Judge announces that Yakama tobacco is subject to federal taxes
There was a ruling be a federal judge in Spokane that could possibly open a Yakama Nation tobacco company to tens of millions of dollars of tax liability.
A United States District Judge, Rosanna Malouf Peterson, mentioned last week that King Mountain Tobacco Company was not exempt from paying federal excise taxes on their cigarettes. There was a case that was filed last year in which prosecutors had claimed that the company owes over $23 million in taxes since the year 2009. King Mountain Tobacco had its own reasoning as to why they didn’t pay.
King Mountain Tobacco Company had mentioned in the argument that the federal law bars taxes on income that comes from trust land, like logging or even tobacco growing. The company had also mentioned the 1855 treaty between the Yakamas and the United States government.
Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson mentioned that only a portion of the tobacco that is sold by King Mountain Tobacco Company is grown on the reservation that is mentioned. A majority of the tobacco that is grown to be sold by the King Mountain Tobacco Company is imported from Virginia. This fact obligates the tobacco company to step up and pay the federal taxes that they owe.
As of now, it is not known whether or not the King Mountain Tobacco Company has a response in the argument, but it is looking like they will have to comply with the judge’s orders.
Categories: Federal Tax, Income Tax, Tax Evasion, Tax Law Tags: avoiding taxes, corporate tax, federal income tax, federal tax, federal tax fraud, income tax, tax evasion
Google to face UK parliament a second time on allegations of tax avoidance
Introduction: A second committee grilling on avoidance of taxes is set for Google’s Senior Executives.
Summoning senior executives of Google to face Members of Parliament once again, the Committee on Public Accounts in the UK is set to grill anew the large multinational company on allegations that it had purposely avoided paying taxes to the UK government. Back in November last year, Google Vice-President for Northern Europe Matt Brittin had appeared before the same committee to testify that his company’s sales teams were all situated in Ireland, leaving the company’s UK staff to only perform marketing of Google as an advertising extension. This variation in structure ultimately enabled the company to avoid taxes by paying only £6 million of taxes to the UK government on £2.6 billion it had gotten as profits in 2011. News agency Reuters however, performed investigation that found how Google’s UK-based staff have actually promoted and closed sales of the multinational firm’s advertising space to its clients. The news agency facilitated its investigations through interviews done on several Google customers, aside from working with former Google employees and checking out various job postings and data on the firm’s LinkedIn site. By virtue of the company’s having negotiated and concluded deals in London, the argument that its sales teams were all based in Ireland was indefensible and only constituted avoidance of taxes, since it was clear from invoice addresses that all the people involved are located in the UK. These allegations of avoidance of taxes are serious enough to warrant a second grilling by the MPs and greater depth of investigations into account balances, names and addresses with tax authorities in British overseas territories.
Conclusion: With exhaustive investigation into allegations of avoidance of taxes, a more complicated web of involvement may yet be uncovered.
Categories: Federal Tax, Income Tax, Tax Evasion, Tax Law Tags:
Lawyer accused of not paying federal income tax for 5 years
A former Whitehall prosecutor, Lumumba Toure McCord, has been recently indicted on charged that state that he failed to file federal tax returns or pay federal income tax for the past five years.
A federal grand jury indicted MCord, also known as Toure McCord, this week on five charges of his failure to file tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The indictment stated that McCord, age 41, of 851 Kenwick Rd. D, made approximately $355,000 in gross income from the years between 2006 and 2010.
McCord was formerly the chief prosecutor for Whitehall in 2000 until he was fired that June after he was arrested on two charges of interfering with custody plans for this 2 year old son. The jury had found McCord not guilty of the charges; however, he was not reinstated to his job in Whitehall for reasons that were not presented to the public, although it is most likely because of the two charges for his interference of custody plans that he had with his son.
McCord has worked as defense attorney for a lengthy 10 years, and has represented quite a number of defendants, especially those in high-profile cases in Franklin County Common Pleas Court. Agents from the Internal Revenue Service have investigated McCord on the tax charges that are going against him. So far, there has not been a set date for McCord’s first appearance in a federal court.
Categories: Federal Tax, Income Tax, State Tax, Tax Evasion Tags: federal income tax, income tax, income tax evasion, tax evasion, tax fraud, tax law