Thursday, November 30, 2017

Andy Borowitz

White House: All Women Named Theresa Represent Real Threat


WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Just hours after Donald J. Trump mistakenly sent an angry tweet intended for the British Prime Minister,
 Theresa May, to a random woman named Theresa May Scrivener with only six Twitter followers, the White House press secretary,
 Sarah Huckabee Sanders, offered a vigorous defense of his action.  "The President may have attacked the wrong Theresa, but all 
Theresas represent a real threat," Sanders said.  Doubling down on the new White House policy against women named Theresa, 
Sanders said that attacking women with the same first name as the British Prime Minister "sends her a powerful message."
"If you attack every woman named Theresa, you are obviously including Theresa May in that," Sanders told the press corps.
 "Why is this so hard for you people to understand?"
Sanders said that Trump's war on Theresas would extend to women who spell their name "Teresa," including Teresa Giudice, a cast member 
of "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," and Mother Teresa, the late Catholic nun and missionary.
"He is taking the threat of Theresas very seriously," she said. "It will be handled."  While Sanders put the best face on Trump's 
decision to send an angry tweet to the wrong Theresa, behind the scenes White House officials were scrambling to make sure that
 he had imposed sanctions on the right Korea.

--
****
Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





Thursday, November 23, 2017

Something to Know - 23 November




Hope this gets to you before you obfuscate your mind with pre-dinner cheering beverages.   You will have the option of abstaining for fear of later regretting what you might say to those who continue to remain on the right wing of the Turkey, or load up to the limit and let them have it if the slightest opportunity arises:

Opinion |OP-ED COLUMNIST
SHARE
Your Thanksgiving Quiz
By GAIL COLLINS NOV. 22, 2017

Happy Thanksgiving! Time to enjoy a dinner with friends and family, then move on to a month of political arguments about whether it's wrong to say "Season's greetings." It does seem like it's been a long autumn. When it started off, President Trump was making deals with "Chuck and Nancy" and having dinner with Democratic senators while everybody agreed on the importance of not doing any tax cuts for the wealthy. And here we are. Let's see how much you've failed to suppress …

President Trump pardoning the National Thanksgiving Turkey on Tuesday. Tom Brenner/The New York Times


1 of 11
In her new memoir, Trump's ex-wife Ivana said he originally objected to the idea of naming their firstborn Donald Jr. because he worried the boy might be …

A. "More of a Harold."
B. "A loser."
C. "Angry if I wind up having a huge tabloid sex scandal when he's in high school and stuck with the same name."

2 of 11
On Halloween, Donald Jr. said he was going to take half his daughter's candy to teach her …

A. "About socialism."
B. "About calorie counting."
C. "About never trusting your parents."
3 of 11
Trump told some moderate Democrats that he wanted to include elimination of the estate tax in the big Republican tax bill because …

A. "Eric and Ivanka started crying."
B. The bill was so tough on rich people, he wanted "just to give them something."
C. "This country was built by people who inherited massive amounts of wealth from their father."

4 of 11
Senate Finance Committee chairman Orrin Hatch rejected Democratic arguments that the tax bill was mainly for the wealthy, saying …

A. "Trickledowntrickledowntrickledown, nyah nyah nyah."
B. "If I wanted to worry about children's health care, I'd have become a doctor."
C. "I've been here working my whole stinking career for people who don't have a chance."

5 of 11
The father of one of the U.C.L.A. basketball players arrested in China for shoplifting reacted noncommittally to Trump's demand that he be thanked for the young men's release. ("Who?") The president's response was …

A. "Well, just so long as those kids are all right, I'm happy."
B. "Have you noticed how many difficult people are the fathers of sports stars?"
C. "I should have left them in jail!"

6 of 11
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders explained that the story about Al Franken having groped a woman while he was a comedian was much worse than the fact that at least 16 women have accused the president of sexual harassment and sexual assault because …

A. The president was a much bigger star.
B. The president isn't admitting anything.
C. A photograph is worse than a tape recording.

7 of 11
An Ohio Supreme Court justice and Democratic gubernatorial candidate attempted to put a halt to all the gossip about politicians' sexual misbehavior by announcing that …

A. He had "never touched a woman I wasn't engaged to."
B. He "was sexually intimate with approximately 50 very attractive females."
C. He was undergoing preventive harassment counseling "just so you'll know I'm serious about not messing up."
8 of 11
In what was probably the best-quoted defense of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, the state auditor said there was nothing wrong with a man in his 30s pursuing teenage girls since …

A. "Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus."
B. "I believe he was interested in instructing them on fiscal austerity."
C. "Roy was very immature for a 34-year-old."

9 of 11
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross suffered a terrible blow when Forbes magazine announced it had discovered he …

A. Isn't really all that rich.
B. Isn't really turning 80 this month.
C. Was attempting to acquire North Dakota with a leveraged buyout.

10 of 11
Scott Pruitt, who's head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said science …

A. "Is something I know a lot about — I dissected a frog in high school."
B. "Is not something that should be just thrown about to try to dictate policy in Washington, D.C."
C. "Is O.K. if you like that sort of thing."

11 of 11
The acting secretary of homeland security said the government's response to the hurricane disaster in Puerto Rico …

A. "Could have been better if we'd had more time to think about it."
B. "Would have been different if we'd known it was part of America."
C. "Is really a good-news story."

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****
Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





Monday, November 20, 2017

Something to Know - 20 November

In the spirit of the season, the 45th president wants to be the first one to send out a Humanitarian Holiday Wish.  He's made his list, and there are 59,000 names on it.


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****
Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





Sunday, November 19, 2017

Fwd: Christmas Turkey idea, from Nanci Carroll

Today's Message.....be prepared for Thursday.





----
The truth will set you free, but first it'll piss you off. — Gloria Steinem


Andrew Gordon, Professor Emeritus
Evans School of Public Affairs
University of Washington
Box 353055 Parrington Hall
Seattle WA 98195-3055






--
****
Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





Friday, November 17, 2017

Something to Know - 17 November






The House GeeOpie has come up with a way to pass a "tax reform" bill, that is supposed to resolve their displeasure with the current system of taxation.  The effort is a blatant effort to increase taxes on the lower bracket tax payers, and take from current government programs so that they can cover a big gap and try to not go over adding any more to the predicted $1.5 Trillion to the deficit that this bill will add.  It's ludicrous.  This article from today's NY Times is just one, of many many examples, where the Republican Party takes from or shuts down something good to pay for the tax breaks to the really, really rich and wealthy.  This is no way to govern, and such behavior has its consequences:



Opinion

The House Just Voted to Bankrupt Graduate Students


Republicans in the House of Representatives have just passed a tax bill that would devastate graduate research in the United States. Hidden in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is a repeal of Section 117(d)(5) of the current tax code, a provision that is vital to all students who pursue master's degrees or doctorates and are not independently wealthy.

I'm a graduate student at M.I.T., where I study the neurological basis of mental health disorders. My peers and I work between 40 and 80 hours a week as classroom teachers and laboratory researchers, and in return, our universities provide us with a tuition waiver for school. For M.I.T. students, this waiver keeps us from having to pay a bill of about $50,000 every year — a staggering amount, but one that is similar to the fees at many other colleges and universities. No money from the tuition waivers actually ends up in our pockets, so under Section 117(d)(5), it isn't counted as taxable income.

But under the House's tax bill, our waivers will be taxed. This means that M.I.T. graduate students would be responsible for paying taxes on an $80,000 annual salary, when we actually earn $33,000 a year. That's an increase of our tax burden by at least $10,000 annually.

t would make meeting living expenses nearly impossible, barring all but the wealthiest students from pursuing a Ph.D. The students who will be hit hardest — many of whom will almost certainly have to leave academia entirely — are those from communities that are already underrepresented in higher education.

Some universities might be able to cover tuition for some students, but in so doing, they would be forced to decrease the total number of graduate students they accept. American applicants to graduate school will leave the United States in favor of less expensive international institutions, and United States institutions will be unable to attract international candidates. At M.I.T., 43 percent of graduate students are foreign nationals, many of whom receive international funding. These students conduct transformative research, and bring so much diversity of culture, experience and expertise to our schools. Do we really want to shut out the next generation of innovators from our universities?

Graduate students are part of the hidden work force that drives some of the most important scientific and sociological advancements in the country. The American public benefits from it. Every dollar of basic research funded by the National Institutes of Health, for example, leads to a $1.70 output from biotechnology industries. The N.I.H. reports that the average American life span has increased by 30 years, in part, because of a better understanding of human health. I'd say that's a pretty good return on investment for United States taxpayers.

I personally owe my life and mobility to academic research. In 2015, I found out I had reflex sympathetic dystrophy (also known as complex regional pain syndrome), and since then, I have spent around 20 percent of my annual income on medical expenses. If Congress passes the House Republicans' tax bill as it stands, I will be forced to choose between medical expenses and my education.

In a horrible twist, the repeal of Section 117 (d)(5) isn't the only part of the tax bill that would hurt college students. The House bill would also end the student loan interest deduction, which allows individuals who make up to $80,000 and are repaying student loans to decrease their debt. It also eliminates the Lifetime Learning Credit, which is instrumental for many nontraditional students.

And still, House Republicans voted this bill into law. Now it is up to our representatives in both the House and Senate to reject it.

Erin Rousseau is a Ph.D. Student in the Harvard-M.I.T. Program in Health Sciences and Technology.




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****
Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





Thursday, November 16, 2017

Something to Know - 16 November

I know that this is blatant tabloid stuff, but nevertheless, it is today's news

US President Donald Trump delivers remarks on November 15, 2017 in the Diplomatic Room at the White House in Washington,DC. / AFP PHOTO / Nicholas Kamm        (Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)
REBLOGGED BY

This is what passes in the Trump Administration for a "distraction":

The Trump administration plans to allow hunters to import trophies of elephants they killed in Zimbabwe and Zambia back to the United States, reversing a ban put in place by the Obama administration in 2014, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official confirmed to ABC News today.

Zimbabwe is currently in a state of martial law.

It's unclear how the current political situation in Zimbabwe could affect this decision, but a blog post from the president of the Humane Societypoints out that poaching has been a problem in Zimbabwe over the years and that the hunting industry there faces corruption issues.

From ABC News:

trump_junior_holding_elephan_tail.jpg
Trump's son posing with his "trophy" elephant's tail.  

Savanna elephant populations declined by 30 percent across 18 countries in Africa from 2007 to 2014, according to the Great Elephant Census published last year, which put their remaining numbers at just over 350,000.

The elephant population declined 6 percent overall in Zimbabwe but dropped by 74 percent within one specific region. Elephants saw "substantial declines along the Zambezi River," in Zambia while other areas of that country were stable, according to the census.

The ban was originally imposed because Zimbabwe, one of the most corrupt nations on Earth, could not show that its management of elephants enhanced the elephant population, nor could they demonstrate any ability to implement or enforce laws designed to protect that population. However the regime did enjoy the influx of cash from "hunting advocacy organizations" shuttling in wealthy Americans eager to "hunt" endangered species and bring their severed body parts home to impress their friends and neighbors:

"It's a venal and nefarious pay-to-slay arrangement that Zimbabwe has set up with the trophy hunting industry," said Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society.

That did not deter the Trump Administration:

Even though elephants are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, a provision in the act allows the government to give permits to import these trophies if there is evidence that the hunting actually benefits conservation for that species. The official said they have new information from officials in Zimbabwe and Zambia to support reversing the ban to allow trophy hunting permits.

Sick fucks.









Noam Chomsky on Halloween Night Costume




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****
Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Something to Know - 14 November


The proposed GOP "tax rform" is nothing more than a hack system that publishes people who did not vote for trump, and pastes all kinds of schemes into the tax code that invites the imbalance of voter representation to fit their needs.   Add to this the redistribution of wealth from middle to the 1% and big corporations, and paying for this underhanded scheme with trillions in credit card charges that the 99% will be stuck with.


Opinion | OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS

Robbing Blue States to Pay Red



Much of the debate over the Republican House and Senate tax plans has centered on how they will shift income toward the affluent. But there is a second kind of redistribution in the plans — from Democratic blue states to Republican red states.

Call it the Republican two-step: redistribute upward, then sideways. The biggest beneficiaries are corporations and the rich regardless of where they are. But under the Republican plans, half of these big cuts have to be paid for in the first 10 years (the other half will be added to the national debt, increasing it by $1.5 trillion). And these "pay-fors," as they're called, are predominantly aimed at blue states.

As Representative Lee Zeldin, Republican of New York, lamented, the tax bills are "taking money from a state like New York to pay for deeper tax cuts elsewhere."

Republicans' red-state bias may seem like just more of the same. After all, their last big legislative drive — the Senate health bill, Graham-Cassidy, which failed in September — also sought a major transfer of resources from blue states that had done a good job expanding health insurance to red states that hadn't. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, derided that bill as "petty politics" — "just taking the Obamacare money, keeping it and taking it from Democratic states and giving it to Republican states."

But this nakedly partisan federalism is far from politics as usual. Parties generally try to favor segments of society that support them — and Republicans' bias toward big business and rich donors certainly fits that pattern. Yet major efforts by a dominant party to significantly redistribute resources toward states that support it are in fact extremely rare. Indeed, one of the last standout examples dates to the decades after the Civil War, when Republicans used the proceeds of high tariffs that aided Northern industry (while hurting the solidly Democratic South) to pay generous pensions to Union veterans concentrated in Republican states.

Because the Republicans' most prized constituencies, corporations and the rich, are actually more prevalent in blue states, the overall geographic distribution of the beneficiaries of the current Republican tax bills is mixed. But the growing signs that policies are being written to impose costs on states behind enemy lines are worrisome. A new spoils system based on state partisanship wouldn't just poison our politics. It could also cripple our economic future.

How do the tax bills favor red over blue states? Most notably, they curtail or eliminate the deductibility of state and local taxes. This is the largest single pay-for in the plans — roughly $1.3 trillion over 10 years in the Senate legislation, which kills the deduction. And a majority of those bearing the cost are tax filers in blue states. Indeed, all of the states that have above-average use of the state and local taxes deduction voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The other major tax break in the cross hairs of House Republicans is the home mortgage interest deduction. As with local taxes, all the states that have an above-average number of homes that would be affected by the deduction cap in the House bill voted for Mrs. Clinton. (The Senate version doesn't include this provision.)

Some of the pay-fors aimed at blue states look even more gratuitous. The House bill would phase out certain deductions for personal casualty losses — but "grandfathers" victims of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, though not the horrific California fires.

In sum, Republicans have put the majority of their tax cuts on the nation's credit card, but they've handed most of the rest of the bill to blue states.

To see just how unusual that approach is, think back to 2009, when President Barack Obama briefly had a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate. Did he use it to shift spending away from red states? Hardly. His signature accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act, was most generous to poorer states, where more people lacked insurance — that is, red states.

This effect was of course blunted by the Supreme Court's ruling that states could refuse the law's Medicaid expansion and blunted further by the unwillingness of many red states to accept the expansion's extremely generous terms. Even so, struggling parts of red America have come to depend heavily on Medicaid and other safety-net programs expanded by Democrats in 2009 and 2010.

Nor is the A.C.A.'s favoring of red states an exception. Compared with blue-state residents, people in red states get back much more in federal spending relative to the federal taxes they pay, mainly because red states are poorer on average. In other words, the Republican elimination of the state and local tax deduction is not fixing an "unfair" situation. It makes the existing blue state disadvantage even larger.

The A.C.A.'s universalistic approach has been the norm for a simple reason: National parties represent coalitions of local representatives that cut across state lines. Despite distinctive regional bases, the two major parties have generally featured a significant degree of geographic diversity, so partisan majorities had no political reason to systematically extract resources from some regions to the benefit of others.

As with other lines of division in American politics, however, the geographic lines have been hardening. Today, blue-state Republicans and red-state Democrats are much less common. As the political scientist David Hopkins has pointed out, the 15 coastal and Northeastern states that now form the Democrats' geographic stronghold send only two Republicans to the Senate. The trends in the House are similar, with the Republican majority containing fewer and fewer seats in solidly blue states.

But Democrats haven't sought big transfers toward "their" states. Why are Republicans distinctive? Because of a second crucial feature of our federal system: Parties get rewarded not just for winning over specific people but also for winning in specific places. Because Republicans are stronger in the most sparsely populated areas, they possess a growing structural advantage. This, in turn, increases their incentive and capacity to favor red over blue states.

The Republicans' advantage stems from two main sources. First, the overrepresentation of less-populous states in the Senate has become more consequential as the population gap between crowded and rural states grows and as rural states become more solidly Republican. Second, the increasing concentration of Democratic voters in urban areas — and Republican gerrymandering to exploit this — means more and more Democratic votes are "wasted" on easy wins. As a consequence, Republicans in both the House and the Senate can lose the national popular vote and still control a majority of seats. Democrats, by contrast, still need to win some red regions of the country.

Of course, the remaining Republican legislators in blue states face cross-pressures. But many come from deep-red areas and feel more vulnerable to primary challenges than to a general election opponent. They also fear the wrath of Republicans' increasingly assertive big-money donors, who often reside outside a politician's district. As Chris Collins, another New York Republican who is conflicted about the tax bills, admitted, "My donors are basically saying, 'Get it done or don't ever call me again.' "

Republican leaders are betting that enough blue-state Republicans will put loyalty to party ahead of the prosperity of their state — or at least recognize that the first part of the Republican two-step (big tax cuts for rich people in blue as well as red states) may redound to their benefit even if the second (pay-fors aimed at blue states) doesn't.

But if their bet pays off, it isn't just blue states that will suffer. Red America may hold the key to Republicans' control of government, but blue America holds many of the keys to our nation's economic future. Indeed, among the blue-state pay-fors, the most troubling may be those that will bleed institutions of higher education, particularly in the House bill. In their zeal to extract revenues from blue states, Republicans are threatening our nation's ability to excel in a global knowledge economy.

The moral of Civil War pensions is cautionary. Pensions for Union veterans devolved into a spectacularly corrupt system that undermined political support for much-needed universal social policies. High tariffs outlived their utility and helped incite a global trade war in the 1930s. It took the Great Depression to unleash new social programs and major federal investment in the South. Republicans should think twice before succumbing to the dangerous appeal of territorial tribalism again.

Jacob S. Hacker, a professor of political science at Yale, and Paul Pierson, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, are the authors of "American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper."


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****
Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





Saturday, November 11, 2017

Something to Know - 11 November




Getting a grip and understanding how the uber wealthy and stinky rich can get away with non-payment of taxes is upsetting and frustrating,   This NY Times article this morning has a nice rolling graphic display of the methodology, and the best way to see it is to go directly to the NY Times link.  If you cannot get past the link or are denied access because you are not a subscriber, I think there is enough in the copy and paste article that can provide enough clarity:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/10/opinion/gabriel-zucman-paradise-papers-tax-evasion.html?emc=edit_th_20171111&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=2318049


The United States loses, according to my estimates, close to $70 billion a year in tax revenue due to the shifting of corporate profits to tax havens. That's close to 20 percent of the corporate tax revenue that is collected each year. This is legal.

Meanwhile, an estimated $8.7 trillion, 11.5 percent of the entire world's G.D.P., is held offshore by ultrawealthy households in a handful of tax shelters, and most of it isn't being reported to the relevant tax authorities. This is… not so legal.

These figures represent a huge loss of resources that, if collected, could be used to cut taxes on the rest of us, or spent on social programs to help people in our societies.

How do they do it?

For an example, look no further than your search bar. In 2003, a year before it went public, Google (now a multinational conglomerate known as Alphabet) began a series of moves that would allow it to obtain favorable tax treatment in the future.

(now Alphabet)

Google Ireland

Holdings

BERMUDA

"MANAGED"

(now Alphabet)

Google Ireland

Holdings

BERMUDA

"MANAGED"

(now Alphabet)

Google Ireland

Holdings

BERMUDA

"MANAGED"

Google Ireland

Limited

IRELAND

(now Alphabet)

Google Ireland

Holdings

BERMUDA

"MANAGED"

Google Ireland

Limited

IRELAND

Google Affiliate

Google Affiliate

Google Affiliate

AFRICA

EUROPE

MIDDLE

EAST

(now Alphabet)

Google Ireland

Holdings

BERMUDA

"MANAGED"

Google Ireland

Limited

IRELAND

IRELAND

$$$

Google Affiliate

FRANCE

(now Alphabet)

Google Ireland

Holdings

$$$

BERMUDA

"MANAGED"

Google Ireland

Limited

IRELAND

IRELAND

$$$

Google Affiliate

FRANCE

First, it transferred ownership of intellectual property related to its all-important search and advertising technologies to an entity named Google Ireland Holdings.

Why Ireland? Because not only did it have favorable corporate tax rates, its regulations also allowed Google Ireland Holdings to incorporate there but be "managed" in Bermuda.

Google Ireland Holdings then created another Irish subsidiary, Google Ireland Limited, and granted it a license to use the technology now owned by the Irish parent company.

Under this arrangement, which as far as we know is still in place, it is Google Ireland Limited that actually licenses the tech of Google's main business to all the Google affiliates in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. (Google has a similar offshoot in Singapore that covers business in Asia).

Google France, for example, pays royalties to Google Ireland Limited.

That entity in turn moves its profits to Bermuda via a royalty payment to the Google Ireland Holdings.

See where this is going? In 2015, $15.5 billion in profits made their way to Google Ireland Holdings in Bermuda even though Google employs only a handful of people there. It's as if each inhabitant of the island nation had made the company $240,000.

The corporate
tax rate there?

ZERO

In doing this, Google didn't break the law. Corporations like Google are simply shifting profits to places where corporate taxes are low. It's not just Internet companies with valuable intellectual property that do this. A car manufacturer, for instance, might shift profits by manipulating export and import prices – exporting car components from America to Ireland at artificially low prices, and importing them back at prices that are artificially high.

According to the latest available figures, 63 percent of all the profits made outside of the United States by American multinationals are now reported in six low- or zero-tax countries: the Netherlands, Bermuda, Luxembourg, Ireland, Singapore and Switzerland. These countries, but above all the shareholders of these corporations, benefit while others lose.

My colleagues Thomas Torslov and Ludvig Wier and I combined the data published by tax havens all over the world to estimate the scale of these losses. The $70 billion a year in revenue that the United States is deprived of is nearly equal to all of America's spending on food stamps. The European Union suffers similar losses.

So what can be done?

Thankfully, Ireland has announced it will close the "double Irish" loophole that Google used, and arrangements that take advantage of that loophole must be terminated by 2020. But similar strategies will be used as long as we let companies choose the location of their profits.

Just look at what Apple did in 2014 — it's one of the most spectacular revelations from the newly released Paradise Papers. After learning Irish authorities were going to close loopholes it had used, Apple asked a Bermuda-based law firm, Appleby, to design a similar tax shelter on the English Channel island of Jersey, which typically does not tax corporate income. Appleby duly obliged, and Jersey became the new home of the (previously Irish) companies Apple Sales International and Apple Operations International.

A potential fix would be to allocate the taxable profits made by multinationals proportionally to the amount of sales they make in each country.

Say Google's parent company Alphabet makes $100 billion in profits globally, and 50 percent of its sales in the United States (a relatively similar scenario to the first quarter of this year, in which that figure was 48 percent). In that case, $50 billion would be taxable in the United States, irrespective of where Google's intangible assets are or where its workers are employed. A system similar to this already governs state corporate taxes in America.

Such a reform would quash artificial profit-shifting. Corporations may be able to shift around profits, assets, and subsidiaries, but they cannot move all their customers to Bermuda.

This system is not perfect, but it's orders of magnitude better than both the laws that now govern the taxation of international profits and the tax package being proposed by congressional Republicans. Under the proposed plan some international profits would be taxed at 10 percent, but there are many likely exemptions.

One advantage of allocating taxable profits as I suggest is that this reform can be adopted unilaterally. There is no need for the United States (or any other nation that wants to cut down on tax avoidance) to obtain permission from anybody.

But we'd still face an equally daunting problem, the far more shadowy – and ultimately illegal – tax evasion of ultrawealthy individuals, many of them with net worths already bolstered by the proceeds of corporate tax avoidance. Here's an example.

Meet Michael. Michael is the (fictional) chief executive and owner of an American company, Michael & Company. Like many people, he would like to pay as little in taxes as possible. But unlike most people, he can take some steps that will allow him to do just that.

Michael & Co.

AMERICA

Anonymous

Shell Co. Inc.

CAYMAN ISLANDS

Michael & Co.

AMERICA

Anonymous

Shell Co. Inc.

Bank

CYPRUS

CAYMAN ISLANDS

Michael & Co.

AMERICA

Anonymous

Shell Co. Inc.

Bank

CYPRUS

CAYMAN ISLANDS

Michael & Co.

AMERICA

Anonymous

Shell Co. Inc.

Bank

CYPRUS

CAYMAN ISLANDS

First, he creates an anonymous shell company incorporated in the Cayman Islands, which has lax regulations on disclosing the identities of company owners.

He then opens an account under the shell company's name in Cyprus (or one of many other tax havens, such as Switzerland, Hong Kong and Panama, whose banks cater to the wealthy and aren't reliable about cooperating with foreign tax authorities).

Finally, Michael & Company buys fictitious services from the Cayman shell company ("consulting," for example) ...

… and, to pay for these services, wires money to the shell company's Cyprus account.

The transaction generates a paper trail that can appear legitimate at first glance. But the reality is more insidious. By paying for fictitious consulting, Michael fraudulently reduces the taxable profits of Michael & Company, and thus the amount of corporate income tax he pays.

And once the money has arrived in Cyprus, it is invested in global financial markets and generates income that the Internal Revenue Service can tax only if Michael reports it or if his Cypriot bank informs the I.R.S.

It's supposed to, but many offshore banks have routinely violated their obligations in the past, by pretending they didn't have American customers or hiding them behind shell companies. So this way, Michael can evade American federal income tax as well as paying fewer corporate taxes through his company.

And meanwhile, in America, if he wants to use any of the money stashed in Cyprus, he can simply go to an ATM and make a withdrawal from his offshore account.

How do we know all this?

Until recently, we did not have a good sense of who owns the wealth held offshore, but with my colleagues Annette Alstadsaeter and Niels Johannesen, we have been able to make progress thanks to leaks over the last few years. In 2015, the Swiss Leaks revealed the owners of bank accounts at HSBC Switzerland, and in 2016 the Panama Papers revealed those of the shell companies created by the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. These showed that 50 percent of the wealth held in tax havens belongs to households with more than $50 million in net wealth, a minuscule number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals who avoid paying their fair share. In the Paradise Papers, we see that these are not only Russian oligarchs or Belgian dentists who use tax havens, but rich Americans too.

As I mentioned above, about 11.5 percent of world G.D.P. is held offshore by households. For a long time, the bulk of it was held in Switzerland, but a fast-growing fraction is now in Hong Kong, Singapore and other emerging havens.

We can stop offshore tax evasion by shining some light on darker corners of the global banking industry. The most compelling way to do this would be to create comprehensive registries recording the true individual owners of real estate and financial securities, including equities, bonds and mutual fund shares.

One common objection to financial registries is that they would impinge on privacy. Yet countries have maintained property records for land and real estate for decades. These records are public, and epidemics of abuse are hard to come by.

The notion that a register of financial wealth would be a radical departure is wrong. And the benefits would be enormous, as comprehensive registries would make it possible to not only reduce tax evasion, but also curb money laundering, monitor international capital flows, fight the financing of terrorism and better measure inequality.

The onus here is on the United States and the European Union. Why do we allow criminals, tax evaders and kleptocrats to ultimately use our financial and real estate markets to launder their wealth? Transparency is the first step in making sure the wealthy can't cheat their way out of contributing to the common good.


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Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson