Monthly Archives: August 2004

A Week Is A Long Time In Politics

This is a bad week for politics, and a good week to have guest blogger George Mundstock doing the heavy lifting. Out there Kerry is all but saying he has a secret plan to end the war in Iraq, by saying he knows what to do in Iraq without explaining. Meanwhile GW is going to Ohio and telling the unemployed that he feels their pain.

So far the outrage of the week is the suspiciously timed release of a terror threat cum NY-area alert, based on ancient information — coupled with the demonization of anyone who dares to question it. Yes indeed, there have been some amazingly well timed coincidences. Funny how that works.

But I'm on a wireless connection where a dozen of us share a 56k telephone connection, so don't expect much posting this week.

Update: The Washington Post story on the arbitrary release of a warning based on aged data is clearer than the NYT version, which runs away from the political angle…although even the Post is more circumspect than the bloggers.

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | Comments Off on A Week Is A Long Time In Politics

US Taxation of Multinational Enterprise: Part IX

In a few days, I will write more about the “extra” value in a multinational. Today, as promised, I want to talk about expatriot corporations.

A bunch of US corporations moved to Bermuda on paper to reduce US taxes. In such a transaction, technically, the old shareholders of the US operating corporation become shareholders of a new Bermuda holding company, which ends up owning the old US operating corporation. Because the old US corporation becomes a subsidiary of the new public Bermuda company, expatriation transactions are referred to as “inversions.” The tax benefits of inversions have been there for some time. But, inversions became popular only recently as corporate managers and the stock markets began accepting Bermuda corporations more.

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Posted in Law: Tax | 4 Comments

House of Representatives Supports Giving US Corporations Away for Nothing

Barring surprises, back to international taxation, particularly expatriate US corporations, tomorrow.

Today, I want to write about the financial accounting when a corporation pays an executive with stock options. This is not a new topic, and I have nothing new to add to the debate, but it is important, and the issue is hot again, as to be discussed below.

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Posted in Law: Everything Else | 13 Comments