tax dodge

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Tax Dodgers Nabbed Using ... Google Street View

Some 100 Lithuanian homeowners, 30 construction companies identified

(Newser) - As soon as Google Maps Street View was rolled out in Lithuania earlier this year, tax authorities were ready. Sitting in the comfort of their own offices, inspectors used the free Internet program for a virtual cruise around the streets of some of the Baltic country's big cities, uncovering...

Google Dodges $2B in Taxes With Bermuda Move

Profit stowed there nearly doubles

(Newser) - Google shifted $9.8 billion in revenue to its Bermuda shell company last year, in a move that allowed it to cut its overall tax rate almost in half, Bloomberg reports based on company filings. The figure is nearly double what Google funneled overseas three years earlier, and represents roughly...

Romney's Finances Look Really Suspicious

Vanity Fair details all the strange contortions Romney is doing to dodge taxes

(Newser) - Mitt Romney's tax returns —and the bevy of offshore tax havens they point to—have already provided lots of fodder for critics, but all generally agree that he's done nothing illegal. "But it is worth asking if it is actually true," writes Nicholas Shaxson in...

US Firms Buck $60B in Taxes With Foreign Money Shuffle

'Transfer pricing' sends profits overseas—on paper only

(Newser) - Lexapro, one of the world's best-selling antidepressants, is made by an American company and sold exclusively in the US, but the US doesn't see a penny in tax revenue when you buy a bottle. Instead, your money goes around the world as part of a complicated transaction dubbed the “...

Nev. Newspaper Defends Commenters' Anonymity

Review-Journal , ACLU fight subpoena for commenters' identities

(Newser) - A tax-evasion trial has sparked a free-speech controversy at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The paper has declined to honor a federal subpoena demanding the identities of everyone who commented on an article on the trial. Businessman Robert Kahre faces tax-fraud charges for hiding the real value of sales of gold...

Report: US Loses $100B Yearly to Tax Havens

Tax Day release highlight burden tax-dodging firms put on taxpayers

(Newser) - Corporations stashing their cash in tax havens cost the US—and ordinary taxpayers who shoulder the burden instead—$100 billion every year, the Huffington Post reports. A new report breaks down the loss through "shell companies and sham headquarters" by state, finding that the people of New York are...

Irish Angry at U2's Tax Evasion

Group criticized as hypocritical in light of history of activism

(Newser) - U2 is under fire for possible tax evasion as the Irish government pushes for a bigger slice of the band’s earnings, the Christian Science Monitor reports. U2 moved its publishing company to Amsterdam in 2006 after a tax bill limited artists’ tax-free earnings to $315,000. With Irish deficits...

'Language Barrier', Not Tax Evasion: Rangel

Powerful congressman sorry for screw-up

(Newser) - Rep. Charles Rangel blamed his failure to pay taxes on his rental income from a Caribbean villa to “cultural and language barriers,” reports the New York Times. “Every time I thought I was getting somewhere, they’d start speaking Spanish,” Rangel said of his attempts to...

New US Tax Law Looks Heartless to Foreign Workers

Would-be tax evaders will pay, but so will wealthy green-card holders

(Newser) - A new tax law set up to help troops and veterans, offset by taxing wealthy Americans who give up citizenship to beat the IRS, hits some others in the wallet, Portfolio reports. Long-term, legal foreign workers who return home will see unrealized capital gains taxed—potentially damaging the perception of...

It's Our Tax Money Going to Helmsley's Dogs
It's Our Tax Money Going to Helmsley's Dogs
Opinion

It's Our Tax Money Going to Helmsley's Dogs

Charitable donation laws subsidize the whims of the rich

(Newser) - Leona Helmsley’s latest post-mortem shocker—the revelation that she earmarked $8 billion of her charitable bequest for dog welfare—is a perfect illustration of the insanity of our charity laws, writes Ray Madoff for the New York Times. Helmsley isn’t just spending her own money; because charitable donations...

Homes Raided Nationwide in German Tax Fraud Probe

$5B tax dodge crackdown

(Newser) - The fallout from Germany's enormous tax evasion scandal continued yesterday as police began a nationwide raid of the homes and offices of over a hundred people. More than 1,000 rich Germans are suspected of cheating the German treasury out of $5 billion by transferring huge sums to banks and...

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