Corporate Abuses, Scoops, Tax Evasion
Pacific News Service – April 12, 2005
A new global movement is tracking the increasing number of offshore tax shelters and pressuring governments to make multinationals pay up.
As Americans fret over their personal income taxes, there is a movement afoot to reduce the tax burden on ordinary people by getting corporations and wealthy individuals to pay their fair share.
Last month, the Tax Justice Network (www.taxjustice.net/) issued a report based on publicly available statistics from the Bank of International Settlements and Merrill Lynch, the investment company. The data showed the following:
–Approximately $11.5 trillion of assets are held offshore by high net-worth individuals, or about a third of the total global GDP, the value of goods and services, which in 2003 was $36.2 trillion.
–The annual income that these assets might be expected to earn amounts to $860 billion annually.
–The tax not paid as a result of these funds being held offshore would exceed $255 billion a year.
Offshore, Scoops
CorpWatch, April 4, 2005
In December of 2004, there was a horrific fire in a Buenos Aires disco called the Cromagnon Republic. Three rock fans shot off flares that set fire to the ceiling and engulfed the overcrowded discotheque in flames and smoke. In the rush to get out, 200 people were killed and 700 injured, most from trampling and smoke inhalation. The main entrance had been wired shut, and some of the emergency exits were locked, blocking escape.
In the days that followed, thousands of the victims’ parents and friends marched in the streets and demanded justice. A judge started proceedings for manslaughter and froze $20 million belonging to the owner, Omar Chaban. However, investigators soon discovered that Chaban appeared in no official disco documents; he was just the administrator. The legal owners of the property and the disco company were offshore shell corporations registered in the tax haven of Uruguay, the neighboring country. The listed owner of the enterprise was a Uruguayan straw man in his 70s who had no money.
Travel
It‘s a shimmering sunny morning in the Caribbean, a night‘s voyage out of Antigua, and we‘re lounging on the Lido deck of the elegant Sea Cloud II. First Mate Hendrik Carlsson is explaining how to set sails and navigate a square rigger. Tall ships have square sales and are therefore called square riggers. We‘ve been given diagrams and lists of the 24 sails so we can follow the drill as agile crewmen sprint up high poles. The real sailors among the guests and even neophytes love it!
Offshore, Scoops
Dissent Magazine, Spring 2005
The debate about cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy is a false one. The issue is not whether transnational corporations and the very rich benefit from tax cuts, but that many of them walk away from all taxes. A General Accounting Office report found that between 1996 and 2000, 61 percent of all U.S. companies paid zero federal taxes. They accomplish this primarily through profit laundering, a phrase that ought to be on the lips of every social critic.
Travel
London has so many moods, so many façades, it could be dozens of different cities. I had recently stayed in the West End theater district and in trendy Kensington. Now I turned to investigate places that appealed to two very different kinds of visitors: business people and intellectuals.
For the first, I chose the Hilton at Green Park, a favorite for business travelers, and Threadneedles‘ Bonds Restaurant in the City of London financial center. For the second, I headed for Bloomsbury, site of the British Museum and the University of London, stomping grounds of the famed Bloomsbury literary group, where the Thistle Bloomsbury and the Imperial Hotel offer very different atmospheres.
Travel
How do you know you‘ve picked a trendy hotel? In San Juan, it‘s where the new governor of Puerto Rico, AnÃbal Acevedo Vilá, chooses to have his inauguration party! Just my good luck to arrive there on that festive day. Loud speakers drew me to a nearby park where the political movers and shakers of the island had gathered for the swearing-in.
Then people headed for the tall white Caribe Hilton a short walk away. They had picked my hotel!
