Under the Bala Tax, Mesopotamia taxed almost everything – livestock, grains, handicrafts, funerals, etc. The most burdensome tax though was the Labor Obligation. This was also called the ‘going’ or ‘burden’ in Babylonian languages. Under the Labor Obligation Tax, a free man, the head of his household, owed the government several months’ of labour service…
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Eighty percent of the world’s hedge funds worth US$800 billion are domiciled in the Cayman Islands. Hedge funds have been attracted to the Cayman Islands due to their balanced regulatory framework (which recognises the purchasers of hedge funds are sophisticated investors), absence of unnecessary licencing provisions, and significant flexibility with regard to investment objectives, risks,…
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Pooled development funds (PDFs) are eligible investment companies that are registered under the Pooled Development Funds Act 1992 (PDF Act) and which provide equity capital to Australian small and medium sized companies. The taxable income of a PDF that is comprised of capital gains and assessable income from, or from the disposal of, SME investments…
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Mesopotamia is a historical region covering the Tigris–Euphrates river system. The region corresponds to most of Iraq, Kuwait, the eastern parts of Syria, and regions along the Turkish-Syrian and Iran–Iraq borders. Mesopotamia is the birthplace of some of the most important developments in human history, including the invention of the wheel, irrigation systems, the planting…
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Many companies have established entities in tax havens as they operate trading businesses in those tax havens servicing the local population. Telstra, for example, controls 20 subsidiaries across five tax havens, including Jersey and Mauritius. Telstra uses several of these tax haven entities to provide telephone services to the local population.
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Undertaking a property development in a SMSF can result in zero tax payable if the fund is in the pension phase (or 15% if the fund is in the accumulation phase). Extra care must be undertaken to ensure that the super fund complies with the SIS Act, including all of the following: The arm’s length…
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The window tax was a property tax based on the number of windows in a house. It was designed to impose tax relative to the prosperity of the taxpayer, with the logic being that the rich had bigger houses with more windows, so should pay more tax than the poor (with fewer windows). The tax…
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The General Corporation Law (Title 8, Chapter 1 of the Delaware Code) is the statute governing corporate law in the U.S. state of Delaware. It has been the most important jurisdiction in United States corporate law since 10th March 1899 when it enacted corporate-friendly laws to attract businesses from New York. The general incorporation…
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The Junior Mineral Exploration Tax Credit (JMETC) encourages non-mining investors to invest in exploration companies and help fund their exploration activity. The JMETC allows mining companies undertaking exploration to renounce their deductions for exploration, and pass the benefits of those deductions onto shareholders. The shareholders can then use the credits to reduce their tax payable…
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A beard tax is one of several taxes introduced throughout history on men who wear beards. In 1535, King Henry VIII of England (who wore a beard himself), introduced a tax on beards. The tax was a graduated tax, varying with the wearer’s social position. Although there are contemporary documents evidencing that beard-pulling was a…
Read More »"You’d be stupid not to try to cut your tax bill and those that don’t are stupid in business"
- Bono: U2