Pandora Papers, South Dakota, Nevada, and Texas Republicans.

[georgephillip]

The wealthy must be given every opportunity to avoid taxation. The government should not try to find new ways to tax them, as the progressives constantly suggest, but find new ways to protect the wealth of this special and privileged segment of society.

https://staythirstymagazine.blogspot.com/p/greatest-robber-baron-fall-2018.html

 

[georgephillip]

And who is behind this organization, Pandora? Who pays them? I have heard that this is Soros.

Where did you hear Soros was behind the ICIJ?

Inside ICIJ | The Global Muckraker

 

[georgephillip]

In an era of widening authoritarianism and inequality, the Pandora Papers investigation provides an unequaled perspective on how money and power operate in the 21st century – and how the rule of law has been bent and broken around the world by a system of financial secrecy enabled by the U.S. and other wealthy nations.

Here's an opinion (Vanessa Ogle) that outlines a connection between the demise colonialism and the rise of tax havens



"So, we see tax havens emerge, really, for the first time on a sort of significant scale already in the 1920s and '30s.

"And at this point it is a direct reaction to the introduction of income taxes in many countries in Europe and also in the United States.

"But then there's a second phase during which tax havens expand, and new tax havens, important tax havens that we know today, appear on the scene. And that is in the 1950s and ’60s.

"So, that is when you get places like the Bahamas that really sort of take off as a tax haven. That is when you get the Cayman Islands, eventually British Virgin Islands and so on."

 

[georgephillip]

Personally I strongly believe Julian Assange should be freed from his barbaric imprisonment in London.

CODEPINK CONGRESS Action Alert: Free Julian Assange

 

[georgephillip]

The president's son is up to his eyeballs in laundered money and fraudulent financial deals but the left worries about (republican) North Dakota. You can't make this stuff up.

Biden and family are just as corrupt as they (and the Trump family) ever were, yet that reality doesn't mean rational actors should ignore the many other examples of rich parasites (and their political whores) acting badly.

Biggest tax haven in U.S.? South Dakota, says Pandora Papers investigation

 

[georgephillip]

if you want more tax revenue get more people paying taxes…not less people paying more.

it’s also you know fair

Is this fair?

"The richest 1 percent dodge taxes on more than one-fifth of their income, study shows​

Those at the very top of the income spectrum deny the U.S. government roughly $175 billion a year in revenue, researchers estimate."​

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/03/26/wealthy-tax-evasion/

 

[struth]

It has trouble prosecuting tax cheats when the IRS lacks the money to hire a sufficient number of auditors which is exactly what has been happening over the past few decades.

they have plenty of money
….for example there were about 74,500 employees in 2019, there are 83k now.

and the DOJ prosecutes

 

[Orangecat]

Fuck that, there are too many freeloaders

Ironically, that's how the wealthy feel about paying more tax, too.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

You should direct that question to Republicans who have gutted the IRS enforcement budget to such an extent that rich parasites know they will never be audited as regularly as wage earners.

How often do "regular" wage earners get audited?

 

[georgephillip]

they have plenty of money
….for example there were about 74,500 employees in 2019, there are 83k now.

and the DOJ prosecutes

"The new data reveal how the agency has made a substantial shift away from auditing wealthy taxpayers, while still disproportionately auditing the low-income claimants of refundable tax credits. Between 2011 and 2019, the audit rates for those earning more than $1 million fell by 81 percent."

IRS Budget Cuts Let Wealthy Tax Cheats Get Away With It - Center for American Progress

I'm not sure what actions the DoJ has taken recently to make you think either major political party has the slightest intention of prosecuting those who fund their political campaigns?

 

[georgephillip]

they have plenty of money
….for example there were about 74,500 employees in 2019, there are 83k now.

and the DOJ prosecutes

"The new data reveal how the agency has made a substantial shift away from auditing wealthy taxpayers, while still disproportionately auditing the low-income claimants of refundable tax credits. Between 2011 and 2019, the audit rates for those earning more than $1 million fell by 81 percent."

Ironically, that's how the wealthy feel about paying more tax, too.

 

[georgephillip]

How often do "regular" wage earners get audited?

Twice as often as millionaires?

Your chance of getting audited by the IRS is lower than ever

• "U.S. taxpayers are half as likely to get audited as they were a decade ago, according to new IRS data.
• The decline in audits stems from a sharp reduction in agency staff, with the IRS now having fewer auditors than at any point since World War II.
• Audit rates for millionaires have fallen more sharply than for the middle class."

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Lower & working-class Trump supporters who like to scream about “elites” and “globalists” now have nothing to say, or they actually support the very elites — Republican and Democrat — that pass laws lowering taxes on wealthy capitalists and huge international corporations, and support policies that make it easier to hide money in foreign tax shelters, weaken the IRS, etc.

It is sad that they have been brainwashed into supporting and even admiring the “rich, successful” born-with-a-silver spoon demagogue Trump, whose economic program was to lower taxes on the wealthy and increase military spending. Of course there are today many other elements in the “America First” movement, including totally unprincipled grifters who want to rise up into the ranks of power and money like Steve Bannon, televangelists, cynical old Tea Party politicians, etc., etc.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Twice as often as millionaires?

Nothing like linking to an article you didn’t bother to read, huh?

 

[georgephillip]

Nothing like linking to an article you didn’t bother to read, huh?

Focusing on the red herring

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Focusing on the red herring

You obviously don't know what a red herring fallacy is. You linked to an article you clearly didn't read because it completely contradicted your claim.

 

[gipper]

I do not know about the left, but what is distributing to me is I pay a much higher percent of my income in taxes than the reallllly wealthy folks do.

Notice how the Pandora Papers didn’t include many American billionaires like Bezos, Gates, Buffet, and Zuckerfuck. This is because they pay so little in income taxes they don’t need offshore accounts.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Notice how the Pandora Papers didn’t include many American billionaires like Bezos, Gates, Buffet, and Zuckerfuck. This is because they pay so little in income taxes they don’t need offshore accounts.

You are certainly correct here.

Our billionaires have many other ways to avoid paying income tax or even having personal income at all. With armies of accountants even the extraordinary profits of the corporations they direct are hidden or shipped abroad so these (their) corporations too often pay little or no corporate taxes in the U.S.A.

The Pandora investigation is mostly about individuals and not corporations hiding wealth. As such it has caught up mostly just politicians and celebrities and criminals, not corporate executive types or big capitalists.

Of course it is still a good thing to see men like Tony Blair and the King of Jordon get caught with their pants down.

The lack of U.S. politicians in the released files is suspicious however, and has caused much speculation that the millions of raw files released may have emanated from some U.S. state security circles. The Putin folks figure prominently in the Pandora files, as do some Eastern Europeans.

It is certain that even after all the Pandora files are researched and made known we will only be seeing a tiny keyhole view of legal and illegal financial corruption so endemic and systemic today.

As I mentioned earlier, Russian media has argued this is basically just a CIA disinformation leak. Which reminds me of how the U.S. government (under Hillary/Obama and even more so later under Pompeo/Trump) severely persecuted WikiLeaks.

Free Julian Assange!

 

[georgephillip]

It is sad that they have been brainwashed into supporting and even admiring the “rich, successful” born-with-a-silver spoon demagogue Trump, whose economic program was to lower taxes on the wealthy and increase military spending.

"OCTOBER 7, 2021

"Climate-Change Transition in the Age of the Billionaire​

BY JOHN FEFFER"

Conservatives pretend disgust with crony-capitalists who use corrupt politicians to privatize profits and socialize costs, yet they believe every word the corrupt crony capitalist who found a way to cut out the political middlemen (and women) vomits forth.

Trump took full advantage of Russia's economic catastrophe in the 1990s when $20 to $25 billion was leaving the country every year and Russian GDP collapsed nearly 40% between 1991-1998:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...b812da-5171-11e9-88a1-ed346f0ec94f_story.html

"Collusion or not, President Trump and the Russians are thick as thieves.

"What I mean is that for more than three decades, at least 13 people with known or alleged links to the Russian Mafia held the deeds to, lived in or ran criminal operations out of Trump Tower in New York or other Trump properties.

"I mean that many of them used Trump-branded real estate to launder vast amounts of money by buying multimillion-dollar condos through anonymous shell companies.

"I mean that the Bayrock Group, a real estate development company that was based in Trump Tower and had ties to the Kremlin, came up with a new business model to franchise Trump condos after he lost billions of dollars in his Atlantic City casino developments, and helped make him rich again."

It appears the Biden DoJ has no interest in pursing allegations of money laundering possibly because of all the campaign contributions that Don the Con(vict) has made to the Democratic Party throughout his felonious lifetime?

 

[georgephillip]

You obviously don't know what a red herring fallacy is. You linked to an article you clearly didn't read because it completely contradicted your claim.

You obviously failed to comprehend what my link said IF you ever bothered to read it.