FERGUS FINLAY: Tax avoidance laws for the rich yet outrage still reserved for the poor and ‘undeserving’

We can get so angry about people we see as undeserving, and be so sanguine about people who are living really, really well, writes Fergus Finlay

Where are the trolls this week? Why isn’t the internet ablaze? Why have all the people who wax so indignantly on social media gone so silent?

They were all fierce busy when the story of Margaret Cash was in the papers. But in the face of an astonishing report from the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) about the wealthiest people in the country, they have nothing to say.

Here’s one simple basic fact from that report.

“Looking at taxable income, 140 HWIs (42%) had taxable income of less than €125,000. Of these, 83 (25%) had taxable income of less than the average industrial wage.”

The C&AG adds the helpful information in a sidebar that the average industrial wage is €686 a week.

Because of the way we define it (other countries are less generous) a HWI is a high worth individual. He or she has to have €50m in assets before they fit the definition. We have 480 of them.

So that’s 480 people with at least €50m each.

If you put them all into one place (and of course it would have to be pretty plush before they’d agree to go there), you’d be looking at a total of €24,000,000,000 in wealth. That’s €24bn for short.

A quarter of the HWIs paid income tax as if they were earning the average industrial wage. Let’s put that another way — 83 people, with a combined wealth of at least €6,000,000,000 between them, were treated by the tax system as if they each had an income of about €35,000 a year.

A clerical officer in the civil service, provided he or she has 13 years’ experience, will earn precisely that. That’s where a teacher starts. A nurse with five years’ experience will get there too.

It must be really comforting to them to know that they are all in the same tax bracket as people with €50m in assets. Never mind that not a single nurse or teacher or public servant on that kind of money will be able to afford a mortgage, or that raising a family on those salary levels will be a mighty struggle. What they need, obviously, is a good tax adviser.

Because that’s what makes the difference if you’re really, really rich. To paraphrase Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction, when you absolutely, positively, have to pay as little tax as possible, accept no substitute for a good tax advisor.

The C&AG report puts it much more soberly, of course.

So, we shouldn’t be angry about this, I suppose. Our high worth individuals do pay some income tax, of course. The C&AG report refers to €437m between them — that’s an average of around €900,000 each. Seems like a lot, doesn’t it?

But averages are misleading. Of the €437m paid, just over €400m of it came from 10 taxpayers. And at the other end there were some (the report doesn’t say exactly how many) who paid no income tax at all. (They did pay USC, thank goodness.)

These very rich people come from a variety of sectors, and no doubt have all earned their money. Well, I hope they have. According to the C&AG, 60% of them have either inherited their money or acquired it in “real estate activities”.

The bottom line in all of this, from the C&AG’s point of view, is essentially that the Revenue Commissioners are applying the law as they find it. There aren’t significant recommendations in the report and no particular criticism of how the Revenue goes about its business.

But there are, in my view, two issues here, and one of them is an issue of double standards.

When a single mother, who also happens to be a Traveller, found herself in a garda station with her six children, sleeping on benches because they had nowhere else to go, the internet exploded with anger.

And a huge amount of it was directed at her: The photographs had been staged; she was in receipt of an enormous amount of income from the state; she had pictures of herself on Facebook having a good time. Why should we feel any responsibility for her when the father of her children clearly didn’t?

But when an official report is published that demonstrates that some of the wealthiest people in the country are paying little or no tax, we shrug our shoulders. Nothing to be seen here, nothing we can do about it.

Our rich folk tend not to cavort on Facebook, of course, and the days when wealth was routinely flaunted are over (for the moment, anyway).

But there is still something weird about the fact that we can get so angry about people we see as undeserving, and be so sanguine about people who are living really, really well and not contributing what they should.

Because the other issue is the morality of all this.

We’re going to have a budget in a week or so. The Finance Minister is going to tell us how constrained he is, how little we can afford. We could afford a bit more if the rich were paying their fair share.

Margaret Cash’s children in Tallaght Garda Station

For example, and I know I’m beating a drum that I’ve beaten before, if these high worth individuals were paying on average €2m a year, instead of the less than a million they pay now, that would entirely cover the cost of free primary education in Ireland.

It would mean that every child going to school (including their own children!) would find books waiting for them when they got there. They would travel on free transport, and their parents would never need to be asked for a voluntary contribution.

That’s the sort of impact you could see if the rich were paying a fairer share (actually, just a slightly more modest share). The C&AG report lists 11 specific tax avoidance schemes, and identifies the potential loss to the Exchequer from each of them.

You’d really wonder why rich people need so many. People in ordinary jobs get a break on their health insurance, but that’s just about the only tax avoidance they’re allowed.

The argument that’s often put forward in favour of this is that we need to incentivise risk-taking and entrepreneurialism. There’s no breakdown in the report about how these 480 people got so rich — how many risks they took, how many people they employ (apart from personal accountants), and so on.

When you see a figure that says 60% of them inherited it or got it from property deals, you’d really wonder what we’re trying to incentivise.

We’re very quick in Ireland to divide (let’s say) families in homelessness into the deserving and the undeserving poor. Why is it, I wonder, that we don’t have a similar view about the rich?

The more you have, it seems, the more you deserve.

The Forgotten War A Visit to the Killing Fields of Yemen

The forgotten war in Yemen has entered its fourth year and peace is nowhere in sight. With the healthcare system in shambles and bombs falling every day, it is the civilian population that suffers the most. A visit to North Yemen.

SANAA, YEMEN – 2017, NOVEMBER 11: Coalition forces led by Saudi Arabia bombed populated areas in Sanaa. 12 houses got damaged and 12 civilians were rescued out of the rubble, 8 wounded mainly children and women. (Photo by Veronique de Viguerie/Getty Images Reportage)

By Fiona Ehlers in Saada, Yemen
Photo Gallery: Yemen’s Never-Ending War Photos
Veronique de Viguerie/ Getty Images.

Hussein Tayeb, 38, leads the way into a sparsely furnished living room and serves tea and sweet sesame bread on the earthen floor. He pulls his mobile phone out of the pocket of his dishdasha and plays back a couple of videos he filmed himself. To the beat of traditional drums, three boys can be seen dancing wearing floor-length, ochre-colored robes. “They liked to dance so much,” Tayeb says. He smiles, though it’s unclear whether it is out of awkwardness or pleasure at the memory. Either way, it’s not enough to hide the deep grief written across his haggard face.

He pulls the ochre robes out of a plastic bag and breathes in the scent of his sons, their names written on the collars: Ali, 9, the ambitious one with Dumbo ears and a strong will. Ahmed, 11, the best in his class who wrote, “I love my country” in his homework folder alongside a drawing of the flag of united Yemen. And Yusuf, 14, the first-born son and the pride of his father.

Hussein Tayeb’s three sons are all dead. At around 9 a.m. on August 9, the bus they were riding in was struck by a bomb in Dahyan, a village in the Saada province of North Yemen. It exploded on impact. A total of 51 people died in the blast, including 40 children.

News of the attack quickly spread around the world, briefly shining a spotlight on the disastrous situation in Yemen, where Houthi rebels have spent years battling government forces as a coalition under the leadership of Saudi Arabia bombs the country into rubble.
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A short time later, Yemen disappeared from the headlines, once again becoming an invisible, forgotten war. There are two reasons for this invisibility: Hardly anyone is allowed into this civil war-ravaged country, particularly not journalists from the West; and almost nobody is allowed out. In part because hardly any refugees from Yemen make it to Europe, we have learned very little about the conflict.

Engraving Gravestones

Hussein Tayeb is telling his story to a foreign journalist for the first time. Only three weeks have passed since the bombing, but he nevertheless speaks calmly and quietly. A stonemason, much of his trade involves engraving gravestones. Business has been good.

On the morning his sons died, Tayeb drove them to the bus on his motorcycle for a school trip to the Saada mosque, which the boys had been looking forward to for days. One after the other, they kissed their father’s forehead and climbed into the bus. Tayeb had just climbed back onto his motorcycle when a bomb fell without warning. Once he could see through the dust, Tayeb ran to the burning bus and pulled out the first body he could reach. It was Ahmed, his middle son. He was no longer breathing.

Tayeb tells his story while sitting on the floor of his mudbrick home — in the same spot where he had laid out his sons’ bodies so he and his wife could mourn them. He is surrounded by neighbor children. When a dull explosion is heard in the distance, they all flinch and cover their ears with their hands. Ali, the young Houthi rebel who drove us here, is standing in the doorway. Tayeb’s youngest son Mohammed, 4, is the only child he has left. He is wearing a camouflage uniform, carrying a plastic rifle and seems distraught. He sees the burned-out bus on his father’s mobile phone display and asks: “Papa, when is the next bus coming? I want to go to my brothers.”……………..

Now, in the war’s fourth year, Yemen has become a battlefield for regional powers. On the one side are armed Houthis, equipped by Iran with money and rockets. On the other is the coalition supporting what remains of the Yemeni government, led by Saudi Arabia and supported by billions of dollars’ worth of weapons from the U.S. and Great Britain.

At stake is dominance of the Arabian Peninsula, with the battle against al-Qaida and Islamic State likewise playing a crucial role. Initially, Riyadh conceived of the intervention as nothing but a brief military operation, but it has since developed into a humanitarian catastrophe with around 10,000 lives lost and millions of people suffering from hunger. Earlier this month, the first peace talks in two years collapsed in Geneva and a political solution to the crisis remains but a distant hope.

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World Politics

United States

Hundreds arrested at anti-Kavanaugh protest: ‘It’s time for women to be heard’

Celebrities Amy Schumer and Emily Ratajkowski among more than 300 arrested on eve of key vote

Sabrina Siddiqui and David Smith in Washington

More than 300 protesters, including the comedian Amy Schumer, have been arrested at the US Capitol in Washington as they made a final, desperate appeal to senators to reject the embattled supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Demonstrators chanted, unfurled banners and staged a sit-in at a Senate office building, one day before the body was poised to take its first vote on the judge’s nomination to America’s highest bench.

A crucial Senate ballot on his confirmation was expected on Friday before a final vote on Saturday. His chances were boosted on Thursday when two key Republican Senators whose support is vital, Jeff Flake and Susan Collins, said they were satisfied by an FBI investigation into sexual assault allegations.

Kavanaugh, who has also faced criticism over a furious Senate appearance last week in which he claimed the allegations were “revenge on behalf of the Clintons”, made a further pitch to wavering Senators with an article in the Wall Street Journal on Friday conceding he “might have been too emotional”.

The scenes in Washington on Thursday were unprecedented for any supreme court nominee in recent history. Thousands of protesters, including survivors of sexual assault, gathered outside the courthouse in the US capital where Kavanaugh sits as a federal judge and walked in unison to the supreme court, where he hopes to secure a lifetime appointment.

They marched to a rallying cry: “We believe Dr Christine Blasey Ford”, the university professor who has accused Kavanaugh of drunkenly and violently sexually assaulting her at a party when they were teenagers.

“It’s time for women to be heard,” said Karen Bralove, an alumna of Holton-Arms, the all-girls preparatory school Ford attended in the early 1980s when she alleges Kavanaugh attempted to rape her.

Demonstrators gather on Capitol Hill in Washington DC on 4 October. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

“I don’t know whether Brett is going to be confirmed, but women and survivors are not going to be quiet any more.”

As protesters brandished signs that read “Kavanaugh lies” and “Never again” outside the steps of the supreme court, senators huddled behind closed doors in the Capitol on the other side of the street to digest the findings of an FBI investigation into the allegations against Kavanaugh. The reaction to the FBI report fell firmly along partisan lines, and the Republicans are in the majority in both houses of Congress, but those who took to the streets said they were not giving up hope.

Events on Capitol Hill moved swiftly as an array of politicians, activists and sexual assault survivors by turns grabbed a megaphone from a makeshift podium outside the supreme court. The crowd roared at the news that Sen Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat facing a re-election battle in conservative North Dakota, had announced her opposition to Kavanaugh. Another Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, remained undecided on Thursday afternoon.

By late afternoon demonstrators marched directly to the scene of the debate. Thousands packed the atrium of the Hart Senate office building, while streams of protesters flooded each floor with chants of “Our court” and “Justice now”. Many spread out banners and sat on the floor, then were put in plastic handcuffs by law enforcement and led away.

US Capitol police said 302 people were arrested. Among them was Schumer, who is involved with the Time’s Up movement against sexual violence and harassment and is a distant relative of the the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the model Emily Ratajkowski.

“Today I was arrested protesting the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, a man who has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault,” Ratajkowski wrote on Twitter. “Men who hurt women can no longer be placed in positions of power.”

Although Kavanaugh’s nomination was met with protests from the outset – with activists repeatedly interrupting his confirmation hearing in early September – the scenes have escalated and grown more impassioned following the allegations of sexual misconduct.

Angela Trzepkowski, a homemaker who drove from Delaware to join the protests, said: “You can’t stay at home with something like this going on. Women are feeling empowered and stronger, and it’s no longer going to be the good ol’ white boys’ club. It can’t be any more.”

Emotions were heightened after Ford recounted in detail what she says was Kavanaugh’s attempt to rape her, in testimony before the Senate judiciary committee last week. Appearing after Ford, Kavanaugh vehemently denied the charges in a fiery speech that was also striking for its overtly partisan tone.

Bralove added: “This is so triggering for so many people.” She added the fight would not end even if Kavanaugh is confirmed. “We do not do 10 days of marching and then go back to our lives, because nothing is the same any more. Nothing.”.

Read Full Article>>

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Huge rise in US plastic waste shipments to poor countries following China ban

Beijing’s crackdown on foreign waste prompts redirection of US recycling to developing countries in south-east Asia

Karen McVeigh

Plastic debris washed away by rain hangs from trees along the Los Angeles River. US plastic waste exports to Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam have increased since a ban by China. Photograph: David McNew/Getty Images

Exports of plastic waste from the US to developing countries have surged following China’s crackdown on foreign waste imports, new research has shown.

Nearly half of plastic waste exported from the US for recycling in the first six months of 2018 was shipped to Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, according to analysis of US census bureau data by Unearthed, Greenpeace’s investigative arm. The previous year, the US sent more than 70% to China and Hong Kong.

This year’s ban on foreign waste imports by China, previously the world’s biggest importer of plastic waste for recycling, has left western countries scrambling to offload its extra plastic waste. The US, along with Britain, Germany, Japan and Mexico, is among the biggest exporters of scrap plastic to China.

Campaigners said the analysis, which Unearthed shared with the Guardian, shows the US is exploiting developing countries where there is no regulatory framework to ensure plastic waste is processed in an environmentally friendly way.

“Instead of taking responsibility for their own waste, US companies are exploiting developing countries that lack the regulation to protect themselves,” said John Hocevar, Oceans campaign director for Greenpeace USA.

The waste, some of which consists of household recycling produced in the US, includes single-use plastic bottles, plastic bags and food wrappings, said Hocevar. It can, however, contain toxic materials.

“It’s a problem for the US and other developed countries to produce, often, toxic material which they can’t or won’t take care of themselves.”

Hocevar said that China’s decision to no longer accept waste has revealed the scale of the global plastic waste crisis: “Which is that we are producing an enormous amount of plastic material that we don’t know how to handle.

“The average person when they put a piece of plastic in a [recycling] bin, they assume it is being recycled, not being shipped to China or now to south-east Asia, where it will possibly be incinerated or landfilled.”

The data, obtained by Unearthed through the US census bureau, shows that in the first half of 2018, US exports of plastic waste dropped by a third compared with last year, from 949,789 metric tonnes to 666,780. Exports to China dropped by 92%, while those to Hong Kong dropped by 77%.

At the same time, US exports of plastic waste to Thailand shot up by almost 2,000% this year, to 91,505 metric tonnes. US exports of plastic waste to Malaysia rose by 273%, to 157,299 metric tonnes, while those to Vietnam rose by 46%, to 71,220 tonnes. Exports to Turkey and South Korea also rose significantly in the same period.

Reports suggest countries in south-east Asia are struggling to process and manage the tide of plastic waste waiting to be processed following the China ban.

“As the imports increased, we are seeing these countries starting to react,” said Hocevar. “Ultimately, we need to reduce this waste at source.”

In Thailand, where in June the death of a pilot whale with 80 plastic bags in its stomach highlighted the harmful effects of plastic in waterways, local media report that Thai government officials are considering a ban on all waste imports, following irregularities found in recycling plants. In May, Vietnam temporarily banned plastic waste imports after two of its ports became “overwhelmed” with scrap imports following China’s ban.

Two months later, Malaysia revoked permits for some plastic imports after factories involved in recycling in Banting, south-west of Kuala Lumpur, were forced to close amid residents’ complaints of air and water pollution.

Daniel Hoornweg, an associate professor in the faculty of energy systems and nuclear science at the University of Ontario technology institute, said of the rise in US exports to south-east Asia: “It does come across as opportunistic. My guess is over time, those countries will crack down on imports and processing waste.

“Canadians, Americans and Europeans need to realise it is an issue that is bigger than saying no to a plastic bag at the checkout. This requires a fundamental overhaul of our economy.”

“What is interesting is that the stuff that the US is sending as recycled plastic ends up being sent back to the US and sold in plastic toys in supermarkets.”

Adina Renee Adler, senior director of international affairs at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, a trade body, said that the US plastic waste industry is “not dumping waste on south-east Asia” because there is a legitimate market for the material.

“What we say is recyclable material or scrap waste is bought, not sold,” she said. The temporary bans and other problems in these countries, she said, were due to problems with unscrupulous companies moving from China and working illegally, without proper controls.

“The response from the government was, our ports are being overwhelmed. But we hope that these bans are temporary, because there is legitimate trade.”

US and Canadian markets for processing recycled plastic are increasing, Adler added.

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