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More Than 100 Universities and Colleges Included in Offshore Leaks Database

icij.org

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Re: More Than 100 Universities and Colleges Included in Offshore Leaks Database

#51

Post by dragonwriter »

forapurpose wrote: post #48
jayess wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not that I distrust them, it’s just that I’m a lawyer, operations, and finance guy. The source documents would be extremely interesting to me. Instead I get a meaningless graph that tells me almost nothing. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in personal experiences with journalists is that they’re just that, journalists. They don’t have expertise in finance, law, or most anything complex. Let the data be open sou…

> They don’t have expertise in finance, law, or most anything complex. Do you know that? Also, I certainly wouldn't agree that journalism isn't complex.

A journalist without domain expertise or the support of a domain expert without an agenda related to the subject-matter of the reporting is crippled in the same way a programmer without domain expertise or support of a domain expert is; journalism may, itself, be a complex domain (as programming is), but expertise in it does not provide relevant domain expertise in the domain that is the subject of reporting.

And it's absolutely the case that most journalists covering complex domains don't have an educational background in the domain, and in most domains the market doesn't really reward development of domain expertise (in political reporting, there's some pressure driving reporters to develop some expertise in electoral politics, but that's kind of exceptional, and isn't reflected in other domains, even the policy end of political reporting.)

Re: More Than 100 Universities and Colleges Included in Offshore Leaks Database

#52

Post by xbzbanna »

hippich wrote: post #50
seanmccann wrote: post #33

You can incorporate in Delaware to allow shareholders from any US state avoid double taxation. You incorporate (mostly funds) in zero tax countries to allow worldwide investors avoid double taxation. A shareholder of an "offshore" corporation often still pays the taxes in their home country. There's certainly a lot of abuse, but there are valid reasons to own offshore stock.

"You can incorporate in Delaware to allow shareholders from any US state avoid double taxation" - could you please expand on it? Are you talking about corporate tax + dividends tax, or about something else when saying "double taxation"?

I'm not the person you are asking, but I think it means a US shareholder in a US company being taxed both by the state the company is incorporated in, and the state the shareholder resides in. There are a lot of state taxes that Delaware doesn't charge at all, or can be avoided. It's almost like Delaware is a discount seller of corporate residency. Charge a low price and make it up on volume. Smart strategy by the states/countries with the political will to do it.

If you live in a state where you are taxed on your investment earnings, you might feel "double-taxed" if those earnings were already taxed at the corporate level.

Re: More Than 100 Universities and Colleges Included in Offshore Leaks Database

#53

Post by ryanlol »

ThomPete wrote: post #24
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #23

I don't really understand the premise of these articles. If an organization is working within the legal confines of the relevant tax systems, exactly what are they guilty of? Being the best possible stewards of their donations?

Because the legality is set up so that it's only those who have a lot of money who can do this. This is the problem. I am all for not paying more taxes than necessary but it should be the same for everyone not just for the few with money to pay the lawyers and pay the fees.

>Because the legality is set up so that it's only those who have a lot of money who can do this.

The middle class can very well benefit from offshoring. It may not be for everyone, but it certainly isn’t only a thing for rich people.

Re: More Than 100 Universities and Colleges Included in Offshore Leaks Database

#54

Post by Jedd »

jayess wrote: post #28
Jedd wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not really deciding for you what to release, since you have nothing to release. Is your concern that their interpretation of the source material is inaccurate, or that you're being intentionally misled or occluded? The ICIJ has been around for two decades, and their credibility is robust. I don't think they're likely to be making claims like this without access to substantial evidence.

It’s not that I distrust them, it’s just that I’m a lawyer, operations, and finance guy. The source documents would be extremely interesting to me. Instead I get a meaningless graph that tells me almost nothing. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in personal experiences with journalists is that they’re just that, journalists. They don’t have expertise in finance, law, or most anything complex. Let the data be open sou…

93 media agencies working together to analyse some 13 million documents ... and you don't think they've employed one or two lawyers with domain expertise to assist?

While the documents may be interesting to you and others, they're not yours to disseminate. If the graph is meaningless to you, then you should ignore it.

I note that the Australian Tax Office published a press release [1] earlier this month around the Paradise Papers. Presumably other nation state revenue collection agencies have released similar, or at least have comparable expectations from this latest set of papers.

Reading between the lines, there's an expectation that a release of the entire set of source papers may reduce the efficacy of their efforts to recover these lost revenues. I concede that I may be optimistic in my interpretation and expectations here.

[1] https://www.ato.gov.au/Media-centre/Media-releases/ATO-state...

Re: More Than 100 Universities and Colleges Included in Offshore Leaks Database

#55

Post by rorykoehler »

trgv wrote: post #35
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #23

I don't really understand the premise of these articles. If an organization is working within the legal confines of the relevant tax systems, exactly what are they guilty of? Being the best possible stewards of their donations?

Universities are supposed to be morally upright. Even if they can't be prosecuted for this, it's still news that they're cheating. Additionally, I think there's a really important difference between following the law and being a moral person (or a moral university, or a moral corporation). The law might approximate our conception of morality, but it doesn't cover it completely. There is an enormous grey area of activ…

This raises another question. Is paying taxes inherently moral? Everywhere I look I see tax money being squandered with little to show for it.

Re: More Than 100 Universities and Colleges Included in Offshore Leaks Database

#56

Post by vixen99 »

tonfa wrote: post #11
ellius wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that incorporation documents are frequently only a small part of the story. It does allow you to correlate ownership, but unless you can actually show some kind of money movement into and out of accounts, it is difficult to show evidence of a particular crime.

Looked at one randomly, looks like some University fund is a shareholder (with over 200 other funds) of a Warburg Pincus fund (a private equity company). I'm not exactly sure how that's a big deal, nothing there implies they avoid taxes or anything. (Maybe the fund they invest in does shady things, but it doesn't look like they have any kind of weird offshore setup)

Do you mean evade or avoid? Everyone avoids tax. Currently taxes on property transfers in the UK are 5% on property priced at £925,000 and 10% if priced at £925,001. I guess Joe Nonavoider sets the price at the latter figure?

Re: More Than 100 Universities and Colleges Included in Offshore Leaks Database

#57

Post by gaius »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #23

I don't really understand the premise of these articles. If an organization is working within the legal confines of the relevant tax systems, exactly what are they guilty of? Being the best possible stewards of their donations?

If an organization is working within the legal confines of the relevant tax systems, exactly what are they guilty of?

It's a philosophical point about the sort of society you want to live in: one were most people do the right thing most of the time, just because it's the right thing, or one in which everyone must be continuously and intrusively monitored and regulated.

Here in England the Queen is implicated in the Paradise Papers. Now technically the Queen doesn't need to pay taxes at all, but even so, she still feels the need to cheat the system anyway. Given that the Head of State, (supposably) appointed by God as a role model for us all to rule by divine right doesn't see any need to contribute towards the NHS, schools, roads, police, the defence of the realm, etc, exactly what moral authority does anyone have to tell anyone to contribute their fair share? "A fish rots from the head down" is the saying, for good reason.

To apply this to universities they're basically saying if you can find a means to cheat in your exams that we haven't specifically banned, you can use it. Whereas I think most people would expect universities to be opposed to all cheating and also to educate their students that cheating is wrong...

Re: More Than 100 Universities and Colleges Included in Offshore Leaks Database

#58

Post by gaius »

ringaroundthetx wrote: post #45
Declanomous wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow that part of the article didn't click for me. The NYT article linked in the following sentence does a great job of explaining why they are being taxed if you don't have a finance background.

Yeah I think ICIJ's outrage-bait here is a swing and a miss. UBIT 40% tax on charities was not created to hit university endowments. This is a reason to use an offshore entity.

UBIT 40% tax on charities was not created to hit university endowments

So you're saying we can all simply pick and choose which laws were created with us in mind?

Re: More Than 100 Universities and Colleges Included in Offshore Leaks Database

#59

Post by patall »

rorykoehler wrote: post #55
trgv wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universities are supposed to be morally upright. Even if they can't be prosecuted for this, it's still news that they're cheating. Additionally, I think there's a really important difference between following the law and being a moral person (or a moral university, or a moral corporation). The law might approximate our conception of morality, but it doesn't cover it completely. There is an enormous grey area of activ…

This raises another question. Is paying taxes inherently moral? Everywhere I look I see tax money being squandered with little to show for it.

If it is so moral what they are doing, why don't they make the whole thing public by themselves. Its not like Universities need to hide anything (sorry for that paraphrase), they are public figures.

The thing is that we as a society have decided that we impose taxes in order to fund common things like protection, infrastructure etc. If now certain members of this society decide they do not want to pay their share anymore, they can say that publicly and we can all decide whether it is for the public good or not (and in the latter case, they can decide whether they want to leave the society in consequence). But what they are currently doing now is hiding that they do not contribute their share to our common good anymore and yes, that is amoral. Its acceptable (and anyones right) to have an opinion (about taxes) but I can expect you to be honest about it.

Re: More Than 100 Universities and Colleges Included in Offshore Leaks Database

#60

Post by asddddd »

jayess wrote: post #2

These "leaks" are annoying. They just give you a page with virtually no information, just a chart showing some connection. Release everything. Don't insult my intelligence by deciding for me what to release.

This is the best you get: https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/pages/database

They don't release original documents, but still pretty good.

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