31–40 of 71 posts
Can someone explain to me why Universities, which are mostly non-taxable entities, would use offshore banking?
In addition to the sibling comment there’s also been some disclosures regarding investments in industries that could plausibly get universities bad press — such as coal mines.
There's certainly a lot of abuse, but there are valid reasons to own offshore stock.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Wouldn't that be an argument against the legislature, or perhaps lobbyists, rather than against the nonprofits stuck with the law?
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?
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 activity that is legal, immoral, and newsworthy.
As an aside, perhaps one reason why there are so many "young people disenchanted with democracy" is your attitude: that a never-ending war between lawyers (looking for loopholes) and lawmakers (who should, in theory, be closing loopholes) is a feature. If that's a feature of democracy then maybe we should take another look at our options.
(I don't really feel that way. Well, sometimes I do, but on average I think democracy is the best we're going to get).
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.
Your view is unrealistic because you don't want that advantage, forget about doing anything to get it, and pretend people who have the advantage can be tamed. Like turning lions into deer.
Never going to happen.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/world/universities-offsho...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Wouldn't that be an argument against the legislature, or perhaps lobbyists, rather than against the nonprofits stuck with the law?
I don't see Caltech or MIT. Interesting.
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…