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I was holding a meeting with a group of people from Business New Zealand in my office on the ninth floor of the Beehive in Wellington. We were going through a number of issues when there was a reasonably violent shake and everyone stopped talking. It carried on for a few moments.

We thought it was just another shake in Wellington and didn't think much of it at that point.

Probably about two or three minutes later my door opened and my Chief of Staff came in and said, "That wasn't an earthquake in Wellington it was an earthquake in Christchurch".

It was at that point we realised it was obviously a very significant shake to have felt it so distinctly in Wellington so the meeting ended pretty much immediately.

Then, as quickly as we could, we tried to get a sense of what was happening in Christchurch.

Our first worrying fear was a major earthquake had taken place at a time when Cantabrians were going about their business. was a very busy time of day, with people at work and children at school.

It quickly became clear that my old home town had suffered enormous destruction and it was likely lives had been lost.

Immediately, I thought of my sister and her family who live in Christchurch. I sent her a text asking if she was OK. Thankfully she was able to text me back to say she was, but she told me it was really bad.

I made the decision I needed to get down to Christchurch for a first-hand look as quickly as possible to assess the situation and identify what resources we needed to mobilise at a national level to help the people of Christchurch.

From the moment the earthquake struck, things began to move very quickly - the National Crisis Management Centre in the bunker of the Beehive was activated and information began to trickle in. Communications out of Christchurch were limited.

We were due to go into the House for question time at 2pm, but that was cancelled once we realised just how serious the situation was in Christchurch. Instead, I went down to the House and gave a brief ministerial statement on what we knew at that point.

I called an emergency Cabinet meeting for 3pm. Immediately after that, I jumped on to a King Air flight to Christchurch.

While I was in the air, deputy prime minister Bill English gave a press conference in the Beehive at 4.15pm with the latest developments.

It was a fast-moving situation - details were sketchy and rumours were rife. We wanted to get as much accurate information out as possible to keep New Zealanders informed of what was happening in our second-largest city.

Once I arrived in Christchurch, we drove into the central city and went to the Civil Defence emergency centre, which had been established at the Christchurch Art Gallery.

There was quite a state of shock and panic - there was a lot of noise, a lot of sirens blaring, and helicopters with monsoon buckets whirred overhead. It had obviously been a huge earthquake and people were shaken. It was just a sheer state of chaos - dust was heavy in the air, roads had been ripped apart and there was also a thick smell of smoke.

After talking to the mayor and police at the art gallery, I went down to Latimer Square to give an update to the media.

While I was there, I looked down the road and could see the CTV building was on fire.

The devastation in that area was just immense.

It was everywhere you looked.

When I came down to Christchurch after the first earthquake on September 4, 2010, people were a bit shocked and reasonably quizzical about how bad the damage was and grateful nothing really serious had happened.

February 22 was a completely different atmosphere as everyone knew it was really bad.

I remember telling the media this could be New Zealand's darkest day.

We knew at that point that 65 people had lost their lives and there may be many more casualties.

During the course of the day, I was focused on trying to deal with the issues that were coming up, and ensuring we had all of the resources deployed.

It was a full-scale emergency.

We were worried about people being trapped in buildings, we were in the process of trying to mobilise the international effort, including the Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) teams. While this was happening, there were violent aftershocks rocking the city, which were quite intimidating.

At one point during the day, I remember thinking: "This is the city I grew up in, I knew it really well, and it was destroyed".

It was like a war zone. Christchurch was a city that had been brought to its knees. The noise, the smell and the people are the things I will remember most about the day.

To a degree, there was a sense of hopelessness. On the other side of the coin, there was a lot happening.

We were doing everything we could but the sheer scale of it was a bit overwhelming for everyone.

Overall, February 22 was a bit of a blur, but moments from that day and the days following will remain etched in my mind, as I witnessed first-hand just how destructive nature could be.

One of the most heart-warming things was the huge outpouring of support and grief we received from other countries.

From memory I had calls from a number of foreign leaders including Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and United States President Barack Obama, as well as the Queen and the Prince of Wales all offering their sympathies and support.

The Australians were remarkable - they just dispatched resources and nothing was too much of a problem. I remember seeing on television the Australian police landing in Christchurch Airport and everyone just stopped and started clapping. That was one clear example of the sense of family we share with Australia.

Many other countries also offered their support over the coming days. I can't thank them enough for that support.

Long term the Christchurch CBD will look much different to what it did in the past.

I think it will be vibrant, it will be new, and it will be a great place to live.

- © Fairfax NZ News

Link:
John Key recalls earthquake

by Alex Wilson

Fancy a fun night out this St Patricks Day?  Crossroads Care Isle of Man and Laxey Football Club are joining forces to co-host a charity race night.  Fancy dress is optional and leprechauns are welcome.  Join us for a fun evening and don’t forget to kiss the blarney stone and bring your four leaf clover to make sure you have the luck of the Irish.

Racing will begin at 7.30pm with doors opening at 7 on Saturday, March 17, Laxey Clubhouse.  Tickets include supper and £2.00 worth of free bets. The evening will feature 8 races, 64 horses, horse auction and raffle and a spot prize for the best silly hat.
 
All funds raised will help to provide respite care for family Carers and support services for people with a care need on the Isle of Man and will help support Laxey FC in the coming season.
 
Tickets are priced at £10 and are available in advance from Crossroads on 673103.
 
For further information please call Alex Wilson of Crossroads on 623050 or email awilson@crossroadsiom.org.

-ENDS-

In Other Isle of Man News

If you'd like to send any information or news releases to us then please feel free to do so and we would be more than happy to consider sharing your news with the Isle of Man!

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© Manx Telecom Ltd 2012

Manx Telecom Ltd, Isle of Man Business Park, Cooil Road, Braddan, Isle of Man IM99 1HX
Registered in the Isle of Man Reg no.5629V Vat Reg no GB 003-2919-12

Excerpt from:
A Bit of Craic for St Patrick’s Day

Shielding assets from the tax man or from overly inquisitive regulators is a time-honored strategy for the wealthy. Some turn to secretive financial havens like Switzerland or the Cayman Islands.

CNBC

Robert Harris' Fernley, Nevada house

Or there’s always Fernley, Nevada. That’s right, Fernley, Nevada—a small community of about 20,000 residents located 30 miles outside Reno.

Drive down Wedge Lane, the winding road that gets its name because of the golf community it runs through (near the corner of Dog Leg Court and Divot Drive), and you will find the unassuming home of businessman Robert Harris, 65, who describes himself as a former bartender with an eighth grade education.

The house is also home to some 2,400 Nevada corporations, all registered to Harris’ address.

For as little as $174, Harris will set you up with your own Nevada corporation. And he promises he won’t ask too many questions.

“I don’t do any investigative work on the people,” he told CNBC Investigations Inc. in an interview in his small home office. “If they want to spend money, I take their business.”

Harris does say that if he learned a terrorist or a corrupt politician was laundering money through him, he would report them right away—“if I knew. That’s the thing. If I know.”

For a little extra money, Harris offers what he calls “Ultimate Asset Protection,” which includes a “virtual office with phone message and fax forwarding,” according to his web site. More important, Harris’ name and address appears on the official corporate documents instead of the owner’s.

“(T)here is no better way to cloak your assets from public view,” the web site says. “Moreover, it is far better than taking your assets out of the country.”

“It’s not everybody’s business what everybody owns,” Harris said.

Not only is Harris’ business perfectly legal, there are hundreds like it across the country. Known as “registered agents,” they help individuals, entrepreneurs and investors—or more frequently their attorneys or representatives—establish corporations. Their services include filing papers with the state, and sometimes even taking in their mail and answering their phones.

“There’s been research done by academics where they’ve gone round and they’ve tried to set up anonymous shell companies all around the world. And they found that the easiest place to do it was the United States.”

Robert Palmer
Global Witness

Some states, like Nevada, have been particularly aggressive in courting businesses to incorporate there. Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller says the benefits go far beyond secrecy.

“We have very favorable business law statutes that many companies want to take advantage of, we’re a very efficient filing jurisdiction, and we’re a very low tax state,” he said in an interview. “So those three advantages combined make Nevada very attractive.”

Miller says with 320,000 corporations, Nevada is second per capita only to longtime corporate haven Delaware in the number of businesses based there.

But critics say the thriving registered agent business in the United States makes this country one of the best places in the world to launder money.

“In the United States, most states do not require companies to list who actually owns them—who actually controls them,” said Robert Palmer of the anti-corruption group Global Witness in London. “There’s been research done by academics where they’ve gone round and they’ve tried to set up anonymous shell companies all around the world. And they found that the easiest place to do it was the United States.”

Palmer says the United States is facilitating “corrupt money and dirty money flowing around the system.”

Federal authorities say arms dealer Viktor Bout—convicted last year in what authorities said was an elaborate scheme to aid terrorists and kill U.S. citizens and officials—financed the operation through at least a dozen shell companies formed in Texas, Delaware and Florida.

The Minister of Agriculture and Forestry in Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, has used at least five U.S. shell companies to amass a fortune that the Justice Department claims was obtained through bribery and corruption. Through his attorneys, Obiang maintains he obtained his assets legally.

CNBC

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., says terrorists and foreign officials should not be allowed to hide behind anonymous shell companies when moving their money.

“We have, I think, some kind of moral responsibility there,” Levin told CNBC in an interview. "But it’s also a national security issue when corruption affects foreign regimes that can directly affect us and our security interests.”

Levin has introduced legislation that would require states to identify who is behind the companies they register.

“Our law enforcement community is pleading with us here in Washington to require states and their incorporation laws to list the beneficial owner, the real owner of the corporations, so that these are not shell corporations which can then evade our money laundering laws,” he said.

But the bill is stalled in committee, under intense opposition from business groups including the United States Chamber of Commerce. They argue there are legitimate reasons some business owners prefer to remain anonymous. And in the case of some complex business arrangements with multiple shareholders and creditors, determining the “beneficial owner” is easier said than done.

“We agree with the intent of the Levin bill that you need to combat money laundering,” said Vice President Tom Quaadman, who heads the chamber’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness. “But what the Levin bill starts to do is it creates regulatory burdens on 28 million companies and businesses throughout the United States. It’s overly broad. And it also creates unfunded mandates upon the states.”

Nevada’s Ross Miller agrees.

“We currently don’t collect or maintain any of that information, nor are we in the business of licensing formation agents, which this legislation would require. We’re not in the business of continually collecting updated information.” Miller says it would cost millions for his state to comply with the law, and while the bill would provide some funding to the states, he says it is not nearly enough.

Opponents of the Levin bill say information about companies’ ownership is already available through the Internal Revenue Service, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Gen
eral Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, says IRS records are difficult to obtain.

“IRS records are very discreet, and they should be,” Breuer told CNBC.

Back in Nevada, Secretary of State Ross Miller says he is sensitive to the critics. He says he is working with law enforcement authorities to make certain Nevada’s registered agents are following the law, and are not promoting Nevada’s statutes inaccurately.

“The trick is going after those individuals and holding them accountable,” he said.

For his part, Robert Harris says he is not worried that Nevada will require businesses like his to collect more information their customers, “because incorporating is big business in Nevada, and they’re not going to put the trap on, you might say, to stop business if they don’t have to.”

Tune in:

"Filthy Rich" premieres Thursday, February 23 at 9 p.m. ET, with re-airs at 10 p.m., 12 a.m. and 1 a.m. ET.

© 2012 CNBC.com

Go here to read the rest:
How a Nevada House Became A Thriving Haven From Taxes

The Supreme Court on Tuesday allotted an extra 30 minutes to oral arguments on the health care reform law, giving another half an hour to the debate over whether a federal tax law should prevent a ruling this year.

The decision bumps up the total argument time to six hours over three days in late March.

Continue Reading

The federal government, 26 states and a small-business group jointly requested that the court spend 90 minutes, instead of 60 minutes, on whether the tax law would prevent the court from ruling on the constitutionality of the mandate until at least 2015.

It’s a pivotal issue because if the court finds that the tax law, called the Anti-Injunction Act, applies to the health law, the justices would likely throw out the case against the individual mandate. Anyone who wanted to sue would have to wait to file a lawsuit until after they file their taxes in April 2015.

With the extra 30 minutes on tax law, the oral arguments will break down this way:

• Anti-Injunction Act: 90 minutes

• Individual mandate: 120 minutes

• Severability: 90 minutes

• Medicaid: 60 minutes

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 10:31 a.m. on February 21, 2012.

The rest is here:
SCOTUS: Extra half hour for debate

A nonprofit group representing the interests of U.S. citizens living overseas met with congressional staffers to push for a residence-based taxation system.

The group, American Citizens Abroad, met with Democratic and Republican staff members of the main tax-writing committees in Congress, the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee, along with the Joint Committee on Taxation. The ACA’s new proposal advocates residence-based taxation instead of the present system of citizenship-based taxation, along with other reforms aimed at increasing America’s global competitiveness.

“There is already a strong movement in Congress to shift corporate taxation from worldwide to residence-based taxation in order to level the playing field for U.S. companies competing in the world economy,” said ACA director Jackie Bugnion in a statement. “Following the same logic, I met with Members of Congress to convince them that the U.S. should make this move for individuals as well, to allow Americans to compete on that same level playing field.”

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Other proposals from the group include eliminating the cap on the foreign earned income exclusion to return the law to the situation prior to 1962. The group argues that eliminating the cap would allow Americans to seek employment opportunities throughout the world, particularly in high-growth developing economies.

It also advocates allowing overseas residents the right to use the currency of their residence as their functional currency instead of the U.S. dollar, and to allow foreign net wealth taxes to be creditable against U.S. taxes.

“ACA will be systematically contacting all Congressional offices on the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committee to get issues concerning Americans residing overseas included in legislation on fundamental tax reform,” said ACA executive director Marylouise Serrato. “Changing to residence-based taxation would be good for Americans overseas, but also good for the entire U.S. economy.”

The group has also been pushing for repeal of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which was included in the HIRE Act of 2010. FATCA imposes extensive reporting requirements on banks worldwide on the holdings of U.S. citizens. The final regulations have still not been issued by the IRS, although the IRS and the Treasury Department have proposed to soften and phase in some of the requirements (see IRS and Treasury Propose New FATCA Rules).

IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman defended the IRS’s approach to FATCA compliance in a speech last week before the Financial Accounting Foundation in New York “As we devised the regulations which would enumerate the details of the implementation, we tried very hard to listen to those concerns. I met with CEOs and CFOs of foreign financial institutions on multiple occasions,” he said. “After nearly two years of back and forth, last week we put out detailed regulations for implementation of FATCA—with the goal of achieving the policy goals of the legislation by focusing on the accounts with the highest risk of non-compliance, and trying to minimize burden. For instance, we piggy-backed on know-your-customer rules for most of the due diligence that needs to be performed on existing accounts, delayed difficult withholding provisions for a minimum of five years while implementing the core withholding provisions sooner, and allowed global financial institutions to avoid withholding even if all their affiliates could not meet the strict requirements of participation from day one.”

Shulman added that while the IRS runs the risk of criticism whenever it uses its administrative authority, the IRS needs to listen to affected stakeholders and refine its policies over time as it learns more. “My colleagues and I have an obligation to call it as we see it and make the best principled decision based on the information available,” he said. “So while not everyone will always agree with our decisions, our job is to implement the statute with an eye towards the best policy. In this case, we tried to maximize offshore tax compliance, while minimizing burden on market participants. And a transparent, open process led us to a better ultimate product.”

However, banks overseas are already closing legitimate bank accounts of American living abroad in order to avoid the potential penalties of this onerous and complicated legislation, the ACA pointed out. “It is impossible for Americans living and working overseas to survive without normal banking relationships, and fewer Americans overseas means less U.S. exports and fewer American jobs,” said the group.

Link:
Expats Press Capitol Hill for Tax Reforms