Infinite Unknown

Gerard Depardieu  recently received a Russian passport after giving up his French citizenship, saying he was doing so to avoid a new tax rate of 75 percent on the highest incomes.

- Taxes on some wealthy French top 100 pct of income: paper (Reuters, May 18, 2013):

More than 8,000 French households’ tax bills topped 100 percent of their income last year, the business newspaper Les Echos reported on Saturday, citing Finance Ministry data.

The newspaper said that the exceptionally high level of taxation was due to a one-off levy last year on 2011 incomes for households with assets of more than 1.3 million euros ($1.67 million).

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Tags: Economy, EU, Europe, France, Francois Hollande, Global News, Government, Politics, Taxes, Taxpayers

- Amazon UK pays $3.7 million tax on $6.5 billion sales (Reuters, May 15, 2013):

Corporate tax avoidance has risen to the top of the political agenda in Europe following revelations in the past couple of years about how little big names like Apple Inc., Starbucks, Google and Microsoft pay in tax in markets where they reap billions of dollars in sales.

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Tags: Amazon, Corporations, Economy, Taxes, U.K.

- IRS Conservative Witchhunt Started In 2011 With High-Level Officials Involved (ZeroHedge, May 11, 2013)

Tags: Barack Obama, Global News, Government, IRS, Obama administration, Politics, Society, Taxes, Taxpayers, Timothy Geithner, U.S.

- The IRS Explains Its Targeting Of Conservatives (ZeroHedge, May 10, 2013)

Tags: Global News, Government, IRS, Politics, Taxes, Taxpayers, U.S.

- Canada to tax Bitcoin transactions (RT, April 27, 2013):

Canadians using bitcoins, the decentralized crypto-currency that recently went mainstream, must report their incomes and pay taxes as with other earnings, Canada’s Revenue Agency (CRA) confirmed following a media request.

The issue was clarified in response to a letter by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) ahead of the country’s tax season.

Two separate tax rules are applicable to the electronic currency, CRA spokesperson Philippe Brideau told CBC in an email.

When bitcoins are used as money to buy goods and services, the transaction is treated as barter and is taxable as such. When they are traded at a market for profit, they may be taxed as capital gains.

“When bitcoins are bought or sold like a commodity, any resulting gains or losses could be income or capital for the taxpayer depending on the specific facts,” the CRA ruled.

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Tags: Bitcoin, Canada, Global News, Government, Politics, Taxes

- IRS issued billions in improper refunds, report says (Washington Post, April 24, 2013):

The Internal Revenue Service issued more than $11 billion in improper payments through its Earned Income Tax Credit program last year, according to an inspector general’s report released this week. Treasury Department deputy inspector general Michael McKenney found that the IRS has failed to comply for two consecutive years with the Improper Payments Elimination Act, which President Obama signed in 2010. The law requires federal agencies to reduce erroneous payments to a rate of less than 10 percent.

The IRS estimates that at least 21 percent of its EITC payments in 2012 were faulty. That rate showed a decline compared to the previous nine years, but improper payments over the same period increased about 22 percent, rising to at least $11.6 billion, according to the inspector general’s report.

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Tags: Global News, Government, Politics, Taxes, Taxpayers, U.S.

- Germany’s ‘Five-Wise-Men’ Confirm Wealth Tax Is Coming (ZeroHedge, April 14, 2013):

As we have vociferously warned since September 2011, and most recently as the Cyprus debacle exploded explained why it is just beginning, Germany’s Council of Economic Experts (or so-called ‘Five Wise Men’) just confirmed a wealth tax is coming. As the Telegraph reports, confirming our expectations, Germany warns that states in trouble must pay more for their own salvation, arguing that there is enough wealth in homes and private assets across the Mediterranean to cover bail-out costs. They further added that targeting deposit-holders is also a mistake, since the “resourceful rich just move their money to banks in northern Europe and avoid paying,” preferring instead taxes on property or other less-mobile assets, “for example, over the next 10 years, the rich should give up a portion of their assets.” As we noted here and here, the differences between mean and median wealth in the peripheral nations suggest that people in the bailed-out countries are often better-off than those in Germany – - “this shows that Germany has been right to take a tough line of euro rescue loans.” However, the implications of a wealth tax – implicitly impacting the pro-euro Southern European uber-rich – raises the specter of EU breakup once again.

Via The Telegraph,

Any serious move to a wealth tax could the erode the pro-euro ardour of South Europe’s uber-rich. The ECB bond buying policy has largely rescued the wealthiest strata while the full brunt of EMU austerity has fallen on ordinary people and the unemployed. Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, Economy, EU, Europe, Germany, Global News, Government, Politics, Society, Taxes

- Americans renouncing citizenship to become British thanks to tax rise (Telegraph, March 2, 2013):

The number of people giving up their US citizenship to become British has surged thanks to complex tax rules introduced by the American tax authorities.

London-based American lawyers, who specialise in tax and immigration, report a threefold increase over the last five years in the number of American citizens who are giving up their citizenship – a process known as “renunciation”.

Across the world 1,781 Americans renounced their citizenship in 2011 compared with just 231 in 2008, when US tax laws changed, although it remains unknown how many are adopting British rather than any other nationality.

Many decide to give up their American citizenship after tiring of the lengthy US tax return process, which requires them to pay tax on their total income regardless of where they live.

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Tags: Economy, Global News, Government, Politics, Society, Taxes, Taxpayers, U.K., U.S.

Flashback:

Documentary: America: Freedom To Fascism – Director’s Authorized Version

- Abolish The Income Tax: You Won’t Believe Who Is Getting Away With Paying Zero Taxes While The Middle Class Gets Hammered (Economic Collapse, Feb 18, 2013):

The federal income tax is a bad joke and it needs to be abolished.  All over the nation, hard working American families are being absolutely crushed by oppressive levels of taxation, and our politicians are constantly coming up with new ways to extract money from all of us every single year.  Meanwhile, many ultra-wealthy Americans and many of the most profitable corporations in the country pay little to nothing in taxes.  In fact, as you will see below, there are dozens of very prominent corporations that make billions of dollars in profits and yet don’t pay a dime in taxes.  Tax avoidance has become a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States.  Those that have the resources to “play the game” use shell companies, offshore tax havens and the thousands of loopholes in our tax code to minimize their tax burdens as much as possible.  Meanwhile, the rest of us get absolutely hammered.  This is fundamentally unfair.  The federal income tax system is irreversibly broken at this point, and it is time to abolish it.  If you think that the federal income tax system can be “fixed”, then you probably have never studied it.  Our tax code is nearly 4 million words long and it is absolutely riddled with thousands of loopholes that favor big corporations and the ultra-wealthy.  We should come up with a better, fairer way to fund the government.  The United States once prospered greatly without a federal income tax, and it could do so again.

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Tags: Corporations, Economy, Global News, Government, IRS, Politics, Society, Taxes, Taxpayers, U.S.

- Israeli Banks Said to Be Implicated in U.S. Tax Evasion (Bloomberg, Feb 17, 2013):

A California man born in Israel agreed to plead guilty to conspiring with people at Bank Leumi Le-Israel Ltd. and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank Ltd. to hide offshore accounts and income from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, according to court filings and people familiar with the matter.Zvi Sperling was accused Feb. 14 by federal prosecutors in Los Angeles of conspiring with people at two Tel Aviv-based banks, identified only as Bank A and Bank B. The charging document and plea agreement didn’t identify the banks. Bank A is Mizrahi, according to a person who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the case. Bank B is Leumi, according to a second person, who similarly asked not to be identified.

Since 2008, U.S. prosecutors have cracked down on offshore tax evasion, charging at least 83 U.S. taxpayers or foreign bankers, lawyers or advisers with tax crimes. UBS AG, the largest Swiss bank, avoided prosecution in 2009 by admitting it aided tax evasion, paying $780 million and handing over account data on 250 clients. It later disclosed information on about 4,450 more accounts. Wegelin & Co., a Swiss bank, pleaded guilty last month. No Israeli bank has been charged.

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Tags: Banking, Economy, Global News, IRS, Taxes, Taxpayers