Mediaboss Marketing

Tax changes sought by big telecommunications companies suddenly stalled in the Senate on Thursday amid questions about the long-term impact to state and local government finances.

The Senate’s Finance and Tax committee completely rewrote the legislation (SB 1060), which companies such as Verizon, Comcast and AT&T have been pushing in order to ensure communications services taxes can’t be collected on certain products, such as downloaded games or home-alarm monitoring service.

The legislation included a controversial provision that would have given the companies freedom to bundle both taxable and non-taxable items into one package with a single price and yet calculate their taxes based only on the hidden prices of the taxable parts. Critics said that could allow companies to deflate their tax bills, by minimizing the internal price of anything that is taxable and maximizing the price of anything that isn’t.

State economists have warned that state and local governments would lose, at a minimum, $35 million a year as companies took advantage of the bundling provision. And one of their analyses showed the savings for the companies and potentially their customers — and the hit to governments — could potentially reach enormous proportions of more than $400 million a year.

With so much uncertainty, the tax committee decided to take all of the tax changes out of the bill and replace them with an 11-member working group that would study the communications services tax and recommend ways to modernize it. The working group’s report would be due before the start of the 2013 legislative session.

“The problem is we just simply don’t know how this is going to impact the tax structure,” said bill sponsor Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, who offered the amendment. “There’s no question that the telecommunications companies actually dispute those numbers. But because of the time frame, what I’ve explained to them is I just need more time to address it.”

A few hours later, the Florida House of Representatives passed its own version of the bill (HB 809), which includes both the tax changes sought by the telecom companies and the proposed working group.

The rest is here:
Telecom tax changes suddenly stall in the Senate

By Jason Garcia, Orlando Sentinel

2:36 p.m. EST, February 23, 2012

Tax changes sought by big telecommunications companies suddenly stalled in the Senate on Thursday amid questions about the long-term effect on state and local governments' finances.

The Senate's Finance and Tax committee completely rewrote the legislation (SB 1060), which companies such as Verizon, Comcast and AT&T have been pushing to ensure that communications-services taxes can't be collected on certain products, such as downloaded games or home-alarm monitoring services.

The legislation included a controversial provision that would have given the companies freedom to bundle both taxable and non-taxable items into one package with a single price — and yet calculate their taxes based only on the hidden prices of the taxable parts. Critics said that could allow companies to deflate their tax bills by minimizing the internal price of anything that is taxable and maximizing the price of anything that isn't.

State economists have warned that state and local governments would lose, at a minimum, $35 million a year as companies took advantage of the bundling provision. And one of their analyses showed the tax savings for the companies and, potentially, their customers — and the hit to governments — had the potential to reach more than $400 million a year.

With so much uncertainty, the tax committee decided to take all of the tax changes out of the bill and replace them with an 11-member working group that would study the communications-services tax and recommend ways to modernize it. The working group's report would be due before the start of the 2013 legislative session.

"The problem is we just simply don't know how this is going to impact the tax structure," said bill sponsor Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, who offered the amendment. "There's no question that the telecommunications companies actually dispute those numbers. But because of the time frame, what I've explained to them is I just need more time to address it."

Separately on Thursday, the Florida House of Representatives passed its own version of the bill (HB 809), which includes both the tax changes sought by the telecom companies and the proposed working group.

jrgarcia@tribune.com or 407-420-5414

Excerpt from:
Telecom-tax changes stall in Senate

24 February 2012 Last updated at 04:24 ET

India's Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi has refused to furnish details of her income tax, citing "security" concerns, officials say.

An activist, V Gopalkrishnan, had requested the information under freedom of information legislation.

But in her reply, Mrs Gandhi said releasing the information might cause a "financial and security risk".

Mr Gopalkrishnan denied charges of any political affiliation and said he will continue his efforts.

In his query filed to the tax department last December, Mr Gopalkrishnan had sought details of Mrs Gandhi's income tax for the last 10 years, beginning in 2000.

This was done under the country's Right to Information legislation.

But his request was turned down.

He appealed and the income tax department was asked to send a notice to Mrs Gandhi requesting the information.

In her reply to the department, Mrs Gandhi said the disclosure of "such private information to third parties… in guise of transparency in public life would amount to unwarranted invasion of the individual's privacy".

She continued: "There is no case of bona fide public interest involved to disclose such information to third parties."

The tax department said the information sought had "no overriding public interest" and closed the request.

V Gopalkrishnan has the right to appeal.

Read more:
Sonia Gandhi rejects tax query

A TV documentary has revealed the extent to which expats in Spain are struggling during the eurozone crisis, with social services and local charities overwhelmed with demand for help

Andrew Sinclair, the BBC political correspondent for East Anglia, spoke to expats living on the Costa Blanca for BBC One's Sunday Politics show, and found that locals are struggling to cope in the recession, due to the pound's depressed value against the euro.

“It struck me there has been a lot of reporting in the UK about the impact ongoing euro crisis is having on holiday businesses and British businesses in general,” Mr Sinclair said. “We have found there is some real hardship out there.”

He told Roundtown News, a local freesheet newspaper, that expats were keen to point out they were not “stinking rich”, a common misconception of Brits living in Spain.

"A lot of people we spoke to were very much working class they didn’t have large fortunes to bring to Spain but felt they could do better for themselves than just living on a council estate," Mr Sinclair said.

While the continued eurozone crisis raises the possibility of an expat exodus from certain areas of Spain, many Brits plan to stay in the area. Property sales are sluggish, as a glut of new build properties in some areas is keeping demand and prices low, while others are unable to return for health reasons. Many are determined to stick it out and hope for an improvement in the economic situation, rather than trade Spanish sunshine for a return to the UK.

"The overall feeling is everyone is having to tighten their belts, mainly because Spain has long ceased to be a cheap place to live," said Jack Troughton of Roundtown News. "Utilities (Santiago: UTILITIES.SN - news) , particularly electricity and gas, continue to rise while extra tax has been put on petrol and diesel, the price already rising because of the fall in the value of the euro."

Some people with money in Spanish banks have started to repatriate their money while younger expats are looking for cash-in-hand work to bridge the gap. Older Britons are relying on an over-stretched social services or charity handouts.

"The British community is doing wonderful work through charities and the charity shops that are found along the whole of the coast," Mr Troughton said. "These help not only British expats but immigrants from across Europe (Chicago Options: ^REURUSD - news) and Latin America who hoped to build a new life here.

"The British consulates are also actively campaigning to help integrate expats and ensure they have access to the town hall facilities and social services they are entitled to receive."

The Sunday Politics Show East is on BBC One, Sundays from 11am.

See the article here:
Financial hardship taking its toll on Britons in Spain

Kuwaitis and Syrians protest the Syrian bloodshed February 4 outside the Syrian embassy in Kuwait City.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Syrian expatriates across the world are uniting against the regime of Bashar al-Assad Their mission is cutting across ethnic and religious lines Many Syrians are raising money in the U.S. and speaking about the crisis

(CNN) -- It has been five years since Mohammad Z. left Syria to train as a doctor in Detroit.

He works long hours. He's big on hockey. He's devoted to the Red Wings.

He's immersed in America, yet his heart is with Syria and the Syrian people.

It's hell inside Syria. But for Mohammed and other Syrian expatriates who want to end the regime of Bashar al-Assad, this is a kind of golden moment. Ethnic and religious and political divisions are melting away to serve one shimmering goal.

"I can't tell you how many wonderful Syrians I have met here who've devoted their money and time to see a democratic, free Syria," said Mohammed, whose last name is being withheld by CNN to protect his brother and parents in Syria. "You see the Christians, the Muslims, the nonreligious people; you see people from different ethnic backgrounds: Arabic, Assyrian and Kurds."

An underground newspaper in Syria recently published an essay of Mohammad's. In it, he wrote, "The revolution has brought us together, and we had scattered in loneliness."

For Mohammad and many other Syrian expatriates, there is no going back to the old Syria. For them, Syria has to change.

"These are people who've been exposed to the American culture and brought up in an environment -- even in Syria -- where there was Internet and dishes and satellites and they can see how the rest of the world lives," said Naser Danan, a Cleveland-based doctor with the Syrian Expatriates Organization.

While the expat group has members in other Arab countries and in Europe, Danan estimated that a majority of the 600 or so members are young doctors in the United States -- ironic, because al-Assad himself has a medical degree.

The group supports an end to al-Assad's regime, though it doesn't act as a political opposition entity. Members raise money to buy food and medicine for Syrians caught in the violence, and they speak in public about what's going on in Syria.

Cancer researcher Hazem Hallak recently spoke to a group of high-school students in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. When one of the students asked how he reacts to the latest videos coming out of Syria, Hallak said he doesn't watch anymore.

He explained why by describing the last video he watched from Syria. Someone recorded Syrian soldiers invading a house looking for the husband of the household. When they didn't find him, Hallak said, they cut off the head of his young son, hung it in the doorway and told his wife, "This is what will happen to your husband if he doesn't turn himself in."

The revolution has brought us together, and we had scattered in loneliness.
Syrian expatriate Mohammed Z.

Last May, Hallak's brother, a doctor in Syria, was arrested and killed -- his body mutilated -- after he returned from a trip to the United States.

A few expatriates in the United States are part of the Syrian National Council, the group that many Syrians consider to be the official political opposition.

One of them is George Netto, a cancer specialist who teaches and practices at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Netto, who is Christian by birth, said he joined the opposition group "to show it's really the entire spectrum of the Syrian people fighting the regime: Christian, Sunnis, poor, rich, educated and noneducated ... we wanted to burst that bubble they're trying to depict that it's only armed radicals or armed gangs."

In Detroit, Mohammad said he was going to anti-al-Assad rallies even before the Syrian secret police, the Mukhabarhat, arrested his brother who was protesting in Syria.

Mohammad said the police kept his brother locked up for three months. He said they interrogated him and tortured him from day one. (Listen to Mohammed read his brother's essay about that time)

After three months, the police let Mohammed's brother go to make room for a wave of new prisoners. But as soon as he was freed, he returned to protesting.

Mohammad said he would not tell his brother to stop protesting. If he were in Syria now, he said, he would do the same thing.

"This is not only an uprising," he said. "It's an epic, a human epic that's being written by the Syrian people."

Go here to read the rest:
Expats uniting for common cause