The wealthiest 1% of Americans are responsible for more than $160bn of lost tax revenue each year, according to a new report from the US treasury.
Tag: Tax
The super-rich have bought armies of lobbyists to keep their taxes minuscule and to create tax loopholes large enough to drive their Lamborghinis through
Were I Trump’s Lawyer For The Day, I’d advise him to purchase a first-class ticket to Botswana or Brunei, neither of which has an extradition treaty with the United States. Because things are getting pretty ugly for him in New York.
The Prosecutors Cometh | The Smirking Chimp
SCOTUS denies Trump bid to shield tax returns Donald Trump suffered a major setback on Monday in his long quest to conceal details of his finances as the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for a New York City prosecutor to obtain the former president’s tax returns and other financial records as part of a criminal investigation.
Donald Trump’s tax returns to be released after Supreme Court ruling
Angus Taylor’s rescue package for the oil industry is a testament to the ability of large corporations to game governments. The latest Tax Office transparency data shows that oil and gas juggernauts are, again, Australia’s biggest tax cheats, yet are demanding and getting more public subsidies to prop up their oil refineries. Michael West reports on the good and the bad in multinational tax dodging land.
The Usual Suspects: oil and gas majors star in Australian tax heist – Michael West
Even though Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity firm, raked in billions in profits last year, new documents show their tax rate actually went below zero. This may help explain why CEO Stephen Schwarzman has spent nearly $25 million to help Trump and GOP senators win: to ensure the tax breaks enriching Blackstone stay in place.
Private Equity Firm Blackstone Actually Had a Sub-Zero Tax Rate Last Year
President Donald Trump paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the past 15 years, according to a bombshell report in The New York Times. Trump, who has fiercely guarded his tax filings and is the only president in modern times not to make them public, paid $US750 in taxes to the federal government the year he was elected, 2016, and $US750 again in his first year in office.
Donald Trump paid just $750 in US income taxes in 2016, 2017: report
The Australian tax office claims it has been ripped off by as much as hundreds of millions of dollars under mass tax evasion schemes allegedly run by professional advisers
Phoenixing: how unscrupulous dealers rise debt-free from the ashes of failed companies | Australia news | The Guardian
Collect the taxes they haven’t paid. Remember Abbott shrunk the Taxation Dept of 3500 of it’s most experienced tax investigators. Well, now they have jumped the gutter and are working for the tax minimisation industry.(ODT)
via You want a strong economy? Start by raising corporate taxes
The leader of the Birther attack on Obama refuses to show his tax papers (ODT)
New York: US President Donald Trump’s latest efforts to block a grand jury subpoena for his tax returns could provide him with the immunity from prosecution that the Supreme Court has rejected, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a court filing on Monday.
Trump was dealt a blow by the Supreme Court last month when in a 7 to 2 decision, the court said he was not protected by presidential immunity from state-court level actions. The court allowed for the case to get sent back to the US District Court in Manhattan for any additional challenges Trump would seek to make.
via Trump is blocking tax returns subpoena to secure immunity: court filings
Trump has already succeeded in his goal of running for president twice without disclosing basic financial information. He has already succeeded in using the office of the president to shield himself from potential prosecution of his suspected financial crimes. Trump has already won. The only question now is how much the rest of us will lose.
We should expect decisions on these two cases in late June. The Supreme Court will then tell us how much more of our democracy must be sacrificed in the service of Donald Trump.
via SCOTUS May Have Just Decided to Exempt Trump From the Rule of Law | The Nation
Key points:
The ATO’s corporate tax transparency data again shows that hundreds of companies have been able to reduce their tax bills to zero
ATO deputy commissioner Rebecca Saint said the agency was still seeing some companies avoid tax by shifting profits offshore
Company financial accounts do not always give the full picture of tax positions and the ATO wants companies to be more transparent
The 1% impose the intrinsic instability of their system on the entire population, and then get the government to respond with deficits that even further benefit and reward the greed of the very same 1% oligarchs and corporations.
Ironically, we’ve borrowed so much as a nation from the rich, large corporations and some foreign countries that even they now are unsure they want to continue to lending to us because of today’s astronomical debt. To maintain their loan profits, they want us to eliminate/severely reduce programs for poor and sick people with austerity/cuts in all social and public health programs, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc.
The absurdity and danger to our community of such an economic policy is exceeded only by its gross injustice.
via The US Tax System is a vast Ponzi Scheme that only Benefits the Wealthy
It’s a cry for adjustment not systemic change (ODT)
Real-estate developer Donald Trump in 1992 lived in a New York luxury apartment, travelled by limousine and had personal bodyguards. That year, he also reported a negative $US750 million ($1.08 billion) adjusted gross income to the IRS.
Trump is the primary “expense” that drains his companies dry to the state of Easter eggs “hollow” and all debt and then they simply implode. There is nothing new particularly when banks aren’t regulated. He gets loans from banks too scared to declare their over risk and first valuing assets and packaging not on collateral security of the company but on a dream. He doesn’t do the financing himself but happily pays a premium for any broker or banker that will secure the loan on a 0% asset.
Get the money spend it as wages and expenses on himself then devalue back to the real asset assett value and bankruptcy or reveal the banking folly. Every banker shyster and broker will help avoid the worst if the commissions are high enough and more commissions. All he needed to hand his request to Wall St and they’d jump. They after all they created the art and caused the GFC and sent nations to the wall like Greece. Mind you, you the paid rating and credit agencies handsomly to assist in the scam but that wasn’t Trump’s problem. Effectively Trump was always the face of a scam, a Ponzi scheme, a chain letter a business that shared profits with the top end of town. There was never anything new to be seen just bigger. All a little bit legal but a top down scam that the nation bailed out.
Alan Bond said it if your looking for a small loan the banks own you. When that loan is too big you own the banks because they can’t reveal it. The difference Bond went to jail aan Trump became President. (ODT)
‘Other people’s money’: Trump’s lifestyle while his businesses bled billions confuses tax experts
“They didn’t say it looked like it, they said he committed tax fraud,” Johnston reminded viewers.
via David Cay Johnston: ‘Long-Running Evidence’ Trump Committed Tax Fraud | Crooks and Liars
A representative of Deutsche Bank said in a statement: “We remain committed to providing appropriate information to all authorised investigations and will abide by a court order regarding such investigations.”
Attorneys and representatives for the two sides were not immediately available for comment late on Monday.
This is the reason he MUST be impeached not just voted out (ODT)
via Democrats set new deadline for release of Trump tax returns | US news | The Guardian
Charging and trialling sex offenders is Right Charging and trialling Whistle Blowers is a disgrace (ODT)
ATO whisteblower Richard Boyle faces six life sentence – roughly the same as Ivan Milat
It seems astonishing that, in a country where one in eight adults and more than one in six children are living in poverty, and many of those are living in “deep poverty”, the Coalition’s election focus is on tax concessions and tax cuts for the wealthy – and they seem to be getting away with it.
In 2004-05, the top income tax rate kicked in at a taxable income of $70,000. Four years later, that had risen to $180,000. Meanwhile, the tax free threshold remained at $6000 from 2000-01 until Julia Gillard increased it to $18,200 to compensate for the introduction of carbon pricing in 2012-13.
When Tony Abbott got rid of the mining tax, he also repealed many payments to low income earners, including income support benefits to children of soldiers killed or seriously injured in service.
Yep, it may be that what brings Donnie down is tax evasion.
Trump Tax Fraud? Somewhere, Al Capone Is Laughing
Only 11% in poll wanted lower public spending, less tax revenue and more inequality
“This information exposes that simply cracking down on foreign donations will not end the influence of big money over our political system,” he said. “Until we reform our entire donations system, Labor and the Liberals are simply propping this broken system upGreens single out 13 companies that paid no tax yet donated to major parties | Australia news | The Guardian
Ben Eltham | (The Conversation) | – – There was a fascinating moment towards the end of Wednesday’s hearings of …
Source: Should Facebook & Google be Taxed to fund Journalism?
Even experts who disliked Labor’s proposals the first time round are shifting their ground.
Source: Housing: Malcolm Turnbull increasingly isolated over capital gains tax
The free tax ride for religious institutions in Australia is about 400 years past its use by date, argues Brian Morris. In 1587, Dr John Bridges coined the phrase “A fool and his money are soon parted”. Just 14 years later Queen Elizabeth the First issued her 1601 Statute on Charities making “the advancement ofMore
Source: Money And Religion: The Greeks Got It Right. They Tax The Church. – New Matilda
As Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau announces that Canada will impose a tax on carbon emissions starting in 2018, ex-NASA GISS director Dr. James E. Hansen and Our Children’s Trust announce they are taking the US Government to court for climate change damage. Read about the burden we are leaving our young people here and watch the video below…
Source: The people fight back – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Amid calls to publish his tax returns, experts say the billionaire Republican candidate may legally have nothing to pay.
Source: ‘It’s certainly feasible that Trump is paying no income tax at all’
According to a 2015 headline in Rupert Murdoch’s rag, The Australian, “No, the rich don’t pay a ‘fair share’ of tax. They pay all of it.” The hypocrisy of a Murdoch-owned entity discussing tax is overwhelming. In 1999 the BBC published an article clearly setting out Murdoch’s well-known strategy for tax avoidance. “in the four…
Source: Piss off ya nasty old bludger – » The Australian Independent Media Network
At least 800 Australians have been linked with the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca, and there could be many more. And this firm is just one of a multitude of similar firms operating similar tax secrecy networks in similar jurisdictions to Panama.
Source: Are The Panama Papers Just The Tip Of Australia’s Tax Avoidance Iceberg? | Andrew Leigh
New report found the average rate of tax paid was 16.2 per cent – or less than the income tax rate paid by a working nurse in Australia.
Source: How 76 profitable companies left Australian taxpayers $5.6 billion out of pocket
