Latest Blog Entries

Real Estate Market Seems to be Back in Rude Health It's not fair, is it, at least not judged from the perspective of say a jobless Greek or Italian home owner, that the United States real estate market seems to be back in rude health less than five years after mortgage-linked CDOs nearly brought the global house of financial cards crashing to the ground. Yet the picture in the US looks more positive than it has done than at any time in the last five or six years: metropolitan area median home prices continued to rise in the first quarter of 2013, with the national gain showing the best year-over-year performance in over seven years, according to the latest quarterly report by the National Association of Realtors. Read More

Nothing but a Talking Shop For a long time it has seemed that CARICOM, the grouping of Caribbean states including such relatively large territories such as The Bahamas, Haiti and Jamaica as well as minnows like Montserrat, is nothing but a talking shop without the will or even the technical skills to achieve its stated goal of economic and political integration. But there have been some signs recently that it may be getting more serious. This week it signed a TIFA with the US, which will presumably act as a stimulus to some sort of local harmonization of standards, laws and taxes. Read More

Apple: The Largest Tax Payer In The US The American company Apple, currently considered the most valuable company in the world, uses a network of subsidiaries located in Ireland, in order to avoid paying U.S. income taxes on billions of dollars. Thus the conclusion of a report prepared by the Permanent Investigation Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate. Read More

Why Big companies Love Regulations In the previous newsletters we discussed the new regulations politicians use to try and counter what they consider unfair tax advantages. At first this seems morally just. It is easily sold to the public. However, there are some unintended consequences to this line of thinking. Read More

People Start Businesses in Order to Make Money Amid complaints from businesses in particular about the horrors of the US Tax Code, and in an interval between the ongoing shenanigans on the Hill over attempts to change things, it is pleasant to be able to report that US investors have the world's best investment regime in terms of transparency, fees and choice; and this despite the fact that the US scores low on the taxation front, with higher taxes on savings and investment than most other countries. Perhaps I shouldn't be including investment in a business friendliness review; but people start businesses in order to make money, and if they weren't successful they'd stop and get a job, so it's important that they are able to put their money somewhere it will be safe and productive. Read More

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