Wednesday, February 08, 2017

Follow the Money


Tyranny is always better organized than freedom. 
— Charles Péguy, born around this date in 1873

One important result of my theory about the sources of “dark matter” in the U.S. balance of payments is a concern that “border adjustment” might not generate the expected revenues. American multinationals would have a strong incentive to shift their offshore income on intellectual property rights that are now located in subsidiaries offshore back to the U.S..
Follow the Money: Offshore Profits and US Exports 



Increasing levels of institutional investment in companies could be encouraging corporations to pursue tax shelters and other forms of tax avoidance, according to a pair of academic studies Studies links institutional investing to corporate tax avoidance  


Head of Deutsche Bank Israel arrested for tax fraud  

eBay identifies errors in tax reporting  

Jim Maule, Fear of Tax? No, Fear of Tax Thieves. “So the scammers started sending fake emails to corporate employees, pretending to be a high level executive, asking for the W-2 forms for all employees.”

TaxGrrrl,IRS Issues Urgent Alert As W-2 Phishing Scam Spreads During Tax Season:
Here’s how the phishing scam typically works. Fraudsters send a fake email pretending to be from a high-level corporate employee requesting information about employee forms W-2 from a company’s payroll or human resources departments. The emails typically ask for the forms W-2 and earnings summary of all W-2 employees or an updated list of employees with their personal details including Social Security Number, home address, and salary. This scam is sometimes referred to as business email compromise (BEC) or business email spoofing (BES).
Just like that, the scammers can literally capture all of the data for an entire company.
 
TaxGrrrl,Tax Prep Companies Mix Tax Season & Football With Super Bowl Commercial Spots

Kay Bell, Super Bowl bet pay off? Report it to the IRS.

Lew Taishoff, NECESSITY KNOWS NO LAW. “Stan and Zmira want to toss all the Tax Court judges.  
Jack Townsend, Update on Passport Revocation, Denial or Limitation for Seriously Delinquent Tax Debts:
What if taxpayers don’t think they owe the tax?
Here, taxpayers are in a pickle, because time is of the essence. For example, if the IRS assessed tax on an unfiled return (that is, the IRS filed a return for the taxpayer, called a substitute for return), or through a completed audit or underreporter inquiry, there’s not much the taxpayer can do to quickly contest the tax assessment and remove the seriously delinquent tax debt certification. Filing an original return or contesting the tax through IRS administrative options or courts may take a long time. 
To get immediate relief, the only quick option is for taxpayers to pay the balance, or more likely, set up an installment agreement, and contest the tax later with the IRS.

Alex Malley is the chief executive of CPA Australia, which represents professional accountants: Tax commissioner's lesson for public servants in handling unethical instructions


Private Equity Slugfest! Managing Partner of Sequoia Slams Blackstone Chief Steve Schwarzman in New York Times Op Ed



Rifts are opening up among the financial elite. Michael Moritz, a partner from Sequoia Capital, penned a New York Times op-ed that blasts fellow private equity big dog Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone for cottoning up to Trump and for making his living from squeezing American workers and benefiting from the carried interest tax loophole, which […]