Links this week

A selection of links posted on twitter this week that were not discussed here, possibly of interest:

On the Fiscal Cliff:

• Naked capitalism says don't believe the hype, better to go over the fiscal cliff than take the grand bargain being offered 
• FT seeks tax holiday to bring home corps' $1.5T offshore, because what we need is more tax breaks for apple, google, etc. (Sigh)
• Krugman: proposed tax hikes would raise 14 times as much as would be saved by raising Medicare age, yet only the latter is deemed "serious" 

Of Reefer and Revenues, and other Canadian tax news

• B.C marijuana tax could total billions if pot was legalized (CBC)
• Canada’s budget watchdog takes government to court for refusing to release austerity details (Fin Post)
• Outrageous: Quebec officials entitled to severance pay with just two years of service, even if they were convicted of crime during office.  

Recent scholarship:

• New paper of interest on revenue agency discretion, by Judith Freedman and John Vella

And from around the world:

• In communist Cuba, the tax man cometh (Reuters)
• London calling! Dec 8th action in London revealed! Activists will descend on Starbucks flagship stores and transform them into social service centers
• Border Carbon Adjustments and WTO law (Simon Lester)
• Zambia Says Tax Avoidance Led by Miners Costs $2 Billion a Year (Bloomberg) 

Links this week

When pressed for time, sometimes I post links directly to the twitter feed for this blog (@taxpolblog).  In case they are of interest, this week, they were:

On global tax planning:

• Google: even India vying 4 a pie of Google's Irish profit. Google has appealed 
• Tax havens: Forget Bermuda, Britain's tax havens are much closer to home   
• VAT round tripping: The Hut avoids VAT by shipping via US

In the US:

• On BP: BP pleads GUILTY to crimes following the Gulf oil spill, and will pay the largest fine in USA history: $4.5 billion.; and it was a tough day for BP: “BP to Pay $525 M Penalty to Settle Securities Fraud charges for Deepwater Horizon”  Note BP, a corp, was charged with manslaughter.  Who will serve the time?
• From the Center on Budget: Income inequality has grown in every state from the 1970s to mid-2000s 
• From Econbrowser: The Republican Joint Economic Committee Does Public Finance (not very well) 
• On Carried Interest: A Former Hedge Fund Manager Breaks Down How Wall Street Uses Its Favorite Tax Loophole 

From Montreal:

• Outrageous: Taxpayers to pay for Montreal auditor-general's lawyers as he sues the city for intercepting his emails.

And from around the world:

• Contraception and economic empowerment: UN declares family planning an essential human right that has positive effects on economic development 
• Labor, exploting it, suppressing it, and the cost of commodities: At what cost, cheap furniture? In the 90s Ikea used child labor, now it's prison labour, but Ikea feels sorry ...  ; and Honeywell anti-union strategy leaked: a how to guide for suppressing workers, in (truly horrible) powerpoint... 
• ON what standard should we use to judge laws: Unequal v unfair: 'if rules that govern society are enforced by bad referees, fairness doesn’t stand much of a chance' 

Links

An argument that consumers--not workers or shareholders--pay for the extra costs borne by socially responsible corporations.

A 20 minute long video on the Occupy Movement...from Al Jazeera by way of Naked Capitalism.

A stinging indictment of tax accountants as perpetrators of poverty in poor countries, "deliberately ensuring that tax is not paid in developing countries by promoting the systems that they espouse" and benefit from.

Kickstarter Links

What works in development?  I'm pledging to find out, how about you?

How about pledging money to impact a documentary on how money impacts politics?

Too late: an illustrated guide to Income in the U.S., but it's already funded.

links

An interesting discussion on the nature of public goods and the need for the state to provide them on behalf of the public.

a protest on a pasty tax.

austerity's social impact is scary.

austerity's economic impact is scary.

Links

The fraud involved in the theory that tax cuts pay for themselves; "some lessons here to be learned about how people think and how they want to be convinced things work. When confronted with something they don’t like, like taxes, they are happy to believe a secondary effect, namely stifled growth, actually dominates a primary effect, namely tax revenue. It’s wishful thinking but it’s human nature."

Bolivia has transformed itself by ignoring the Washington Consensus

What causes inequality: institutions, culture, or taxes?

The health care system in the UK is pronounced dead, or nearly so.

Links

Will the US really increase scrutiny for the tax practices of multinationals?  Passed in Dodd-Frank, but regulations are a year late and hotly contested.

Canada to sign a free trade deal with Europe, which will serve it better if the US doesn't follow suit.

Canada's fossil subsidies should end, says a former Conservative MP.

A fascinating interview with a U.S. economist you might not know about, who does field work in India and Africa.

U.S. Congress hasn't passed a budget in almost three years....  Is that really surprising?

On FATCA and hedge funds [gated]

Links

In the UK: a big political battle over budget austerity, street protests over the dismantling of the national health service (NHS), and the effects of austerity and economic malaise on one working family in Britain.

Another argument that capital gains should be treated the same as any other source of income, to preserve horizontal equity.

Another discussion about tax rates that shows why rates by themselves tell us very little about anything.

Links

Are Tax Havens Disappearing?  The OECD Says Yes, Critics Argue More Needs to be Done

In case you somehow missed it, the instantly infamous Goldman Sachs letter

EU struggling with the idea of a financial transactions tax

New Yorkers struggling with the idea of paying tax to New York (thanks Shane)