This post is dedicated to the memory of Orni El-Ad, my mentor and friend, who introduced me to the world of taxation and taught me how to "think tax". Orni died suddenly this weekend at the premature age of 64. May his memory be blessed. "The Children's Book" by A S Byatt is, without doubt, one…
The Greecy pole
When it was suggested last week by a sympathetic BBC interviewer that the Italian government's decision not to fund Rome's bid for the 2020 Olympic Games had cost Italy the chance of taking its place on the world stage, the interviewee retorted sharply "Italy has been on the world stage for 2000 years". Meanwhile, the Greeks keep…
A Greek tragedy – the gods’ revenge
The scene: a windswept precipice at the very edge of Europe overlooking the Aegean Sea. A little man in a business suit stands nervously behind a robust middle-aged woman dressed in what appears, in the failing light, to be a teletubbies jumpsuit. Both are a safe distance from the cliff-face. She is evidently in charge. Two nondescript blacksuited men stand dangerously…
When Harry met Fabi
As a devoted Tottenham Hotspur fan, I was delighted to hear yesterday that manager Harry Redknapp had been cleared of all charges of tax evasion by a unanimous decision of the jury in his trial at Southwark Crown Court. This opened the way for him to be eligible for the job of manager of…
Hard times, great expectations
Mid-Atlantic. 35,000 feet. Dead of night. Everyone around me fast asleep. My seat bathed in the eery glow of one small lamp. Chapter 22: "A Gritty State of Things Come On". The height of the novel. I turn the last page and briefly scroll my eyes to the bottom of the text. The final full stop…
Sorry, wrong number
The first to hit the catwalk at the Miss World Tax beauty contest that spanned year-end was Lady Justice New Zealand with a December 12 landmark tax avoidance decision. Following close on her high-tax heels on December 19 was Lady Justice Canada with an insight into the application of the General Anti-Avoidance Rule and only a day later Lady Justice…
L’entente cordiale?
De Gaulle once told Churchill's wife Clementine, "France has no friends, only interests". This could have been the motto for his great creation, the Fifth Republic or - for that matter - the Fourth, Third, Second or First. Nicolas Sarkozy is at it again. Spurred on by the threat of his presidency being guillotined at the French elections…
For tax advisor and country
There is a framed football shirt hanging on my son's wall. It is half blue, half white - the blue half sporting the insignia of the Israel Football Association and the white half the Three Lions of England. Scrawled in indelible marker across the English half is the inscription "Good Luck, Bobby Charlton" ( for the benefit…
Lies, damned lies and tax rates
Romney 25%! Gingrich 12.5%! Santorum 17.5%! Perry 20%! Remember the old Fair Ground game where you had to guess the number of candies in a jar? If you got the nearest number you won a massive, totally inflammable, furry toy that Mum and Dad refused to take home in the car but relented when they couldn't find a big…
To tax or not to tax…..
Forced to summarize Israel's international tax legislation in half a sentence, I could not better Shakespeare's all time bogeyman - Richard III: "Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time/ Into this breathing world, scarce half made up". Tax legislation in the first half-century following Israel's independence adopted, what might now be termed, the "Mitt Romney Approach" - …
Tax Break 