. We should also be aware that since 1997, we have almost tripled funding for the military. So if we are serious about reducing the deficit, those are things we need to look at-not at Social Security, not programs everyday Americans need.
thinkahol *

US Uncut's Anti-Austerity Protests Hit Bank of America - 0 views

www.truth-out.org/rong-against-bank-america68108

US Uncut's Anti-Austerity Protests Hit Bank of America

shared by thinkahol * on 01 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 01 Mar 11
     
    As a voice at the megaphone of the Portland protest said, "The United States does not have a deficit problem. The United States has a revenue problem." According to a 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office, 25 percent of the biggest corporations pay no federal income tax. B of A, the recipient of $45 billion in bailout funds, shuttles its would-be tax dollars into 115 offshore tax havens. Meanwhile, budget deficits are cited as justification for pay freezes for public workers and cuts to heating assistance programs, Social Security, and other social safety nets.
thinkahol *

Pay Up, Corporate Tax Dodgers | Common Dreams - 0 views

www.commondreams.org/...28-2

Pay Up Corporate Tax Dodgers | Common Dreams

shared by thinkahol * on 01 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 01 Mar 11
     
    We're chumps unless we force Congress to stop tax haven abuse.
thinkahol *

FOCUS: Pay Your Taxes, Murdoch - 0 views

www.readersupportednews.org/...6-focus-pay-your-taxes-murdoch

FOCUS: Pay Your Taxes Murdoch

shared by thinkahol * on 29 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 29 Jul 11
     
    f you had only paid a 6% tax rate over a 4-year period, accumulated $7 billion in offshore profits not subject to US taxes, had over 150 accounts in tax-haven countries like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, and used the money from your tax dodging to buy another company, you'd be wanted for tax evasion and money laundering. But for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, that's business as usual.
thinkahol *

Tomgram: Engelhardt, The Pentagon's Fake Jihadists | TomDispatch - 0 views

www.tomdispatch.com/...he_pentagon%27s_fake_jihadists

Tomgram: Engelhardt The Pentagon's Fake Jihadists | TomDispatch

shared by thinkahol * on 20 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 20 Aug 11
     
    "Or consider what American computer specialists are doing on the Internet, perhaps terrorist leaders' greatest safe haven, where they recruit, raise money, and plot future attacks on a global scale. American specialists have become especially proficient at forging the onscreen cyber-trademarks used by Al Qaeda to certify its Web statements, and are posting confusing and contradictory orders, some so virulent that young Muslims dabbling in jihadist philosophy, but on the fence about it, might be driven away."
Brett Tatman

The Culmination of Liberal Incrementalism - 0 views

www.freshconservative.com/...of_Liberal_Incrementalism.html

tcot conservative republican fresh conservative public option obamacare healthcare health care incrementalism

shared by Brett Tatman on 09 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Brett Tatman on 09 Oct 09
     
    The opening words of H.R. 3200, Mr. Obama s solution to the manufactured health care quot;crisis quot; in the United States reads: quot;A Bill to provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes. quot; I haven t yet heard comment by the president or by the leaders of C
thinkahol *

Elections Have Consequences - 0 views

www.readersupportednews.org/...20-elections-have-consequences

Elections Have Consequences

shared by thinkahol * on 17 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 17 Jul 11
     
    We are at a pivotal moment in American history, and many Americans watching the deficit talks in Washington are confused, perplexed, angry and frustrated. This country, which has paid its debts from Day 1, must pay its debts. Anyone who says it is not a big deal for this country to default clearly does not understand what he or she is talking about. This is a nation whose faith and credit has been the gold standard of countries throughout the world. Some people simply say we're not going to pay our debt, that there's nothing to really worry about. Those are people who are wishing our economy harm for political reasons, and those are people whose attitudes will have terrible consequences for virtually every working family in this country in terms of higher interest rates, in terms of significant job loss, in terms of making a very unstable global economy even more unstable. Our right-wing friends in the House of Representatives have given us an option. What they have said is end Medicare as we know it and force elderly people, many of whom don't have the money, to pay substantially more for their health care. So when you're 70 under their plan and you get sick and you don't have a whole lot of income, we don't know what happens to you. They forget to tell us that if their plan was passed you're going to have to pay a heck of a lot more for the prescription drugs you're getting today. They we're going to throw millions of kids off health insurance. If your mom or dad is in a nursing home and that nursing home bill is paid significantly by Medicaid and Medicaid isn't paying anymore, they forgot to tell us what happens to your mom or dad in that nursing home. What happens? And what happens today if you are unemployed and you're not able to get unemployment extension? What happens if you are a middle-class family desperately trying to send their kids to college and you make savage cuts to Pell grants and you can't go to college? What does it mean for the nation if we
Skeptical Debunker

Radical Anti-tax Groups Growing Threat, Say Law Enforcement - Local News | News Article... - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...0,2933,586904,00.html

Joseph Stack manifesto anti-tax IRS

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 22 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Stack's manifesto offers insight into his personal journey as a tax protester - and into the large and growing movement that attracted him. Passages of Stack's manifesto suggest that he was involved in a notorious home church scheme that was popular in the part of California where he lived before he moved to Texas, MacNab said. Stack wrote that he was part of a group who held tax code readings and "zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful 'exemptions' that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy." He said they had "the best high-paid experienced tax lawyers in the business." MacNab said Stack likely was referring to a notorious scheme run by lawyers William Drexler and Jerome Daly. It was based on the idea that citizens could establish themselves as a church and gain the same tax exemptions afforded to religious institutions. The scheme didn't work, and Drexler and Daly were disbarred and imprisoned. If this was the operation Stack was referring to, it may have been a turning point in his life. He wrote: "That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie." This inspired him to take action, write to politicians and meet with likeminded anti-tax protesters. He wrote: "I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity." His anti-tax and anti-government beliefs may also have been fueled by Section 1706, an obscure and relatively unknown change in the tax code that focused on his industry and went into effect in 1986. Section 1706 essentially removed technical workers like software engineers from a safe haven classification of "self-employed consultant," making it easier for the IRS to challenge how Information Technology companies classified their employers. An association of IT companies and industry professionals, now called TechServe Alliance, was created to protest the changes in tax law that it says singled out the industry. "It made the whole business riskier for people using independent contractors because it favored the so-called employment business model," Mark Roberts, TechServe CEO, told FoxNews.com. "It created havoc on a number of folks." Roberts was quick to condemned Stack's behavior as "an act of a very, very sick individual." "I don't see a long-term lasting effect, just a troubled wayward person acting in response to a legitimate issue. But I don't think that actually impacts the issue," Roberts said. Noting that Section 1706 was passed years ago, he added: "We still resent the fact that it singles out the industry, but folks have basically learned to adapt. It's kind of been awhile since this was a burning issue in the industry."
  • Skeptical Debunker on 22 Feb 10
     
    Joseph Stack, the 53-year-old software engineer who crashed his small plane into a seven-story office building in Austin, Texas, was part of a growing, violent anti-tax and anti-government movement that has become increasingly alarming to law enforcement agencies.\n\nStack, who torched his home Thursday morning before setting out on his suicide flight, was fueled by his hatred of the Internal Revenue Service, which had offices and employed nearly 200 workers in the building.
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