USA: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes

Uber has been using a complex tax shelter involving around 50 Dutch shell companies to reduce its global tax bill, according to recent research from the Center for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research.

In 2019, Uber claimed $4.5 billion in global operating losses (excluding the US and China) for tax purposes — in reality, it brought in $5.8 billion in operating revenue, according to CICTAR, an Australia-based research group.

Uber had previously disclosed details about its Dutch tax haven in 2019, when it moved its intellectual property from Bermuda to the Netherlands, but CICTAR's research sheds more light on how the company has structured its network of shell companies.

Read more at: US: Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxe...

Ukraine: G7 finance ministers mobilize almost $20 billion for Ukraine

Finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) wealthy democracies concluded a summit in Germany on Friday by announcing a commitment of $19.8 billion (€18.7 billion) in financial support to prop up Ukraine's budget.

Russia's war on Ukraine has severely affected Kyiv's ability to collect taxes, and it is estimated the government will need €15 billion over the next three months to continue functioning.

Read more at G7 finance ministers mobilize almost $20 billion for Ukraine | News | DW | 20.05.2022

Spain: Taxes on US Tech Giants

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France: French finance minister to tax digital giants including Facebook and Apple despite US protests

France dismisses US opposition to tax on tech giants French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Friday that France would stick to plans for a tax on digital giants such as Facebook and Apple, despite opposition from Washington.

Read more at:  

http://www.france24.com/en/20190404-pompeo-urges-france-drop-plans-tax-tech-giants

US Congress: New Democratic Congress final member Ocasio-Cortez suggests individual Tax Rates as high as 70 %

Ocasio-Cortez suggests individual tax rates as high as 70%

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IS THE LOTTERY RIGGED ? YES IT IS !

You may have heard that you are more likely to be hit on the head by a meteorite than to win the lottery. This is certainly so. 

Assuming that the game is honest, the odds are roughly one in several hundred million. Even with these odds, lottery commissions are not satisfied. The lottery is rigged.

The giant multi-state and individual state lotteries are more fixed than pro wrestling. The jackpots go up and up, with no winners.  People get lottery fever. Millions nationwide are willing to wait in a line just like the ones for bread in the former Soviet Union for the pipe dream of striking it rich.   

The rigging works like this: super computers keep track of each combination sold, and then the ping-pong balls are weighted to assure that a losing combination comes up. On rare occasions, all possible combinations are sold, and they must let someone win. Only then is the game honest.

Why? The lottery, which is a state-run version of the Mafia's numbers racket, is a great money grab scam, as long as it brings in more than it pays out. In the past, lotteries were abolished because they lost money. 

 

The worst part of this is whom it hurts. The poor and desperate are the most common victims of lottery fever.  Children go hungry and senior citizens go without their medication because of it. People prone to gambling addiction also blow huge sums.

We spoke with an employee at a state lottery agency. We can not reveal his name or even which state, as some of the same gangsters who ran the numbers racket now run the lottery, and they would kill him.

 

“Yes, I personally am involved in it. Lottery ping-pong balls have a small valve, like a basketball or soccer ball, only it’s very tiny, and nearly invisible. We use a hypodermic needle to inject heavier-than-air gasses such as radon into the balls we don’t want to come up. At first, we tried helium in the ones we did want to rise, but they jumped up so quickly that it was obvious. Lotteries are raking in much more than if the games were honest, and people don’t know they have literally no chance!”

“If you think about it logically, you certainly don’t play anyway. You are betting that you can predict which six of 45 or more balls are going to come out of the hopper. In some games, the order even matters! It’s a sucker’s bet, and that’s when it’s honest! Most drawings are rigged, making the odds zero in infinity! The lottery is not only a tax on people who don’t understand math; it is an unfair and unjust tax. Didn’t we have the American Revolution over taxes like that?”

You read it here first.

In other words - you can better throw your money in the fire than play the lottery.

Read more: THE LOTTERY IS RIGGED

EU migrants pay euro 25.46 billion more in taxes than they receive - by Helen Warrell

European immigrants to the U.K. paid much more in taxes than they received in benefits over the past decade, making a net fiscal contribution of euro 25.46 billion ($31.9 billion), say researchers.

The research by academics at University College London comes at a time of fierce debate over freedom of movement within the EU.

Responding to fears among Conservative eurosceptics that migrants are "benefit tourists", David Cameron has pledged to renegotiate the rules allowing workers to move within the bloc.

However, Angela Merkel, German chancellor, is reported to have warned the UK prime minister that any move to reform these rights would lead Britain towards to an EU exit.

The arguments look set to intensify now UCL researchers have established that so-called "A10 migrants" from eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004 contributed nearly euro 6.36 billion to the U.K. in the decade to 2011.

Those from the original 15 EU members brought a net gain of Euro 19.09 billion over the same period. By comparison, the UK-born population was a net cost.

The analysis showed that "EU 15" migrants contributed 64 percent more in taxes to the UK than they received in benefits, and the A10 group - comprising countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia and Lithuania - contributed 12 per cent more than they received.

Christian Dustmann, director of UCL's Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration, said the debate in Britain was "anecdotally based".

"Certainly there is abuse [of immigration rules] but what is important from the perspective of the UK government are the numbers we have presented here: these are the realities," Professor Dustmann said.

Read more:  from the Financial Times.

EU Accounting Services: R.O.W. With Butch — Either Tax Tech Giants In Europe Correctly, Or STFU - by Mike Butcher

For convenience and to create a working market in Europe’s fragmented continent, the Europe Union – with the open-eyed sanction of its member states – has constructed a way for companies to be legally HQ’d in one country in Europe (and taxed there) but trade all over Europe, thus creating a notional ‘single market’. There’s only one problem – this encourages companies to locate their legal HQ in a country with a low tax regime, while trading in all the rest. Not only that – it also allows companies to transfer assets and income between subsidiaries. Heavens to murgatroyd! It’s just like Capitalism!

But the latest example of how all this operates hit the news this week when it emerged that Amazon had paid just £4.2m in tax last year, despite selling goods worth £4.3bn. This is more that the combined UK sales of Argos, Dixons or Marks & Spencer Food, all ‘Main Street’ retailers in the UK. The previous year it paid £3.2m in tax. What tax it does pay in the UK is on it’s UK subsidiary. Amazon.co.uk reported profits of £17m in 2013, and effectively paid 24% of that in corporation tax, the legal going rate.
Predictably, policiticians weighed in on the headlines, as they yawningly do every year without doing much about it. They said we (we!) should shop elsewhere. No doubt politicians in other parts of Europe, where Amazon trades, are doing the same thing.

This strategy can have some effect. Starbucks resumed a more ‘normal’  UK tax payments last year, after a little outrage from the great British public. But then, you can often choose which coffee shop to walk into when you’re out on the street. Online, the convenience of buying in one click from Amazon, rather than punching in credit card numbers into some other online store, is a temptation just too much to bare for many.  In the last ten years Amazon has paid just over £10m in taxes. But in the last four years it’s generated £23bn in British sales.

And of course, the principle is very simple, and well known to the tax accountants serving the likes of Amazon, Google and many other US tech giants.

Simply take online payments via a subsidiary based in a low tax jurisdiction – in Amazon’s and many other cases it is the tiny state of Luxembourg – but locate all your warehousing, engineering, accounting, human resources and other functions in a country where you can easily hire and fire, attract talent and conduct an efficient business.

Read more: R.O.W. With Butch — Either Tax Tech Giants In Europe Correctly, Or STFU | TechCrunch

European Manufacturing Industry: Italy factory jobs 'disappearing overnight' - by Emma Jane Kirby

Italy is Europe's second biggest manufacturing power after Germany, but with rigid labour laws, high taxes, a bloated bureaucracy and fierce competition, the country is struggling to stay on the production line. Italy may have lost as much as a third of its overall industrial production in recent years, experts say. 

Simona Messori, 47, peers through the locked gates of the Firem factory in Formigene, near Modena, and sighs.
"I worked here for eight years," she says "And I really loved it."

Italy is haemorrhaging manufacturing jobs. Since 2007, 55,000 manufacturing firms have folded, taking more than half a million jobs with them.

Although workers like Firem's Simona only take home about 1,000 euros (£845) a month, her company has to pay the state about the same amount again in labour charges and taxes. 

And workers like Simona have little spending power to buy the products that would drive growth.
But weak demand at home and high labour costs are not the only factors prompting Italian companies to move to eastern Europe.

Carlo Carnevale Maffe, professor of business strategy at Milan's Bocconi University, blames a bloated and erratic bureaucracy. "Who wants to invest in Italy?" he says. "Even Fiat is looking to Brazil and the US. The application of law here, the regulations, it's totally inconsistent."

High-end manufacturing firms like the luxury brands Armani and Ferrari have managed to weather the economic crisis well.

But firms producing lower- and medium-cost goods, even internationally recognised firms such as the Italian arm of the domestic appliances manufacturer Whirlpool, have been unable to stay competitive in a market where the price of raw materials is rocketing and where cheaper goods from China abound.

Read more: BBC News - Italy factory jobs 'disappearing overnight'

Portugal to lower taxes in effort to revive flagging economy

Portugal's government plans to lower company tax rates "significantly" as part of a wider plan of incentives to drag the economy out of its worst recession since the 1970s, economy minister Alvaro Santos Pereira said.

He also promised to step up the financing of the economy by state-owned bank CGD that will provide €1 billion euros this year and €2.5 billion in 2014, and later to create a development bank to boost such funding further, especially for exports-oriented small and medium-sized companies.

\

"We want more investment and the main instrument here is the reform of the company tax that we intend to carry out via a significant decrease in tax rates to make investment more attractive," Mr Santos Pereira told a briefing.

Read more: Portugal to lower taxes in effort to revive flagging economy - European Economic News | EU Budgets, Trends & Spending | Irish Tim - Wed, Apr 24, 2013

Hungary: Govt to levy 35% withholding tax on expatriated assets

Hungary's government has decided to levy a 35% withholding tax on illegally expatriated assets, János Lázár, state secretary of the Prime Minister's Office, said in a break during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Assets expatriated to avoid payment of tax come to at least HUF 1,000 billion but could reach as much as HUF 1,500 billion-HUF 2 billion according to some estimates, Lázár said, citing data from the National Economy Ministry.

The Prime Minister's Office, the National Economy Ministry and the Foreign Affairs Ministry have been given a mandate to track this money down, he added.

Read more: Govt to levy 35% withholding tax on expatriated assets | The Budapest Business Journal on the web | bbj.hu

Germany: Tax evasion made easy, legally

Some prominent German artists and athletes do not pay taxes in Germany. This is perfectly legal in certain circumstances, but it can sometimes backfire, as Boris Becker found out. 

Those who earn a lot of money must also pay a lot of tax. In Germany, the top tax bracket currently sits at 45 percent. For high earners there is no choice other than to pay what the tax office demands, or not pay at all. At least not in Germany, when someone is located abroad and pays taxes there. Well known celebrities, artists, athletes and entrepreneurs like Steffi Graf, Boris Becker, Ralf and Michael Schumacher seem to be doing it.

Paying tax is not a question of nationality, but where you live. Dirk Beyer, a lawyer with LHP in Cologne and a tax law expert tells DW in an interview that someone cannot simply choose where they want to pay their taxes. But, " freedom of movement within the EU [European Union] exists, and from that alone, one is able to effectively choose. And its from taht point, that the respective tax law takes effect."

Thomas Eigenthaler, Chairman of the German Tax Union (DSTG) agrees, "in general it is true that it depends on where you reside." Tax evaders buy or rent homes and apartments in Switzerland or Monaco, in Cyprus or the Canary Islands as if it were their new residence. Bayer says this is because "some countries have much lower tax rates. In Cyprus, for example, it is at 10 percent. There are countries with 12.5 and 15 percent."

Read more: Tax evasion made easy, legally | Germany | DW.DE | 12.01.2013

US Economy: Lawmakers Meet With President in Last-Ditch Effort to Avert the 'Fiscal Cliff'

The final weekend has now arrived before the fiscal cliff hits on New Year's Day, and, with it, more than $600 million in tax hikes and spending cuts.

In a last bid for a deal, President Obama stated his terms face to face to top Republicans and Democrats.

Congressional leaders arrived at the White House this afternoon for their first group meeting with the president since Nov. 16. Vice President Biden and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also attended. But there was little to suggest the makings of an 11th-hour bargain.

Instead, a source familiar with the meeting told the NewsHour the president is sticking with his offer from last Friday. It included keeping the Bush era tax break for the middle class, but raising tax rates on incomes over $250,000 a year. The president also wants to extend unemployment benefits for some two million Americans who will lose them in the new year.

And the proposal would delay any spending cuts. The president asked for an up-or-down vote on his plan unless there is a counterproposal that will pass both the House and Senate. A little more than an hour after the meeting began, several participants were seen leaving.

And back at the Capitol, the Senate's Democratic majority leader, Harry Reid, and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offered their takes on the meeting.

Read more: Lawmakers Meet With President in Last-Ditch Effort to Avert the 'Fiscal Cliff' | PBS NewsHour | Dec. 28, 2012 | PBS

France: French court overturns ultra-rich tax

France's constitutional council has overturned a 75 percent upper tax rate on income above $1.32m, which was due to be introduced in 2013 by the socialist government.

The council's decision on Saturday, made in response to a motion by opposition conservatives, is a huge blow to President Francois Hollande who had made the rate his flagship tax measure as he sought to have the rich contribute more towards reducing the budget deficit.

While the planned upper tax band was mainly symbolic and would only have affected a few thousand people, it shocked foreign investors and infuriated high earners in France, prompting some such as actor Gerard Depardieu to flee abroad.

The government had estimated the 75 percent tax rate could raise around $400m a year as it battles to bring down the public deficit to below a European Union ceiling of three percent next year in the face of stalled growth.

The Constitutional Council, which rules on whether laws are constitutional, said in a statement that the way the upper rate was set to be imposed was unfair in the way it would affect different households.

The French prime minister's office responded that the government would push ahead with plans to impose a 75 percent upper income tax and would propose a new measure after the rate was ruled unconstitutional.

Read more: French court overturns ultra-rich tax - Europe - Al Jazeera English

Dutch Government coalition finds alternative for controversial health insurance premium plan - by Thomas Whittle

Mark Rutte: "I made a mistake"

The new Dutch government of Liberals VVD and Labor PvdA has found an alternative for the controversial deal on an income-related health insurance premium in the coalition agreement, local media reported on Tuesday citing the two parties’ announcement.

By linking health premiums to income, the plan on income-related health insurance premium means people with an annual income of over 70,000 euros (90,615 U.S. dollars) will have to pay 482 euros per month in health insurance fees while people on welfare benefits will pay just 20 euros, Nos television reported.

The plan has provoked strong reactions from voters and members of the VVD, traditionally a party of people with higher incomes. They blame VVD leader Mark Rutte for being trapped by PvdA leader Diederik Samsom.

The income-related healthcare premium is now replaced by higher tax. The new deal will still hit people with higher incomes the hardest, but their purchasing power will drop less than in the old agreement.

“I made a mistake as a negotiator of the VVD,” Prime Minister Rutte said at a press conference on Monday evening.  “I offer my apologies. I considered it as my job to correct the mistake, and that’s what we did. We seek to reduce the income differences now in the atmosphere of the income tax, and no longer in the care premium,” he said.

Read more: Dutch coalition finds alternative for controversial health insurance premium plan - NZweek

US Economy: Tax Cuts For The Rich Don't Lead To U.S. Economic Growth, But Income Inequality: Study

A key difference between the economic agendas of President Barack Obama and his Republican opponent Mitt Romney hinges on whether tax cuts should be granted to the wealthiest Americans. Obama and the Democrats are calling for higher taxes on the wealthy to reduce the deficit and fund spending, while Romney and the GOP are advocating lower marginal tax rates for upper-income groups, saying they fuel investment and job creation.

A new study from the Congressional Research Service - a non-partisan government group that provides analysis to Congress - will likely fuel the already bitter political fight.

The report concludes that tax cuts for the rich don't seem to be associated with economic growth and instead are linked to a different outcome: greater income inequality in the U.S.

Analysis of six decades of data found that the evidence does not suggest necessarily a relationship between tax policy with regard to the top tax rates and the size of the economic pie, but there may be a relationship to how the economic pie is sliced.

The top income tax rates have changed considerable since the end of World War II. In 1945, the richest families had to pay a marginal tax rate of more than 90 percent. Today, it is 35 percent. But both real GDP and real per capita GDP were growing more than twice as fast in the 1950s as in the 2000s.

Read more: Tax Cuts For The Rich Don't Lead To U.S. Economic Growth, But Income Inequality: Study

U.S. ‘super committee’ on deficit inches closer to abject failure

A high-profile effort to trim stubborn U.S. budget deficits appeared near collapse on Friday as Democrats and Republicans were unable to agree on tax increases and benefit cuts.

A 12-member “super committee” in Congress has until midnight on Wednesday to strike a deal that would save at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years. Members say they think a deal is still possible, but aides privately are more pessimistic. Friday is shaping up to be a make-or-break day, one super committee member said.

“We should know by end of today, and I’ll give myself until 11:59 p.m., as to whether or not there will be a deal,” Democratic U.S. Representative Xavier Becerra said at a renewable-energy conference.
Congress is already facing rock-bottom approval ratings after a year of down-to-the-wire budget battles, and failure to reach a deal would likely incite further disgust among voters as the 2012 election season heats up.

For more: U.S. ‘super committee’ on deficit inches closer to abject failure | News | National Post

As Austerity Bites, Europe's Rich Speak Up to Be Taxed - by Julia Weldigier

Calls from wealthy Europeans asking to pay more taxes are getting louder, with high earners from Italy, Germany and France joining in urging their governments to raise top rates or enact special levies as a way of reducing burgeoning deficits.

For more: As Austerity Bites, Europe's Rich Speak Up to Be Taxed - NYTimes.com

Britain: Government Coalition faces Lib Dem revolt on euro 11.39 North Sea oil tax

Osborne is facing a Liberal Democrat rebellion over his euro 11.39 billion (£10b) tax raid on North Sea oil revenues, as industry leaders condemned the measure, claiming it would cost investment and jobs in Scotland.

A backlash against the windfall tax saw splits open up in the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition, while the oil companies lined up to attack the proposal, seen as the key announcement in the Chancellor's Budget this week.

Malcolm Bruce, the Lib Dem MP for Gordon, vowed to speak to Treasury ministers about the tax, adding: "I am certainly not going to support this measure".Osborne is facing a Liberal Democrat rebellion over his £10 billion tax raid on North Sea oil revenues, as industry leaders condemned the measure, claiming it would cost investment and jobs in Scotland.

For more: Coalition faces Lib Dem revolt on £10bn oil tax - Scotsman.com

No one watches out for taxpayers - by Christine P. Ries

Proposals for tax reform are sweeping the US and Europe. In the US top down and bottom up, tax reform is one of the few issues that could win bipartisan support in the Congress. A growing list of nations and states are pursuing reform by cutting spending and trying to grow their way out of their deficit dilemmas — cut government spending to reduce the draw of resources out of the private sector and restructure the way you tax in order to "incentivize" the growth of existing business and attraction or creation of new businesses.

The US in particular is in this fix because of their deficits. Special-interest groups have captured both political parties; the system in Washington ( and in some cases Europe) rewards those who trade in “special interests.”

U.S. corporate income tax rates are highest in the world after decades of excess spending and raising taxes in attempts to reduce deficits by raising tax rates, especially on corporations. Germany (30 percent), Taiwan (17 percent) and South Korea (25 percent) have already led the way. When Japan cuts its rate this year, the U.S. moves to the number one spot (39.2 percent, combined state and federal.)

In the decade leading to 2007, the 10 states with the lowest corporate income tax rates (2.8 percent on average) saw state personal income grow by 82 percent. That’s against 58 percent for the 10 highest taxing states.

Voting with their feet, Americans looking for jobs and opportunity move to the low tax rate states.
Right now no one is watching out for the most special interest group of all — the taxpayer. In America politicians bring home the bacon while the deficit soars.

For more: No one watches out for taxpayers | ajc.com