Who's Cuomo Kidding?

Cuomo complains Astorino won't release five years of tax returns:

“I have never, I can’t recall a serious gubernatorial candidate or attorney general candidate who didn’t release at least five years of taxes. George Pataki did. Any serious candidate did on both sides of the aisle, and it’s a way of saying this is who I am, basically,” Mr. Cuomo aid. “Now for Astorino, he was county executive during those years, so this should have been very simple because he was working of the public, and he was under the public ethics law. If he’s not releasing his taxes then the question is: why not, and what does he have to hide. and what was he doing while he was a public servant?”

You want to know how transparent Cuomo is about his taxes?

This transparent:

Seems New York’s governor doesn’t know his assessor from his elbow.

Andrew Cuomo found himself in an embarrassing position after his girlfriend, celebrity cook Sandra Lee, barred the county tax assessor from entering the six-bedroom New Castle home she shares with him.

She had good reason. Lee knew that if she let the assessor in to see the work done, the assessment would go up — and with it their property taxes. But she made one mistake.

Let’s put it this way: If you want to keep your renovations secret, it’s probably not a good idea to let magazines in to report on them. Turns out tax assessors can read People and New York and Elle Decor too.

When the Journal News looked into the Lee-Cuomo digs on the aptly named Bittersweet Lane, it found Lee had failed to get building permits.

If she had, of course, it would have tipped off tax assessors. When asked if the tax assessor had been refused entry to his home, the governor pleaded ignorance, triggering charges of tax evasion. 

The hypocrisy of Andrew Cuomo know no bounds.

Cuomo Says He'll Go After Tax Cheats - He Should Start With Himself

From the Poughkeepsie Journal News:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office on Thursday announced it will seek legislation to let the state recoup millions in school tax breaks paid to high-income New Yorkers who did not qualify to receive them.

The announcement came five days after an investigation by The Journal News found an estimated $28 million in school property-tax subsidies since 2011 were granted to households ineligible to receive them because they earned more than $500,000 a year. And it came 10 weeks after the administration said it was the responsibility of local assessors to recover the state's ill-spent STAR tax dollars.

Assessors had roundly panned that plan.

"We'll be pursuing legislation to empower tax and finance officials to directly recover STAR benefits previously granted to ineligible property owners and to increase penalties for STAR fraud," said Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi.

Three candidates seeking to oust Cuomo — Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, Fordham Law professor Zephyr Teachout and Green Party hopeful Howie Hawkins — last week had called on Cuomo to act.

"It's unfortunate that it took a newspaper expose to convince the governor to take action," said Astorino campaign spokesman Bill O'Reilly. "By doing nothing he was driving property taxes even higher for those least able to afford them. We are hopeful that the governor will have a real change of heart now and allow the tax assessor into his own home to determine how much he, himself, has been underpaying the Town of New Castle for the past four years."

O'Reilly was referring to another Journal News investigation in May, which found that extensive renovations had been done at Cuomo's $1.2 million home in 2008 and 2009 without building permits or an increase in its taxable value. In June, the New Castle assessor hiked the assessment by 29 percent but based that on an inspection of the outside of the house. Cuomo and his partner, Food Network star Sandra Lee, would not let the assessor inside.

Two things to say here.

First, is it a surprise that the Cuomo administration had to be shamed by public expose in a newspaper to collect taxes owed by people making more than $500,000?

Second, how hypocritical that Cuomo is going to go after these tax deadbeats while sparing himself and his consort, Sandra Lee, from paying the taxes they may rightfully owe on their Westchester home.

Alas, since Cuomo refuses to allow the tax assessors into his home to see what upgrades he and Sandra Lee made to it, we'll never know whether he owes those taxes or not.

Westchester Residents Demand Tax Deadbeat Governor Cuomo Submit To Tax Assessment

Tax deadbeat Governor Cuomo and his consort Sandra Lee have refused to let the tax assessor into their Westchester home in order to avoid a property tax increase.

That move is not playing well around Westchester - so fellow Westchester residents have decided to follow suit and refuse to let the assessor into their own properties:

Westchester County residents joined gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino outside New Castle Town Hall on Thursday, calling on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to open his home to the town assessor so he could better determine the taxable value of its interior.

New Castle Assessor Phil Platz was denied entrance to Cuomo's home on May 27 when he came for a scheduled inspection, which was sparked by The Journal News investigation of renovations done at 4 Bittersweet Lane since Cuomo's girlfriend, celebrity chef Sandra Lee, purchased it in 2008. The investigation found that the renovations, detailed in numerous national publications, were conducted in 2009 and 2010 without building permits, which would have alerted the assessor of taxable improvements.

The news conference followed the Astorino campaign's robo-call campaign to 1 million homes, accusing Cuomo of getting "caught cheating on his property taxes."

Yonkers homeowner Ralph Volino said he would refuse to let revaluation data collectors from Yonkers into his home until Cuomo opened his door to the New Castle assessor.
Yonkers is moving forward with a citywide revaluation, and data collection could begin later this year.

"I think Governor Cuomo is hiding something," Volino said. "If he's not opening his door, I'm not opening mine."

Yonkers Assessor David Jackson acknowledged that the decision by homeowners to bar data collectors will hurt efforts to obtain accurate assessments, which lead to a fairer property-tax system. Homeowners have the right, however, to deny access to assessors.

"We hope that resonates and those property owners appreciate that the foundation for attaining a fairer property tax in the City of Yonkers is accurate data," Jackson said.

The Cuomo campaign says this is all just about politics:

Cuomo campaign spokesman Peter Kauffmann dismissed the news conference as an Astorino political gambit.

"It's now totally clear what we said all along — this is Mr. Astorino's Republican small town politics and what every real Westchester homeowner is saying to Rob Astorino is stop playing politics and lower my taxes," Kauffmann said.

They don't seem to realize that Cuomo's refusal to let the tax assessor into his home is not going to play as "politics" and come back to bite GOP opponent Astorino.

Rather, it's the kind of thing that is going to build resentment against Cuomo - and not just for 2014.

He runs for president in 2016 or 2020, you can bet this tax deadbeat story will come back to haunt him.

Tax Deadbeat Andrew Cuomo Offers Lame Excuse For Barring Tax Assessor From His Home

Keep an eye on this story - it's something opponents of Andrew Cuomo will hit again and again during his re-election campaign:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo addressed the controversy over whether he and his live-in girlfriend, Food Network star Sandra Lee, dodged property tax increases on their $1.2 million New Castle home for the first time Thursday but claimed not to know too much about the process.

The governor said he was unaware that New Castle assessor Phil Platz was barred last month from entering his 4 Bittersweet Lane home to determine the taxable value of its interior. He said he thought that exterior inspections were all that was necessary.

"I think that's how it works, isn't it?" Cuomo asked.

Platz paid a visit to the six-bedroom, five-bath home on three acres May 27 after a Tax Watch investigation found that Lee did extensive work there without building permits and without triggering any increase in the home's taxable value. Lee bought the house she calls Lily Pond for $1.2 million in 2008 but the assessed value had since dropped to $936,000. The renovations she undertook were widely reported in profiles of Lee in USA Today and Vogue, among other publications.

Platz followed up on the newspaper's reporting and increased the assessment by 29 percent, to $1.2 million, but had to guess what was inside the home because he was denied admittance.

GOP opponent Rob Astorino is already hitting Cuomo over this outrage:

Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who is challenging Cuomo for governor,  charged Thursday that his Democratic opponent had evaded his fair share of property taxes and attempted to cover up the improvements.

"We are directly suggesting that Andrew Cuomo hid renovations to his home in order to evade the higher property taxes he would have to pay if those renovations had been properly permitted, as is required of other citizens," campaign spokeswoman Jessica Proud said. "We are further suggesting that the governor is intentionally barring home access to his town assessor to conceal the amount of work that was done. We are also accusing Governor Cuomo and his government staff of not telling the truth in press reports about the extent of work done in the home."

If Zephyr Teachout is able to get the 15,000 signatures she needs to run in the Democratic Primary against Cuomo, she ought to hit the tax deadbeat charge over and over too - it points to just another example of their being two sets of rules for people in this state, one for the rich, powerful and connected and one for everybody else.

Andrew Cuomo clearly is ensconced in that first subset.

Take A Tour Of Sandra Lee's House With Jenna Bush

Tried embedding the code, for some reason, doesn't want to embed right, but here's a must watch video with Jenna Bush taking us on a Christmas tour of the house Sandra Lee and Governor Andrew Cuomo share together.

Do not watch on a full stomach - it's that nauseating.

Just gives you some context for the "Sheriff Andy and Sandra Lee didn't get building permits so they could stiff the tax man" story we learned about earlier - a story dangerous enough to Sheriff Andy that he had his secretary, Larry Schwartz, respond to inquiries to Sandra Lee at the Food Network over it himself.

Is it just me or are the Cuomo scandals starting to mount?

Why Is Cuomo Henchman Larry Schwartz Defending Sandra Lee Over Charges Of Building Permit-Fudging?

LoHud reported this morning that Andy Cuomo's partner, Sandra Lee, has had extensive work done to her house but failed to get the needed permits - and thus property value reassessments - needed for that work:

Lee enjoys what might be considered a more unattainable lifestyle at the six-bedroom, $1.2 million house she shares with Cuomo at 4 Bittersweet Lane. She has done much in the past six years to improve the three-acre property she calls Lily Pond, but along the way, has run afoul of town Building Inspector Bill Maskiell.

Maskiell said he had to hound her for six months in 2012 to obtain a building permit for a gazebo and shed she'd installed. Now he says Lee needs permits for interior renovations conducted over the past several years and much touted in the press.

 Without a building permit, the town assessor hasn't reviewed the work to decide whether the improvements would merit an assessment hike, and higher taxes. The 2013 tax bill for Lee and Cuomo — who has made taming New York's notoriously high property taxes a cornerstone of his administration — was $28,312.

...

 Keeping one's assessment from rising — or getting it reduced — is all part of suburban living in high-tax Westchester, and there are plenty of homeowners who do work to their homes without a permit. It's also a county where most municipalities have not revalued their real estate for decades, leaving thousands of homeowners with houses assessed and taxed at less than what they are worth. Absent building permits, the main purpose of which is to ensure safe construction, assessors have nothing to flag when work is done so they can decide whether it's increased a home's taxable value.

Much of the work Lee has had done to the property has come sans permit - and thus sans tax reassessment.

LoHud emailed Lee at the Food Network to get her response to the story and guess who replied?

An email message to Lee at the Food Network was answered by Larry Schwartz, Cuomo's secretary in Albany. He said any work performed at the Lee-Cuomo residence as noted in the USA Today article was "all decorative renovations and they don't require building permits. ... It was retiling, painting, wallpapering. It's like her line of work — decorative. I'm not aware of any rooms that were combined."

And what of the basement remodeling noted in the New York magazine article?

"Again, the key word is decorative," Schwartz wrote in an email. "Window treatments."

Couple of things to say here:

First, why is Larry Schwartz responding to an email to Lee at her Food Network account?

Schwartz works for the governor's office and is paid by taxpayer money.

Was Schwartz's defense of Sandra Lee's basement work the business of the people of State of New York?

Doubtful to me - it was simply doing the political business of Andy Cuomo to defend him and his partner Sandra Lee over what could become a campaign issue.

Which brings me to my second point:

I bet LoHud got tipped off to this Sandra Lee/permit story by Rob Astorino, Cuomo's GOP opponent:

Another public official, whose home improvements did not result in assessment hikes but did get a permit, is Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Cuomo in November's governor's race.

In 2011, Astorino obtained a building permit for $10,000 worth of work to his already-finished basement at 281 Pythian Ave. in Hawthorne. A drop ceiling was installed, along with a half-bathroom. The four-bedroom house has two baths, 1,518 square feet of living space and sits on a quarter-acre lot.

The property, assessed at $606,000, was purchased by Astorino for $705,000 in 2004. Town Assessor James Timmings said the assessment was raised significantly under the home's previous owner.

"Assessment is all about equality," he said. "Whenever a project is done, we review it, based on its contributory value."

Astorino said he obtained the building permits to make sure there were no repercussions.

"I wanted to make sure everything came out right," he said. "A problem with the project was the last thing I needed."

Just another example of how politically savvy Astorino is, managing to have his "i's" dotted and "t's" crossed for the permit story while Cuomo has to have his henchmen Larry Schwartz create some ruse about the much-covered improvements to the Lee home being nothing more than "decorative."

Study: Illegal Immigrants Paid $11.2 Billion In Taxes, General Electric Paid $0

But illegal immigrants are the freeloaders, right?

I bet most of you didn't know undocumented immigrants contributed more - much more - to the national treasury last year than General Electric. Surprised? Yet it's true.

While GE - which earned a whopping $14 billion last year - is reported to have paid nothing, nada, zero in taxes (GE denies it), the undocumented paid billions in state and local taxes in 2010.

No, it's not me talking; it's the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (itepnet.org), a prestigious, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that works on federal, state and local tax policy issues.

Obviously the old saying, "Nothing is certain but death and taxes," is not to be believed anymore. Or rather, only half of it can be believed.

Because death, of course, remains as dreaded and inevitable as ever, but with taxes the story is different.

"The rich are different from you and me," the famous F. Scott Fitzgerald quote, is a much more accurate description of what's going on in the country.

To no one's surprise, taxes are still as certain for working people - and whatever is left of the middle class - as they ever were. But for, well, GE and other corporate giants, the only certainty is that many found ways to contribute as little to the country's coffers as possible.

At the same time, Republicans in Washington are involved in a mighty struggle to protect the tax breaks of the country's richest 2%, while happily proposing to cut the most basic social services to Americans who really need them.

Closer to home, Gov. Cuomo has announced the so-called millionaires tax will not be renewed once it expires in December, although since it was established in 2009 it has brought in as much as $5 billion annually.

There is no doubt, when it comes to taxes the rich are really different.

Ironically the vilified undocumented population, among the poorest and most vulnerable in the country, does its part when it comes to taxes.

They pay sales taxes and property taxes - even if they rent, ITEP said. At least half of them pay income taxes. And, I believe, if they were ever legalized, close to 100% would do the same. "Add this all up," ITEP said, "and it amounts to billions in revenue to state and local governments."

ITEP estimates that households that are headed by undocumented immigrants (which may include members who are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants) paid $11.2 billion in state and local taxes last year. That included $1.2 billion in personal income taxes, $1.6 billion in property taxes and $8.4 billion in sales taxes.

New York is fourth in the country in tax revenue - $662.4 million - from households headed by undocumented immigrants, after California, Texas and Florida.

"These figures should be kept in mind as politicians and commentators continue with the seemingly endless debate over what to do with unauthorized immigrants already living in the United States," ITEP wisely advises.

"[These] immigrants - and their family members - are adding value to the U.S. economy; not only as taxpayers, but as workers, consumers and entrepreneurs as well."

General Electric of course has added value to the economy as well.

Think about all the money people will make trying to clean up the nuclear holocaust the GE-designed power plants in Japan have wrought.

General Electric Rolls In Dough, Pays No Taxes Even As It Forces Unionized Employees To Take Cuts

How is President Obama's favorite multinational corporation, General Electric, doing these days?

Pretty damned well:

General Electric, the conglomerate that is regarded as an economic bellwether, started the year with first-quarter results on Thursday that easily topped Wall Street’s expectations.

Net income was $3.4 billion in the first three months of 2011, or 31 cents a share, compared with $1.9 billion and 17 cents in the quarter a year ago.

Excluding one-time items, earnings were 33 cents a share, topping the average estimate of 28 cents from analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Earnings from continuing operations were $3.5 billion compared with $2.4 billion in the quarter a year ago.

With the results, G.E. joins other companies in the manufacturing sector that have topped forecasts this quarter, including United Technologies, Eaton and Honeywell.

The chief executive of G.E., Jeffrey R. Immelt, said in a statement that the company had emerged from the recession a stronger company.

“GE Healthcare, Transportation and Aviation delivered strong results,” Mr. Immelt said. “Strategic investments in high-growth segments have strengthened the company’s energy portfolio and position that business to return to growth in the second half of this year. We ended the quarter with a record high backlog of $177 billion.”

“GE Capital also had a strong first quarter, earning $1.8 billion after tax,” he said.

Over all, revenue rose 6 percent, to $38.45 billion in the first quarter, exceeding analysts forecasts of $34.64 billion. Revenue in the same quarter a year ago was $36.2 billion.

Are all General Electric employees sharing in the wealth?

Uh, no:

Last week, the New York Times reported that, despite making $14.2 billion in profits, General Electric, the largest corporation in the United States, paid zero U.S. taxes in 2010 and actually received tax credits of $3.2 billion dollars. The article noted that GE’s tax avoidance team is comprised of “former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.”

After not paying any taxes and making huge profits, ThinkProgress has learned that General Electric is expected to ask its nearly 15,000 unionized employees in the United States to make major concessions.

This year, 14 unions representing more than 15,000 workers will negotiate a new master contract with General Electric. Among the major concessions GE has signaled that it will ask of union workers is the elimination of a defined contribution benefit pension for new employees, a move the company has already implemented for its non-union salaried employees. Likewise, GE is signaling to the union that it will ask for the elimination of current health insurance plans in favor of lower quality health saving accounts, a move the company has already implemented for non-union salaried employees as well.

In addition, General Electric may ask some workers for a wage freeze. Since the recession began in 2007, GE threatened to close plants in Schenectady, NY and Louisville, KY unless workers took wage concessions and adopted two-tier wage structure. In an interview with ThinkProgress, Mark Haller, a machinist at General Electric locomotive factory in Erie, PA, said:

The company I work for paid no federal taxes last year, but we all get these mass emails from GE asking us to call our Congressman to fund the useless, alternative GE engine for the F-35. As taxpayers, we are subsidizing the profits of this company to a huge extent and now after making the company even more profitable, they are asking us to make concessions on pensions, benefits, and perhaps even wages. You wonder why there is a jobs crisis in this country with a guy like G.E. CEO Jeff Immelt heading the President’s Jobs Commission.

In 2003, union workers at 16 different General Electric factories engaged in a strike when G.E. proposed to cut their health care. Workers are mobilizing again this year. They have planned a rally that is expected to attract 10,000 workers from all over the country at the General Electric Locomotive Factory in Erie, PA on June 4th.

So General Electric is now, in the words of its own CEO (and Obama's jobs czar), a "stronger company" post-recession than before the economic collapse, pays no taxes and actually received a $3.4 billion tax credit from the government, and is forcing its employees to take wage freezes, benefit cuts and other concessions or they will move these jobs out of the United States.

A very able emblem of EXACTLY what is WRONG with capitalism in general these days and the American economy specifically these days

America: Raise Taxes On Rich People

Apparently the austerity measures and "shared sacrifice" promoted by both Republican and Democratic politicians are not very popular with Americans:

Despite growing concerns about the country’s long-term fiscal problems and an intensifying debate in Washington about how to deal with them, Americans strongly oppose some of the major remedies under consideration, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey finds that Americans prefer to keep Medicare just the way it is. Most also oppose cuts in Medicaid and the defense budget. More than half say they are against small, across-the-board tax increases combined with modest reductions in Medicare and Social Security benefits. Only President Obama’s call to raise tax rates on the wealthiest Americans enjoys solid support.

...

The Post-ABC poll finds that 78 percent oppose cutting spending on Medicare as a way to chip away at the debt. On Medicaid — the government insurance program for the poor — 69 percent disapprove of cuts.

...

In his speech last week, the president renewed his call to raise tax rates on family income over $250,000, and he appears to hold the high ground politically, according to the poll. At this point, 72 percent support raising taxes along those lines, with 54 percent strongly backing this approach. The proposal enjoys the support of majorities of Democrats (91 percent), independents (68 percent) and Republicans (54 percent). Only among people with annual incomes greater than $100,000 does less than a majority “strongly support” such tax increases.

An across-the-board tax increase is decidedly less popular, at least when coupled with benefit reductions. A report by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility , co-chaired by former senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) and former Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles, recommended “shared sacrifice.” But in the poll, a slim majority — 53 percent — opposes small tax increases and minor benefit cuts for all as a way to significantly reduce the debt. Strong opposition to that kind of solution outnumbers strong support by 2 to 1.

There is broad support for keeping Medicare structured the way it has been since it was instituted in 1965: as a defined-benefit health insurance program. Just 34 percent of Americans say Medicare should be changed along the lines outlined in the Ryan budget proposal, shifting it away from a defined-benefit plan. Under that proposal, recipients would select from a group of insurance plans providing guaranteed coverage, and the government would provide a payment to the insurer, subsidizing the cost. Advocates say this approach is more sophisticated than a pure voucher plan.

The message is clear - raise taxes on rich people.

Start with the richest 400.

Then move to Wall Street and the hedge fund managers.

People are seeing through this tax nonsense.

Rich people are paying the lowest rate of taxes in decades.

Most corporations aren't paying any taxes at all.

Only middle and working class people are paying a substantial portion of their incomes to taxes even as the programs that help these people the most face the starkest cuts under the austerity measures promoted by people like Chris Christie and Little Andy Cuomo.

It's time to end this nonsense.

Raise taxes on rich people.

Taxes

Went to the accountant and had my taxes done.

Asked him if I could do what General Electric CEO and President Obama's new jobs czar does and skip out on paying any taxes.

He said no.

Something about tax liability and fraud and jail.

For me, not for GE or for Immelt.

Oh, and the $250 tax break for teachers is gone too.

So glad the Bush tax cuts and the Cuomo tax cuts on millionaires went through.

What "General Electric Doesn't Pay Taxes"? Story

If you're getting all your news from an NBC outlet, you'd never know about the story that the Times broke about General Electric paying NO federal taxes at all.

The Kaplan Post in Washington, itself embroiled in scandal over it's for-profit education division, delights in tweaking NBC over this story:

It’s the kind of accountability journalism that makes readers raise an eyebrow, if it doesn’t raise their blood pressure first. General Electric Co., reported the New York Times last week, earned $14.2 billion in worldwide profits last year, including $5.1 billion in the United States — and paid exactly zero dollars in federal taxes.

The front-page story drew widespread commentary in newspapers and on many Web sites. ABC News and Fox News, among others, were all over it.

But the story was conspicuously absent from the reportage of one news organization: NBC.

During its Friday broadcast, “NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams” had no time to mention that America’s largest corporation had essentially avoided paying federal taxes in 2010. Or its Saturday, Sunday or Monday broadcasts, either.

Did NBC’s silence have anything to do with the fact that one of its parent companies is General Electric?

NBC News representatives say that it didn’t. “This was a straightforward editorial decision, the kind we make daily around here,” said Lauren Kapp, spokeswoman for NBC News. Kapp declined to discuss how NBC decides what’s news or, in this case, what isn’t.

But to others, NBC’s silence looks like something between a lapse and a coverup. The satirical “Daily Show” on Monday noted that “Nightly News” had time on Friday to squeeze in a story about the Oxford English Dictionary adding such terms as “OMG” and “muffin top,” but didn’t bother with the GE story.

Ignoring stories about its parent company’s activities is “part of a troubling pattern” for NBC News, said Peter Hart, a director at Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a liberal media watchdog group that often documents instances of corporate interference in news. He cited a series of GE-related stories that NBC’s news division has underplayed over the years, from safety issues in GE-designed nuclear power plants to the dumping of hazardous chemicals into New York’s Hudson River by GE-owned plants.

What’s more, Hart notes, NBC News has covered corporate tax-avoidance stories before — that is, when they didn’t involve GE. All three networks’ news divisions, according to Hart, have become reliable sources of publicity for their parents’ other corporate interests, doing news stories about upcoming sporting events or new TV shows carried on their own networks.

“It’s very curious,” Hart said. “Imagine if a different company were involved. If you changed the name to Citibank or Goldman Sachs, would NBC be interested in the story then? I suspect they would be.”

I stopped watching NBC News years ago, but I think they used to run some jive-ass gotcha thing called the "Fleecing of America" where they'd catch some corporate or government crook stealing big-ass money.

This GE/tax dodge story sounds perfect for that segment, doesn't it?

Put up a picture of Jeff Immelt's face with the words "Tax Cheat" slashed across it like a bad sunburn.

The fleecing of America indeed.

Jon Stewart Calls Obama, General Electric, And Tax Dodging American Corporations On Their B.S.

Indispensable viewing:

Jon Stewart was befuddled last night by a report that General Electric had paid no federal taxes in 2010 despite many commentators' claims that an oppressive corporate tax rate was killing jobs in America.

"But I thought the corporate tax rate had to be lowered?" Stewart asked. "And I'm not sure you can lower it from nothing."

Stewart then noted that GE has at the same time laid off much of its American workforce and shifted its operation overseas.

"I know the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people," Stewart said. "But what I didn't realize is that those people are assholes."

And who did Obama hire to chair his jobs council because G.E. has so much to teach American business?

That would be G.E. CEO Jeff Immelt - tax dodger and mass outsourcer.

More change we can believe in.

Time to call these companies and their CEO's what they are - tax dodgers and cheats.

Cuomo's New York

Tax cuts for millionaires.

Budget cuts for old people and kids.

Layoff for public employees.

Kickbacks from Wall Street.

That's Little Andy Cuomo's New York for you.

He's riding high in the polls right now, but let's see where he is one year from the day his "austerity budget" passes.

People vote for this austerity shit because they think the austerity is going to be done to SOMEBODY ELSE.

But when they're library gets closed, when they can't go camping this summer because the park rangers have all been laid off and Yogi Bear is gobbling picnic baskets at will, when they see the old people in their neighborhood dying on the street because Little Andy Cuomo decided that tax cuts for hedge fundies are more important than taking care of old people - well, we'll just have to see how that plays in the polls.

If I were the unions and progressive groups, I would be readying those ads and public appearances to tie the diminished standards of living in New York TO ANDY CUOMO and his hedge fund buddies.

Corporate profits are at an all-time high.

Corporate taxes are at an all-time low.

And yet the standards of living of middle and working class people are plummeting.

The problem is NOT that taxes are too high.

The problem is that Andrew Cuomo's hedge fund and Wall Street cronies refuse to pay their fair share in taxes and the corporations would rather outsource jobs or automate them than hire real live breathing New Yorkers.

Sell that message, Mulgrew.

It's the goddamned truth.

Bloomberg Gives Millions In Property Tax Breaks To Wealthy While Calling For Layoffs And Budget Cuts

The Shock Doctrine New York City/Bloomberg style continues unabated.

As two bills were introduced into the state senate and assembly to help Mayor Bloomberg lay off off thousands of teachers at will because city finances are in such bad shape, the Daily News' Juan Gonzalez reports on property tax breaks Bloombgerg gives for luxury condo owners that costs the city $900 million a year:

Yankees star Alex Rodriguez will pay virtually no property tax for a $6 million apartment he is buying on the upper West Side.

Rodriguez will be billed around $1,200 this year in real estate tax for his 3,000-square-foot, five-bedroom penthouse with spectacular views of the Hudson River.

Over the next 10 years Rodriguez and his fellow residents will continue to receive huge discounts on their tax, a city housing official said.

For Rodriguez, a full tax bill would be at least $60,000 annually, the latest city assessment records show.

A spokeswoman for Extell, the company that built the 2-year-old luxury Rushmore Towers near the West Side Highway, declined to discuss the taxes on the slugger's new bachelor pad.

But the only two penthouses that went into contract this month at the Rushmore, each of which was listed at more than $6 million, have been assessed at a little over $100 per month in taxes, one real estate expert told the Daily News.

So how is it possible that tens of thousands of ordinary city residents struggle each year with soaring tax bills for their co-ops, condos and homes, while the Yankees' $33-million-a-year star gets to pay next to nothing?

Well, Rodriguez and many other well-heeled New Yorkers have learned to take advantage of a little-known tax abatement program that has existed for decades.

The politicians and real estate insiders call it the "421A" program. It grants as much as a 98% percent tax abatement for up to 25 years to condo owners in newly built housing.

The bulk of the 421A benefit has gone to luxury housing in Manhattan, though a few reforms by City Hall and the Legislature in 2007 at least required developers to build 20% affordable housing to qualify for the tax abatement.

This year alone, the 421A program will cost our city more than $900 million in lost revenues, the Independent Budget Office says.

That's money that could prevent layoffs of firefighters and teachers. That could fund senior citizen centers and pay for after-school programs.

You haven't heard much about this, but the 421A program ended in December for any new construction. But the city's powerful real estate industry is determined to get it renewed and even get it expanded. Its lobbyists are working feverishly behind the scenes to pressure Council and lawmakers in Albany.

Brooklyn City Councilman Brad Lander has been leading the fight against that renewal.

It's too much of a giveaway to developers, Lander says, especially since there's already a glut of luxury housing in this town.

The developers want to link any extension of rent stabilization laws for tenants, which the Legislature must vote on by June, to a deal on extending the 421A tax abatement for builders.

The industry hopes Gov. Cuomo, who made a name for himself a long time ago as an advocate for affordable housing, will take their side.

In so many ways, big and small, the minority who have the big money keep trying to get government to give them more financial breaks at the expense of the rest of us.

"Where's the fair share if people who have paid millions of dollars for an apartment get away with paying no real estate taxes, when people in co-ops are being slaughtered?" said Bayta Lewton, of the Coalition for a Livable West Side.

Even before the pennant race begins, A-Rod has become the poster boy in another race - to end these tax abatements that have run amok.

Outrageous.

But you can bet that Bloomberg and his real estate cronies (remember Deputy Dan Doctoroff?) will be working overtime to get the tax abatement for rich people extended.

They will argue that this MUST happen or new construction won't take place in the city.

Meanwhile, crying poverty, Bloomberg is closing 20 senior centers, laying off thousands of teachers, and slashing other programs to the bone in the spirit of fiscal prudence.

Hey, Bloomie, you want to be fiscally prudent?

Support the extension of the millionaire's tax in Albany and the end to the tax abatement giveaway to wealthy condo owners.

Both of those moves will bring in an extra $1.25 billion to the state and an extra $900 million to the city.

And then you wouldn't need to do layoffs at all, would you?

But I bet you WANT to do layoffs and are using this supposed financial crisis the city is in to push through your corporatis,t right wing, union-busting agenda.

Just as Paul Krugman notes the Bushies did in Iraq back in 2003 and the Repubs are doing in Wisconsin right now.

Shock Doctrine Bloomberg-style.

Change I Can Believe In: Scheniderman Edition

Now this I like:

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said he is creating a taxpayer-protection unit to target multi-state corporate tax fraud schemes, corrupt contractors and firms that rip off public pension funds.

The unit, which also will encourage whistleblowers to expose corruption, will be empowered by the state’s newly strengthened False Claims Act, which Schneiderman called “the strongest anti-fraud statute in the United States.” The revised act makes New York the only state that can bring false claims against those who commit tax fraud, Schneiderman said today at a press conference in Manhattan.

Schneiderman also will bolster his office’s Medicaid Fraud Control unit, taking advantage of a federal program that matches state investment by three-to-one. The money to expand the unit will come from recoveries, he said.

“Today’s announcement is a signal to anyone thinking of ripping off New York taxpayers,” Schneiderman said. “We will go after you with every tool we have.”

The enhanced False Claims Act, sponsored by Schneiderman when he was a state senator and approved by the Legislature last year, has a provision aimed at illegal off-shore tax shelters, he said in a statement when it passed. The provision is a first- in-the-nation state program to allow whistleblowers to go after what he called “millionaire tax cheats” that defraud the state of more than $350,000, he said last year.

Schneiderman said today the new unit also will pursue off- shore tax cheats.

If Schneiderman wants to catch off-shore tax cheats, he ought to start with an investigation of Mayor Moneybags.

Then everybody who gets listed in the next WikiLeaks document dump involving off-shore tax cheats in the Cayman Islands, which is set to come out any day now.

This is the kind of change I can believe in.

Rich, powerful, influential crooks being held accountable.

Alec Baldwin - Teacher Basher AND A Tax Cheat

The NY Daily News details some celebrities New York City thinks are cheating on their taxes - and guess which sanctimonious, teaching bashing know-nothing of an actor showed up in the article?

Actor Alec Baldwin has joined a list of elite New Yorkers targeted by tax collectors who think they're fibbing about where they really live to dodge New York City income taxes.

In recent years, auditors have confronted hundreds of super-wealthy New Yorkers over the residency rules - including star Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter.

Facing shrinking revenues, the state has ramped up its pursuit of suspected tax dodgers, hiring 189 new auditors and - for the first time - making filers swear under oath on tax forms as to how many days they "spend in New York City."

If it's more than 183 days and the filer has a residence in the city, the tax bill goes up.

Baldwin, star of NBC's "30 Rock," owns a three-bedroom co-op on Central Park West, a house in the Hamptons and a pad near his daughter in Los Angeles.

He spends lots of time in the city doing the show, but claims the Hamptons as home base. That made him one of hundreds of people slapped with an audit in 2009.

"The moment you start working regularly [in the city], the city finance people come after you," Baldwin recently told an audience at City College.

Neither Baldwin nor tax officials would discuss his case with the Daily News.

Hey, Alec - why don't you spend less time talking shit to students at City College or writing shit at Huffingtonpost about how evil unionized teachers are and more time taking care of your responsibilities.

Like paying the taxes you rightfully owe.

Alec Baldwin - just another example of a sanctimonious, hypocritical know-it-all celebrity who at the end of the day is a cheat and a deadbeat.

Bloomberg - Cayman Island Tax Cheat

The Wikileaks source who has handed over the names of 2,000 individuals and institutions who have used the Cayman Islands as a venue to avoid paying taxes said the following today:

"Working in the Cayman Islands I realized that something was wrong... I want to let our society know what I do know because it's damaging our society in a way that money is moved away by financial institutions, multinational conglomerates and high-net-worth individuals, money is hidden in offshore ventures."

Guess who likes to use the Cayman Islands to avoid paying taxes on his philanthropic foundation?

Mike Bloomberg's idea of charity still stops at U.S. taxpayers. The latest filings for the mega-foundation run by New York's richest resident shows that he pumped a whopping $420 million last year into his do-gooder operation - cue the cheers! -- while parking $75 million in offshore tax havens -- Hiss! Boo!

You don't have to be a card-carrying Bloomberg Basher to think this is the bigger part of the story. Even the mayor's own Bloomberg News carries the Associated Press's story today by Sarah Kugler Frazier with a lede emphasizing the tax dodge:

"Mayor Michael Bloomberg's money managers invested more than $75 million of his money in offshore tax havens in 2009, according to his philanthropic foundation's latest tax forms, continuing an activity seemingly at odds with his public statements about the economy."

The response from City Hall spokesman Stu Loeser is that this is all designed for the public good: The mayor "pays an enormous amount in taxes, but his foundation's investment strategy, like those of many other large foundations, is designed to maximize the amount of money going to charity," Loeser told the AP.

Ah, yes - a foundation strategy to avoid paying federal, state and city taxes or, as we used to call this kind of thing back in the day, a foundation strategy to cheat on their taxes.

Bloomberg's excuse?

Hey, all the cool foundations do it!

Indeed they do.

And they are engaging in tax fraud.

Can't wait to see the names of the individuals and institutions Wikileaks divulges from the Cayman Islands tax cheat disks.

I'm not saying Bloomberg or his foundation are going to be on that list, but you can bet some of those foundations Bloomberg's spokesman Stu Loesser referred to in his "All the cool foundations are cheating on their taxes!" statement will be.

And regardless, Bloomberg uses all the usual tax dodges to cheat on his taxes:

According to an extensive review of the mayor’s financial records by The Observer, even as Mr. Bloomberg was trying to counter the loss of taxes and other income from the richest New Yorkers, the foundation he controls was in the process of shuttling hundreds of millions of dollars out of the city and into controversial offshore tax havens that would produce nothing at all for the city in terms of tax revenue.

By the end of 2008, the Bloomberg Family Foundation had transferred almost $300 million into various offshore destinations—some of them notorious tax-dodge hideouts. The Caymans and Cyprus. Bermuda and Brazil. Even Mauritius, a speck of an island in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Madagascar. Other investments were spread around disparate locations, from Japan to Luxembourg to Romania.

...

BEYOND THE U.S. BORDER, in places like the Caymans, the climate for charities is much more inviting. Nonprofits like the Bloomberg Family Foundation are tax-exempt, but some investments that aren’t related to an organization’s core mission can be subject to a levy called the Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT, for short). So to avoid more than 40 percent in federal and local taxes on unrelated businesses, nonprofits use a legal loophole, routing investments through offshore tax havens.

“It cleanses the unrelated business taint from the total return,” Harvey Dale, of the N.Y.U. School of Law, told The Observer. “You invest in the same thing through an offshore entity. You are making the same investment; you are just putting an intermediary entity in the middle. Instead of investing directly in the hedge fund, you invest in the foreign entity, which, in turn, invests in the hedge fund.”

“Is (using the loophole) allowable under the law? Yes,” said tax expert Dean Zerbe, a former staffer at the Senate Finance Committee. “Is it something that is a best practice, particularly by an elected official? I think they should look very hard when they are engaging in this kind of activity. What does it say to the average New Yorker?”

The foundation’s tax returns indicate that Mr. Rattner’s team migrated much of its money to large hedge funds with ostensible island charters, including several in the Caymans, two of which list an address at P.O. Box 309 of the Ugland House, a building that “houses” an estimated 12,000 to 18,000 foreign businesses.

...

But tax havens—despite the protestations of the president, a slew of senators and at least one district attorney—remain legal. “I made a lot of effort to shut down that loophole,” former district attorney Robert Morgenthau told The Observer.

Mr. Morgenthau said he’d spoken generally about offshore loopholes to four U.S. secretaries of the Treasury, twice to the commissioner of the general revenue and, as it happens, to Mr. Bloomberg himself. The mayor seemed uninterested in the offshore issue, he said. “I’ve talked to the mayor about it, and the budget director,” Mr.

Morgenthau said. “We did get help from the State Division of Taxation and Finance. But nothing from the city.”

Gee - I can't imagine why Bloomberg wouldn't want to help Morgenthau close the tax dodge with 12,000-18,000 businesses "housed" in it.

Oh, right - because his foundation has a P.O. Box there.

Bloomberg is a tax cheat and a crook.

In addition, as he screams about falling tax revenue and the need for budget cuts and layoffs, he is a hypocrite.

Were he to close the tax loophole that allows companies based in NYC to skirt tax laws by using Ugland House in the Caymans, maybe the city wouldn't need to cut the budget so much or lay any employees off.

But that would mean ending a tax dodge he and his Wall Street and corporate criminal friends have been enjoying for years and there is NO way Bloomberg is going to do that.

So instead we have to wait and see who is on the Wikileaks: Cayman Islands Edition list and shame the crooked bastards into paying their taxes.

Because how much you wanna make a bet that Barack Obama's government is NOT going to go after any of the tax cheats named on the Wikileaks list?

How much you wanna bet they go after Wikileaks instead?

Data I Can Believe In

Could our financial, political and corporate elites be about to experience a "data accountability" moment?

LONDON — A former senior Swiss bank executive said on Monday that he had given the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, details of more than 2,000 prominent individuals and companies that he contends engaged in tax evasion and other possible criminal activity.

Rudolf M. Elmer, who ran the Caribbean operations of the Swiss bank Julius Baer for eight years until he was dismissed in 2002, refused to identify any of the individuals or companies, but he told reporters at a news conference that about 40 politicians and “pillars of society” were among them.

He told The Observer newspaper over the weekend that those named in the documents come from “the U.S., Britain, Germany, Austria and Asia — from all over,” and include “business people, politicians, people who have made their living in the arts and multinational conglomerates — from both sides of the Atlantic.”

Mr. Elmer handed two computer disks to Mr. Assange at the news conference, the first significant public event the WikiLeaks founder has held since he was arrested in London in early December after Swedish prosecutors sought to have him extradited on charges of sexual crimes there. He has denied the charges but was briefly jailed last year before bail was granted.

Wearing the same dark blue suit he has worn through his legal battles, Mr. Assange said that WikiLeaks would verify and release the information, including the names, in as little as two weeks. He mentioned possible partnerships with financial news organizations and suggested he would consider turning the information over to Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, which investigates financial corruption.

Mr. Elmer, who previously provided documents from his former employer to national tax authorities including the Internal Revenue Service in the United States, said he had turned to WikiLeaks to “educate society” about what he considers an unfair system that serves the rich and aids those who seek to launder money.

His recent offers to provide further data to universities and governments were spurned, he said, and he thought that the Swiss media had failed to cover the substance of his accusations. “The man in the street needs to know how this system works,” he said, referring to the offshore trusts that many “high net worth individuals” around the world use to evade taxes.

...

The offshore banking industry has come under increasing pressure in recent years amid accusations that places like the Caribbean, with looser financial laws, allowed investors to avoid taxes and that some banks helped to create complex webs of companies and trust funds there to confuse tax authorities abroad.

In 2009, Bradley Birkenfeld, a former private banker for UBS, disclosed some of the industry’s illegal tactics and forced the bank to turn over details of several thousand client accounts to the I.R.S. as part of a legal settlement. UBS agreed to pay a $780 million fine and admitted criminal wrongdoing.

Still, Mr. Assange said in London on Monday, financial institutions usually “operate outside the rule of law” because of their economic power. WikiLeaks itself has been “economically censored,” he said, by companies like Visa and MasterCard, which stopped processing donations to it late last year in response to its release of hundreds of thousands of classified United States documents on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and thousands of State Department cables.

WikiLeaks, perhaps signaling a new focus, has also said it would release information from an American bank, thought to be from a Bank of America executive’s hard drive, early this year. But, Mr. Assange said, the site is not fully “open for public business” owing to the weight of the existing leaks it is struggling to process.

Will the very same news outlets dying to print the names and "value-added" ratings of NYC teachers publish the names of the thousands of tax cheats, criminal companies and fraudsters Wikileaks is about to drop on the public?

Because THIS kind of data IS an accountability moment.

You know, the kind of thing they claim to be doing by printing names and rankings of teachers despite the fact that the ratings have a 35% margin of error?

Bloomberg Sues Company For Doing What His Foundation Does

Bloomberg is suing a Washington State tobacco company for not paying taxes on product it sells in New York.

Ironically, he brags about keeping his charity foundation headquarters in the Cayman Islands so he doesn't have to pay taxes in New York.

It's for the "public good," he says.

How come nobody in the press calls this what it is - hypocrisy - or calls Bloomberg what he is - a hypocrite?

Well, actually I guess they did when the Bloomberg/Cayman Island story first surfaced, but it's the kind of thing they ought to be bringing up every time he talks about layoffs for teachers or charging fire victims $500 for the FDNY to put out a fire.

You know, maybe if corporate rooks like Bloomberg paid their fair share of taxes instead of putting their money in overseas tax havens, the city wouldn't be in the state it's in.

Reminder: Caption Contest

Just a reminder - the Klein/Black caption contest is ongoing.

You can place your entries here.

The winner gets an all expense paid, tax free trip to Mayor Bloomberg's Cayman Island tax haven.

You'll be wined and dined and feted just like you were Mayor Moneybags - all without a dime in tax being paid to the U.S. government, New York State, or New York City.

Isn't that exciting!

The contest closes Sunday night at midnight.