World’s biggest scam – billionaires, multinationals tax dodging – can’t be fixed by talkfests

Talkfests can’t fix global tax evasion by multinationals and billionaires for one simple reason: the US will never agree to a plan where their billionaires and multinationals pay more tax in other countries like Australia. Callum Foote and Michael West report on the futility of G20 and OECD efforts to address the world’s biggest scam.

It is the biggest rort in the world, tax dodging by billionaires and multinational companies that is. Something like $US30 trillion is parked in tax havens. Some $US450 billion is siphoned out to tax havens every year, most of it from wealthier, developed countries like Australia.

Among the biggest tax dodgers in Australia are foreign fossil fuel giants, yet amid the deepening cost of living crisis, record numbers of Australians are struggling to pay their energy bills. Clearly, it is an untenable situation. At some point, governments will have to tackle the might of the business lobby and fight corporate tax dodging.

But how do they do it? That is the question. Already, in its first year, and under pressure from the business lobby, the Albanese Labor government walked back its planned tax reforms.

The latest report out of Europe on multilateral moves to combat tax evasion – the Global Tax Evasion Report produced by the EU Tax Authority – estimates that billionaires globally pay personal effective tax levels of just 0% for 0.5% of their wealth. That compares with the 30% Australian company tax rate paid by small business with no offshore capability to park money in tax havens, and higher personal income tax rates.

They do it – not by paying dividends (these would incur tax) but via shell companies. Multinational tax avoidance relies on ‘changing the shape of money’ between different jurisdictions until that money can be accessed without paying tax.

The first ever Global Tax Evasion Report produced by the EU Tax Authority recommended the introduction of an international anti-tax evasion body, similar to the IPCC for climate change, and found that a 2% tax on the world’s billionaires would raise $250 billion a year.

Yet the EU report, while a valuable bit of work, fails in one grand respect. It assumes that there is a multilateral solution to the world’s biggest rort. That is, the OECD members and the G20 can get together in their glitzy hotels for talkfests and sort it out. Yes, co-operation is part of the answer – sorting banking agreements and double tax treaties and the likes – but sovereign nations can move on their own – and indeed they have to move on their own, unilaterally, because the global talkfest approach is not working.

The problem with talkfests is that, not only are they infested with Big 4 types whose firms actually orchestrate the tax dodging along with tax lawyers, they rely on the co-operation of the US. And the US is home to the most billionaires and MNC which benefit from tax dodging. They will not act against their own interests. Full stop.

https://michaelwest.com.au/worlds-biggest-scam-billionaires-multinationals-tax-dodging-cant-be-fixed-by-talkfests/

A group of high-profile whistleblowers who helped spark royal commissions and change laws have written an open letter to the federal government accusing it of overseeing a broken system that has left whistleblowers exposed to costly legal fees — and worse.

It comes a week before former Afghan war crimes whistleblower David McBride begins his criminal trial in Canberra, which, if found guilty, could result in him serving a life sentence.

Mr McBride was a lawyer in the army who leaked classified information to the ABC that revealed allegations of war crimes by special forces in Afghanistan.

"Far from remedying this injustice, your actions and omissions have only served to exacerbate the predicament of whistleblowers," the open letter from the group of whistleblowers reads.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-06/david-mcbride-whistleblower-open-letter/103060116

Evacuations to Egypt suspended as Israel strikes multiple refugee camps

Evacuations of injured people and foreign nationals from the Gaza Strip into Egypt have stopped since Israel's deadly attack on an ambulance on Saturday, and as strikes from Israel continue to hit refugee camps in the enclave.

The strikes come as the US is urging Israel to take a humanitarian pause from its bombardment of Gaza, as the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken makes an unexpected visit to the West Bank to meet with the Palestinian Authority.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated his opposition to a ceasefire in Gaza, saying: "There will be no ceasefire without the return of our hostages."

More than 200 were taken hostage in Hamas' October 7 terrorist attack which killed about 1,400 people, according to Israeli authorities.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza estimates 9,770 Palestinians, nearly half — at least 4,800 — children, have been killed in Israel's retaliatory strikes since the Hamas attack.

Gaza evacuations have been suspended since ambulance strike

Efforts are underway to resume evacuations of injured Gazans and foreign nationals from the besieged strip to neighbouring Egypt, which were suspended since Saturday after a deadly Israeli attack on an ambulance, according to Egyptian, US and Qatari officials.

Israel claimed the ambulance was carrying militants, but Gazan health authorities said it was evacuating injured people from the north to the south.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-06/israel-gaza-war-updates-maghazi-bureij-blinken-meets-abbas/103067390

'The media CANNOT stop lying': Mark Levin blasts several media outlets for running hit piece on his Holocaust remarks

Mark Levin skewered the media for publishing articles against him regarding his comments about the Jewish heritage of a CNN anchor.

On Thursday, far-left outlet, Media Matters, ran an hit piece castigating Levin for comments he made on his radio show earlier this week.

CNN published an article on Friday echoing the sentiments of the Media Matters story. The writer of the piece, Oliver Darcy, requested a comment from the White House – which also condemned Levin and Fox News.

"Not only is Fox News aligning with those who fan the flames of hate – Fox is paying their salaries," said Andrew Bates – deputy White House press secretary. "Lying to insult the pain that families suffered in the Holocaust has absolutely no place in America. None. Sadly, this is not the first time in recent months that a Fox News host made sickening remarks about the Holocaust."

Several other media outlets ran with the story – including the Washington Post, the Times of Israel, and the Daily Beast, Mediaite, the Washington Examiner.

The media outlets took a quote from Levin from the Wednesday episode of "The Mark Levin Show." During the episode, Levin slammed CNN anchors Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper, and said CNN is "filled with a lot of self-hating Jews."

The media outlets ran stories from the following quote from Levin:

Wolf Blitzer, as I understand it, his parents weren't victims in one way or another, of the Holocaust. But certainly his family comes out of that background — but you wouldn’t know it. Because the ideology of the left is very attractive. It’s very compelling, particularly if you’re in media.

Blitzer's parents came to the United States as refugees from Poland after surviving the Nazi era and all four of his grandparents were murdered during the Holocaust.

A CNN spokesperson framed Levin's quote as "wildly uninformed, inappropriate and shameful," "dangerous," and "anti-Semitic rhetoric."

However, Levin clarified his wording on Thursday's episode of his show and pointed out how the word "weren't" doesn't make sense in the context of his commentary:

Let’s stop for a second. When I take a breath, when I’m saying something and I’m passionate. I take a breath. Now you can hear that they say worth it if you’re really listening and you want it to say where it is so that you can hear it to say weren’t. I barely even remember saying it. So we’ve played it. We’ve got the audio you can twist it to say weren’t. But obviously, why would I say his parents weren’t weren’t in one way or another. Victims in the Holocaust. How can that even be logical? Why would I say somebody’s parents were or were not victims of the Holocaust? If they weren’t victims of the Holocaust, why would they say his parents weren’t victims of the Holocaust? Or why would I intentionally say that I didn’t? I didn’t. In the second sentence, but certainly as family comes out of that background. Clarifies exactly what I’m talking about. So they take that and they say Levin denies. They’re Wolf Blitzer’s parents. We’re in the Holocaust, which I’ve since looked up, and they were at Auschwitz, and it’s the grandparents were killed there. Which is a horrible, horrible thing. In fact, some of the people who’ve been taken back into Gaza. We’re Holocaust survivors in Israel. Some of the people murdered were Holocaust survivors. And of course, my point is you have a background like that. And you might and you ask Hakeem question. Hakeem Jeffries a question like this. It’s shocking to me, especially as a Jew. It is shocking to me. And so that now, ladies and gentlemen, causes CNN, which was contacted by, I think, The Daily Beast, another leftist Marxist operation. And here’s what CNN said. Quote. And by the way, it’s anonymous. We don’t even know who at CNN said it.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/mark-levin-media-matters-cnn-israel

Germans must protect Jews – Scholz

The citizens should show the “civic courage” of standing up to anti-Semitism, the chancellor said

German citizens must ensure the protection of all Jews living in the country from the wave of anti-Semitic attacks sparked by the Israel-Hamas war, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said.

“Anyone who is attacking Jews in Germany is attacking all of us. That’s why we should all stand up for the protection of Jews in Germany. It’s about civic courage,” Scholz told the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper over the weekend.

Scholz added that Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck “has formulated the position of the entire federal government very well in his video on social media.”

In an 10-minute address published on Wednesday, Habeck lamented that “too few” German Muslims had taken a stand in defense of the Jews at home and against the actions of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which killed some 1,400 people, mostly civilians, during its October 7 incursion into Israel.

Habeck further called on the Muslim community to distance itself from the manifestations of anti-Semitism, which increased dramatically following the most recent outbreak of violence in the Middle East.

Speaking to Mannheimer Morgen, Scholz said that Berlin was working with Israel and “using all contact in the region to facilitate the unconditional release of all hostages” held by Hamas.

German officials treat anti-Semitism as an acute problem in society, seeing combating hate crimes against the Jews as a way to atone for the Holocaust. This week, Interior Minister Nancy Fraeser announced a ban on the activities of Hamas, which is listed as a terrorist organization in Germany.

https://www.rt.com/news/586648-scholz-germans-protect-jews/