Jay Leno once went walkabout in New York asking innocent passers-by if they could name a country beginning with the letter 'U'. Apart from the usual camera induced deer-in-the-headlights non-responses, a few bright sparks came up with Uganda and Uruguay. At the close of the piece, as the camera faded out, Leno was heard asking:…
GILTI until proven simple
Appearing on Johnny Carson's Tonight show in 1975, the ex-governor of California quipped: 'We live in the only country in the world where it takes more brains to figure out your income tax than it does to earn the income.' A little over a decade later, the same gentleman put his pen where his mouth…
Putting a Price on Morality
'If you prick us, do we not bleed?' Well, not if we are a company. This was the point on which I was reduced to a state of heckling at the Lisbon conference described in my previous post. A Breakout 'Conversation' - Breakout 'Sessions' are SO last decade - on 'Tax and Morality' was irresistible. (Look,…
Taking the mojo out of inversions
By now, everybody has heard of the aborted takeover of British pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca by US giant, Pfizer. The latest in a series of US corporate inversions, the new corporate structure was to be headed by the smaller UK company, thus largely spiriting the merged group beyond the lascivious tentacles of the US Internal Revenue Service. Fascinated by…
Tracking tax avoidance
" U.S. Lawmakers Slam Caterpillar Over Tax Avoidance". That headline last month in one of our drab but professional trade mags brought a sardonic smile to my face as I imagined a black-windowed Hummer careering around Capitol Hill jam-packed with Senators. At the vehicle's wheel was Carl Levin who suddenly screamed "Ya-hoo" ,or whatever 80-year-old Americans from Michigan scream when…
In Memoriam
Venturing downstairs at the crack of dawn every weekday morning, my first conscious daily act is to open the front door and hunt for the newspaper. Invariably within a five yard radius of the letter-box, it is pot luck if it is in pristine condition on the path, lying face-down in a puddle in the…
A dope makes a hash of things
Depressingly, whenever I mention British Humour (sic) to an American I receive the stock response: "Benny Hill!" I used to fight back, arguing that Hill's humour was cheap smut eventually only permitted for export (to America), while true British Humour was a cerebral affair of the utmost sophistication. Balderdash! I was kidding myself. Benny Hill was…
Beating about the Bush tax cuts
I believe it was John the Baptist who coined the phrase, "In the beginning was the Word". Whatever your creed, words have definitely had a pretty serious effect on the world from time immemorial. For me, the mere mention of the word "War", in all its mono-syllabic, animal-like simplicity, is enough to strike fear into my…
One small step for Mitt
Neil Armstrong, who died last week, was one of my childhood heroes. It was not that I aspired to be an astronaut - I was a sedentary kid for whom "space" was what separated the sofa from the TV set - but I knew how to recognize greatness when I saw it. There were plenty of…
Washington the dream factory
Last year, the Oscar for Best Actor was awarded to someone who feigned inability to speak coherently. This year, the same award went to someone who chose not to speak. The 2012 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor went to that prize's oldest recipient best known for playing a singing sailor whose most memorable line, nearly 50 years ago, was…
Tax Break 