State of Wyoming Billionaires in the wild

Status: 20.06.2021 09:34 a.m.

In Jackson Hole in the US state of Wyoming, the fox and the rabbit say goodnight – and recently the richest people in the country too. You will be attracted by unspoiled nature – and low taxes.

From Jule Käppel, ARD studio Washington

Real estate agent Andrew Ellett makes the dream of a ranch in the wilderness of the northern Rocky Mountains come true. Millionaires and billionaires come to him when they are looking for the perfect piece of land in the middle of nowhere: he has it.

“On this property, you can saddle your horses and ride right into the woods for hundreds of miles,” says Ellet. The property includes 120 acres of land, a main house with several hundred square feet of living space, a three bedroom guest house, and there is no limit to the number of horses on the ranch. This is also an important selling point here in the western United States, in the state of Wyoming. The price: $ 4.6 million. A good deal compared to the noble wooden house on the river for the super rich who love fly fishing. That costs almost 18 million.

Exclusive properties in the middle of nowhere

The agent says that’s the best thing about Jackson Hole: You can be close to town and still feel so rural. The Engel und Völkers broker can offer a lonely ranch a maximum of three times a year. Only three percent of the land in the parish is private. The rest is not for sale. Mountains and wide valleys, forests and crystal clear lakes are home to elks, herds of bison, bears – and wildflowers dance in the meadows in the summer breeze. An idyll with three ski areas and two national parks on the doorstep. One of them is the famous Yellowstone National Park.

Natural idyll with a low tax burden

The richest people in the United States move to this area in the north of Cowboy State. But they don’t just love the landscape. The community is one of the largest tax havens in the United States, explains Ben Williamson. “Property tax is minimal, there is no income tax.” The 28-year-old Williamson is against the fact that untouched nature becomes an investment.

The executive director of the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative finds it “absurd” that this isolated region has the highest per capita income in the country – more than $ 250,000. It’s almost a third less in Manhattan.

In the nearby Grand Teton National Park, grazing bison radiate the power of untouched nature. Image: AFP

Rich new citizens make life difficult for others

The folks who aren’t in the richest 1 percent have a hard time getting along, Williamson says. Because in the past few years rents have exploded along with market prices for luxury real estate. During the corona pandemic, even more people were relocated from the metropolises on the west and east coast. In addition to the hedge fund managers, CEOs and film actresses, the home office employees with a lot of money have now joined them. The apartments have become too expensive for the long-established residents of the town who take care of the ranches, hotel guests or hospital patients. They move to the neighboring communities, drive over the pass to work for almost an hour. Sometimes there is no getting through in snow. And then Jackson Hole, the dream place of billionaires, is cut off from the world for days

Exclusive

Housing market Tax tricks with Interest settlements

Status: 06/17/2021 10:42 a.m.

Financial investors speculate with billions on the German housing market, but hardly pay taxes – thanks to a legal trick. The federal government wanted to close this loophole. But loud monitor – Research won’t come of it.

By Lutz Polanz and Jan Schmitt, WDR

“Behind this house is an American company, the trail of the owners leads via Luxembourg to the Cayman Islands” , tells Coni Pfeiffer, activist and spokeswoman for the # 200Houses network. Tenants from Berlin have come together to defend themselves against the conversion of their apartments into expensive condominiums and the greed of financial corporations. It is similar with the other houses on the opposite side, explains Pfeiffer. Here the trail of investors leads to tax havens such as Gibraltar or the Virgin Islands. The Berlin real estate market has long since become an Eldorado for major investors who want to remain anonymous. The official owners are companies with names such as Magenta Properties S.à.rl or Berlin Project-1 Property III S.à.rl The names often conceal complex corporate structures with a whole chain of companies. In the end, they lead to well-known tax havens, for example in the Caribbean.

Interest trick to save taxes

The elaborate company structures apparently also serve to avoid paying taxes to the German tax authorities. A completely legal interest trick helps the companies: The parent companies lend money to their subsidiaries who own the houses and land in Germany. In return, they charge them high internal interest rates – much higher than they would otherwise have to pay at banks. The interest payments of the subsidiaries reduce the profit in Germany and thus the taxes that would have to be paid here.

“The profits go to countries in which no tax is levied on interest income”, explains Gerhard Schick, board member of “Citizens’ Movement Finanzwende”. “Thanks to these high interest payments, it is practically possible to push the income abroad, so that in Germany you can tell the tax office that we have actually not earned any money, but that the profit is generated abroad.”

Billions are being lost to the Treasury

“Every year the German state loses five to seven billion euros as a result of the interest rate trick”, adds Christoph Trautvetter from “Network tax justice”.

So far, the tax authorities have been able to do next to nothing about it. There is no corresponding legal regulation. Specialists have been calling for them for years, for example Manfred Naumann, an expert in international tax law and head of department in the Federal Ministry of Finance for many years: “I am frustrated that the legislature and the Federal Ministry of Finance are unable to find such a regulation”, said Naumann in an interview with the ARD -Magazine monitor . For him the state wears one “complicity” because financial resources run into the billions “flow untaxed”. Proposals for such a regulation have long been on the table. Accordingly, the interest rate would always be used as a benchmark at which a group can borrow money from the bank. Demanding higher interest rates internally would only be possible if the group can justify it well. That would be a kind of reversal of the burden of proof, which experts believe would prevent a large part of the tax damage.

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The Federal Ministry of Finance under Olaf Scholz (SPD) had proposed precisely such a new regulation in a draft law. But the CDU / CSU parliamentary group intervened and the corresponding passage was deleted from the draft. The Federal Council then made a new attempt to resume the regulation. But this was also thrown out at the instigation of the Union.

“Braking measures against money laundering, aggressive tax avoidance and tax evasion by the CDU / CSU has a long tradition”, criticizes Sven Giegold from the Greens in the European Parliament. However, he is also surprised that the SPD did not protest against it.

The Union faction wanted to get up monitor -Do not answer the request. The Federal Ministry of Finance, led by Scholz, is now apparently at a distance from its original approach. Corresponding changes “should ideally be coordinated internationally”, it says in a response from the ministry to a request from monitor .

Now the match ball lies with the Federal Council. He wants to decide at the end of June whether to call the mediation committee or wave the law through with the loophole

Receivables from the tax office Many short-time workers have to pay taxes

Status: 14.06.2021 2:49 p.m.

The short-time work allowance saved many jobs. But many recipients are now realizing that the tax office is demanding an additional tax payment: an additional burden for an already lower income. From Iris Sayram, rbb It is now the third amendment to the short-time work regulation that is going through parliament this week. “With short-time working we secure millions of jobs through the crisis and get the German economy important skilled workers for a quick start now in the summer”, Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) repeated only recently. This statement is not disputed; but after more than a year of short-time work, there are also side effects.

Short-time work requires a tax return

These are particularly noticeable now, as those receiving the benefits have to submit their tax returns for the 2020 pandemic year. Everyone who has “applied for more than 410 euros in the calendar year” has to make the declaration, according to the website of the Federal Employment Agency (BA). The calculation that as an employee subject to wage tax you usually get something back does not always apply here. Some even have to pay back large sums of money to the tax office. “This mainly affects the recipients who were not sent 100 percent on short-time work, but only partially,” says the managing director of the Federal Association of Wage Tax Aid Associations, Uwe Rauhöft tagesschau.de . The Berlin Left MP Sebastian Schluesselburg knows exactly such a case from his public consultation: A woman from the hotel industry was put on short-time work at the beginning of the pandemic. “Your cash flow is already greatly reduced by the high rent and having a small child,” said Schluesselburg. But she has now been completely “blown away” by the additional tax payment of more than 1000 euros – payable within four weeks.

background 05/19/2021

With the decision comes the tax shock

“This is not an isolated case,” says Uwe Rauhöft from the income tax aid association. “If the regular working hours are reduced to 50 percent and short-time work allowance is granted for the other 50 percent, then the wage tax is sometimes reduced very sharply,” explains the expert. The reduced wage tax will fall disproportionately because of the progressive tax rate. “As a result, however, too little wage tax is paid over the year,” Rauhöft continues. With the income tax return this is now noticeable. Those affected often only noticed this when they received the payment notification. “If you don’t expect it beforehand and don’t know, you now have a problem.” The Federal Employment Agency cannot give precise figures on how many recipients are now confronted with back payments. It is only clear that there are not just a few isolated cases. Several million employees have received short-time allowance since the beginning of the pandemic. According to the latest projections by the BA, it was around 2.6 million in March.

05/05/2021

Experts complain that there is insufficient information

In the FAQ area of ​​the employment agency there is a note in the last sub-item that “short-time allowance as wage replacement benefit is tax-free”. It also states that the service will be taken into account when determining the tax rate. “This can lead to additional tax claims”. This should have been pointed out more clearly, says tax law expert Sandra Inioutis. The tax advisor knows the problem. “It is a highly complicated process and it is not possible to say in general who it affects.” It is all the more necessary to better educate the recipients here. “Perhaps one should have said from an official point that the basically tax-free service is provided with a” but “”, says Inioutis tagesschau.de .

05/22/2021

Little indulgence in repayment

“As if that weren’t bad enough, the tax office is proceeding with full force here,” reports the left-wing politician Schliisselburg. The young family wanted to pay the 1000 euros in two installments, but that would only be possible if all of their own funds were practically exhausted. A credit line must also be used beforehand in order to get a deferral approved. “That is unbelievable. People are being driven into over-indebtedness,” the politician said indignantly. But the law on the possibility of deferral requires that an installment payment is only to be granted in the event of “considerable hardship”. “Unfortunately that is the legal situation. But I would not recommend a deferral either, the interest rate is six percent per year. That will then be even more expensive,” advises expert Rauhöft from the income tax aid association. However, the interest rates for an overdraft facility are likely to be in a similar range or even higher.

Disclosure report Bezos, Musk and Co. hardly paid any taxes

As of: 06/09/2021 05:04 a.m.

A new report reveals that the richest Americans hardly pay any income tax – among them Amazon founder Bezos and Tesla boss Musk. The tax authority wants to determine how the confidential data became public. By Torsten Teichmann, ARD studio Washington In 2007, multibillionaire Jeff Bezos didn’t pay a dime in US income tax. In 2011, too, the Amazon founder offset his income against losses so much that the US tax authority IRS granted him an income-related child allowance of 4,000 US dollars. This had often been speculated about. But now the numbers are known. The foundation for investigative journalism ProPublica quotes from Bezos tax return. These tax tricks are not illegal. But the network of loopholes and discounts remains denied to most Americans due to lack of assets. They move from salary to salary, as US President Joe Biden complains time and again: “Sometimes I argue with friends in the Democratic Party about it: It’s okay to be a billionaire or a millionaire, but pay your fair share.”

What tax amounts are fair for the rich?

But how much should the top 0.01 percent in the US contribute financially to society? There is a dispute about this. The ProPublica report rekindles this debate. The foundation has obtained official tax documents from thousands of the richest Americans, says the journalist Jesse Eisinger involved in the NPR radio station. They cover a period of 15 years. ProPublica initially refers to the reported income from the tax returns of the 25 richest Americans and the increase in wealth over the period that is not taxed. In addition to Bezos, Tesla founder Elon Musk, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and New York’s ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg will be there.

If we look at the actual tax on capital growth – which is essentially your income – then its tax rate is 3.4 percent. For people like Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffet, it’s even less.

Far from the top tax rate of 37 percent

The investor Warren Buffet paid 0.1 percent tax on income and asset growth between 2014 and 2018, ProPublica calculates. At Bezos it is just under one percent. Americans pay an average of 14 percent income tax. The top tax rate would be 37 percent. America’s billionaires are far from that. The Biden administration reacted cautiously to the findings. Any unauthorized publication of government documents is against the law, said Biden’s spokeswoman Jen Psaki. The Ministry of Finance is trying to clarify how the tax returns have come to the public.

Generally speaking, we know that more needs to be done to ensure that businesses and high-income citizens do more of their fair share. This is what the President says in his proposals, in his budget, and this is how he wants to pay for his proposals. A government proposal provides for higher taxes for households with an annual income of more than $ 400,000. According to the ProPublica report, however, it is completely unclear whether a corresponding reform will generate additional income as long as the loopholes in the tax laws of the USA are not closed.

Because of taxes and bans How tobacco companies are realigning themselves

Status: June 8th, 2021 4:00 p.m.

The big tobacco companies still make billions in profits with cigarettes. But after decades of success, BAT, Altria & Co. are slowly turning around in the face of increasing bans and rising tobacco taxes. They are still running an extremely lucrative business. But the revenues and profits of the large tobacco companies are likely to come under further pressure in the coming years. New restrictions could reduce profits, higher taxes are supposed to increase government revenues in the Corona crisis and will further increase the prices for the “blue haze”. The first increase in tobacco taxes since 2015 is due in Germany. In the spring the governing parties CDU, CSU and SPD agreed on the framework conditions for tax increases . This should generate additional revenues of 11.3 billion by the end of 2025. A good half of this should be collected more through the classic tobacco tax, e-cigarettes should generate tax revenues of three billion euros and less harmful products in the industry should also contribute almost two billion euros. These include tobacco heaters that manufacturers had brought onto the market in recent years. The tax increases are to start gradually from 2022.

“Smoke-free Germany” called for

This is another turning point for tobacco companies after the sale of menthol cigarettes was banned in the EU in mid-2020. But the tax hike does not go far enough for health organizations. Significantly higher taxes are necessary to get people to stop smoking, according to a statement from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). On the occasion of World No Tobacco Day on May 31, the non-smoking alliance and the German Society for Pneumology and Respiratory Medicine (DPG) called for a “smoke-free Germany” by 2040. There should still be a long way to go until then. Tobacco consumption fell by around 30 percent between 2011 and 2020. However, just under a quarter of adults in Germany still smokes.

Billions in income from cigarettes

The tobacco companies, for which Germany is an important but not a decisive market, have been changing direction for years, but Altria, Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco (BAT) continue to make good money with traditional cigarettes. BAT, for example, earned around £ 6.4 billion net last year, a large part of which was paid out to shareholders in the form of a dividend. And the current business forecast for the first half of the year, which was published today, does not read badly from the company’s point of view: The group expects growth of more than five percent for the current financial year. This also exceeds the previous forecasts. According to BAT, products of “new categories” such as e-cigarettes and tobacco vaporizers are more important. According to earlier information, the tobacco giant intends to win around 50 million customers for the vaporizer in the next ten years; the total customer base is currently 150 million. Big competitors Altria and Philip Morris are also well represented in the e-cigarette and tobacco vaporizer business. But without writing off the classic cigarette. Philip Morris Germany, for example, recently increased production at the Dresden plant. Due to temporarily closed borders in the pandemic, the demand for cigarettes from domestic production even increased. The company also saw higher demand for “fine-cut” tobacco. It is used for rolling cigarettes – smokers are increasingly looking for inexpensive alternatives to cigarettes from the pack.

Tobacco vaporizers and cannabis products

The coming years will show how quickly the tobacco companies can change course strategically. Some of the manufacturers want to offer new products without nicotine, but with caffeine. They also work on cannabis products. Further legalization of cannabis could open up new billion-dollar revenue streams for them. However, the pressure on the classic cigarette from the state is likely to accelerate and at the same time burden this process of change on the part of providers. This applies above all to the world’s most important sales market for tobacco multinationals, the USA: According to media reports, the new US government under Joe Biden wants to reduce the nicotine content of cigarettes to such an extent that they should no longer be addictive. In addition, menthol cigarettes could also face a ban in the USA.

Icons of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple on mobile phones. Photo: VNA Washington has proposed a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15%, lower than that proposed by the Group of Top Industrialized Countries (G7), but higher than some other countries such as Ireland. But the UK is still concerned that this plan does not go far enough to tax giant technology corporations such as Amazon, Google and Facebook. In a recent statement, Mr. Sunak emphasized the importance of fair taxation for technology corporations and called on the US and G7 countries to discuss this issue next week. The meeting of G7 finance ministers is expected to take place from June 4-5. According to Mr. Sunak, companies like Facebook also want to solve this problem, which can bring certainty and stability to them. Besides, Mr. Sunak also mentioned that the UK is considering a separate online sales tax, when large multinational corporations, especially digital corporations, do not pay taxes in the right places, right place and this is not fair. In 2015, member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) agreed in principle to a plan to prevent multinational corporations from evading taxes by moving their headquarters to countries with low tax rates. . Despite years of negotiations, progress has been insignificant. However, discussions have been revived with the recent proposal of US President Joe Biden. Recently, the US government has proposed to the OECD a tax rate of at least 15% for multinational corporations. This is the first time the US has officially proposed a global minimum tax rate. France and Germany have voiced their support for the US proposal for a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15%, and expressed hope for an early breakthrough in negotiations on this issue.

Mr. Le Duy Minh, Director of Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department According to Mr. Le Duy Minh, Head of Tax Department of Ho Chi Minh City, in order to control and manage taxes, their technology platform and business programs and software must be located in Vietnam and be managed by authorities. physical. Currently, the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department can only verify from the bank account the revenues and expenditures of these units, that is only working at the “top”, but not yet able to do the “original part”. The City Tax Department is proposing to the Ministry of Industry and Trade to support this issue. “All these transactions, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, have to support the City Tax Department to be able to penetrate their system. We must have solutions and software to track online purchases and sales to be able to strictly manage them. I now just stop at the level of verifying that their accounts are opened in Vietnam, how they collect and spend taxes on that basis ”, said Mr. Le Duy Minh.

Development is not sustainable The document states that in the past 15 years, the real estate market has grown rapidly but has not yet achieved the transparent, healthy, stable and sustainable development goals. The market still repeats many land fevers, especially the land fever that occurs consecutively on a large scale today, causing many negative consequences, losing opportunities to create housing for many income earners. On average, urban low-income people, labor workers and migrants, affect social security and order. Land fever in the area of ​​Phan Thiet airport in early March 2021. Photo: Hop Pho The main culprits of the land fever, house price fever, land price fever are the “head of the family, land storks, and dishonest businesses” who perform tricks to spread rumors, make prices – blow prices, take advantage ” crowd psychology – greedy “,” prey “on fake purchases and excess opportunities to” chisel the fat “, illegal profit and in some cases there was connection, support, “back against” of grassroots cadres. When the land fever subsided, many individual investors “surf” with the crowd due to lack of capital to borrow with high interest rates, not having enough information and skills, so they were trapped and lost heavily. even fell into the situation of accumulating debt. Many land plots became deserted, while land prices in some localities were pushed too high compared to their real value, negatively affecting the investment environment, making it difficult to attract investors, especially big investors. In addition to land fever, there is a situation of skyrocketing house prices, mainly due to a sharp decline in the supply of housing projects, a lack of housing products, especially a lack of affordable apartments. or low-cost commercial housing, social housing. The shortage of supply due to unapproved housing projects, congestion in construction investment procedures, and general intangibility have created advantages for some businesses that already have existing projects and have home products. In overwhelming the market “imposes” the selling price to get a very high profit. Tax against speculation Through the research, Mr. Le Hoang Chau, President of HoREA, proposed to the Prime Minister to consider solutions to “treat” land fever and stabilize house prices through the effective use of tax tools and the issuance of unjust tax. movables. Specifically, HoREA proposes to issue tax against speculation on housing and land; Income tax is imposed at a very high tax rate for the sale or transfer of houses and land right after establishment to eliminate the speculation of investors in case the market shows signs of speculation or fever. hot “bubbles”. “I hope the Prime Minister will consider and set a very high tax rate if selling or transferring houses and land in the first year and keep high tax rates in the second and third years. Cases of sale and transfer of houses, After being created for 3 years or proving that the need to sell or transfer houses or land is justified, the normal tax rate will be applied.As such, this tax will not affect home buyers. there is a need to create real houses “- stated by HoREA’s document. HoREA also recommends taxing people who own multiple properties that are subject to a progressive tax rate depending on the number of properties owned. In case the real estate market is speculated, very high tax rates can be applied to eliminate the will to speculate. The delay in putting land into use should also be high taxed to eliminate the will to “hold on to” the land, slow to put the land into use and to combat land speculation. Real estate tax In particular, the Association proposed to issue a “real estate tax”. Because at present, homeowners do not have to pay housing property tax, but only have to pay “non-agricultural land use tax”, including “residential land” at the rate of “residential land” in the term. the rate is 0.03% of the land price list, so the tax payment rate is very low, almost negligible. The association agreed with the Ministry of Finance’s proposal to consider issuing a “real estate tax” on the value of houses and land, to create a stable and sustainable source of revenue for the state budget. But the Association recommends carefully considering, to ensure that it is consistent with the common income of the majority of individuals and households who have middle income and low income in our country. However, in order not to have the “tax-stack tax” situation, it is necessary to replace the current “land use levy” collection method, which is a burden for home buyers in housing projects. Horea proposes to add the efficient use of monetary and credit tools of the State Bank. In addition, it is proposed to use measures to reduce the proportion of real estate loans to buy credit for “surfing” investment, as well as to strictly control “consumer credit”, to prevent the transfer of a part of sources. loans to build a house, repair a house, buy a house, to “surf” when the real estate market has a “bubble” fever. Tight control of “dirty money” In addition, HoREA proposes to strictly control the source of “dirty money” to buy real estate for “money laundering”. According to Mr. Chau, in the first 3 months of 2021, real estate credit growth of 3%, although higher than the overall credit growth of only 2.93%, but not too unusual. Thus, a big question is that the huge investment capital that makes the real estate market hot “bubble” now come from?