There’s a wonderful example of the blatant misinformation that the Right peddle on the Sovereign Society web site today.
Bob Bauman writes:
What a Load of Rubbish: Forbes Gives Forum to Far-Left Radicals
Last week at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas I had the honor to speak before 2,200 attendees on the opening panel -- along with one Malcolm Stevenson "Steve" Forbes, Jr.
No doubt you know Steve is a publisher, businessman and since 1990, has been editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine, founded by his late father, whose name he bears.
Steve ran for president as a Republican in 1996 and 2000. His is generous with financial support for candidates such as Rand Paul (Ron’s son) who is running for U.S. Senate from Kentucky.
I enjoyed hearing Steve speak in Las Vegas and have read and agreed with his views many times. He is a rock ribbed libertarian and a fiscal conservative.
So what, you might ask? Well, this comes next:
Major Shock
Thus it was with shock that, a few days ago, I discovered that Forbes magazine which Steve heads recently published a blatantly biased article attacking offshore tax havens. Worse, it was presented as though it was fair and objective — but was neither.
Worse still, the article, which we can assume was commissioned by someone on Steve Forbes’ staff, was authored by one Richard Murphy, (below) the long-time head of a viciously left-wing, anti-tax haven and anti-offshore group, that calls itself the Tax Justice Network (TJN).
In the Forbes article Murphy presents totally biased TJN fabrications focusing on his personal choice of two arbitrary factors — what Murphy calls “secrecy” (and you and I would call financial privacy), and each jurisdiction’s alleged capability to move money in large quantities.
Nowhere in the Forbes article is Murphy’s well known anti-tax haven bias or his connection to the Tax Justice Network revealed.
Bob was really kind — he even borrowed the photo off this blog to show what a nasty looking sort of guy I am.
But hang on a minute — let’s look at those claims he makes, especially that claim that “nowhere in the Forbes article is Murphy’s well known anti-tax haven bias or his connection to the Tax Justice Network revealed.”
You can go to the article he’s referring to here. Note how it begins:
Even if you've worked for some years trying to prevent the problems caused by tax havens, people will still ask you which places are the best in the world to shield your money from taxes. Working with the Tax Justice Network I set out to provide a definitive answer.
Now I reckon that gives some clue I might know those guys at TJN. And given I say I’ve been working to prevent the problems caused by tax havens I’d have thought some hint of my inclinations might be revealed.
I guess Bob didn’t notice that.
Or could it just be that like most of his friends on the right he has a real problem with telling things as they really are, because he sure as heck did not do so here. The article is literally riddled with errors — even claiming I run TJN. In fact I haven’t been an officer of it for some years and it has always been run by John Christensen.
Best to check your facts Bob — because getting the details wrong undermines all you say. And in this case everything you say is wrong.
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Why is TJN run from Belgium? Tax?
@Martin
I was not involved in this process (that’s how much I run TJN) but as I understand it the structure used (see the TJN web site – it’s all on line) is widely used throughout Europe as an umbrella for not for profit organisations working internationally – as TJN does.
@Martin
Tax had nothing to do with it – at all
I don’t know if there is any tax incentive for being a Belgium entity etc but am I right in thinking that TJN is or should be registered in Belgium as a NPO? I’m sure it is, just couldn’t find their registration details on the website.