CASE 428 - The history of Luxembourg

The first written account of this country and people is found in the fifth book of Cæsar's "Commentarii de Bello Gallico. On the Lower Moselle and its tributaries dwelt at that time (53 B.C.) the powerful race of the Treviri, who, in alliance with the people under their protection (for example the Eburones under Ambiorix), at first gave the Romans great trouble, but they were soon compelled to yield to superior numbers and gradually attained the highest civilization. Under Emperor Constantine (323-337) Trier (Augusta Trevirorum) became the capital of the province Belgica prima, and later the residence of the prefects of Gaul. The Christian Faith was introduced at a very early period. Since 316 the town was the see of a bishop. As more than half of the subsequent Duchy of Lorraine belonged for centuries to the Diocese of Trier, it is a logical conclusion that the Christianization of the Ardennes proceeded principally from there. During the Germanic migration the north-eastern provinces of the Roman Empire suffered greatly. Devastated and depopulated, they were occupied by the victorious Franks. In the division of Charlemagne's empire (843) the provinces in question fell to the share of the Emperor Lothair. In the middle of the tenth century (963?) the feudal lord, Siegfried, who held rich possessions in the Forest of Ardennes, acquired the Castellum Lucilini (supposed to have been built by the Romans) with the lands in its vicinity, and styled himself Graf von Lützelburg. From the marriage of this great and good man descended Empress Saint Cunigunde, wife of Henry II, the Saint."

"The last of Siegfried's male descendents, Conrad II, died about 1126. His dominions passed first to the counts of Namur and subsequently to Ermesinde, who reigned from 1196 to 1247. She was especially noted for the impulse she gave to religious life by the foundation of monasteries. Her son and successor, Henry V (1247-81), showed the influence of his noble mother. He took part in Saint Louis's crusade against Tunis. His successor, Henry VI, remained until nearly 1288 at war near Woringen. His wife, Beatrice, had borne him two sons, both of whom attained the highest honours and excellence: Baldwin, afterwards Archbishop of Trier, and Henry, who obtained the Roman imperial crown as Henry VII (1309). The advancement of the reigning family brought no advantage to the country, as the counts wandered farther and farther from home, and concerned themselves only with the affairs of the Empire or the Kingdom of Bohemia. They endeavoured to compensate for this in a measure by raising Luxemburg to a duchy, but could not prevent part of it from crumbling away and the whole (1444) falling to Burgundy by conquest. From the House of Valois, which became extinct on the death of Charles the Bold, in 1477, the country passed to Austria, and was subject to the Spanish Habsburgs (1556-1714); then to the German Habsburgs (1714-95), and finally to the French (until 1814)."

After the overthrow of Napoleon, better times began for Luxemburg. The Congress of Vienna decided that as an appendage of the newly created Kingdom of the Netherlands with the rank of grand duchy, it should become a part of the German Confederation. June 9, 1815, after 400 years of domination by various European nations, Luxembourg was made a grand duchy by the Congress of Vienna. It was granted political autonomy in 1838 under King William I of the Netherlands, who also was the Grand Duke of Luxembourg. The country considers 1835 to be its year of independence. In 1867, Luxembourg was recognized as independent and guaranteed perpetual neutrality. After being occupied by Germany in both World Wars, however, Luxembourg abandoned neutrality and became a charter member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949.

The present sovereign, Grand Duke Henri, succeeded his father, Grand Duke Jean on October 7, 2000. Grand Duke Jean announced his decision to abdicate in December 1999, after a 35 year reign.

Since the end of World War II, the Christian Social Party (CSV) has usually been the dominant partner in governing coalitions. The Roman Catholic-oriented CSV resembles Christian Democratic parties in other west European countries and enjoys broad popular support. However, in June 1999, national elections ushered in a new government. For the first time since 1974, the Socialist Party (LSAP) ceded its junior coalition position with the long-reigning CSV majority to the Liberal Democrat Party (DP).

The DP is a center party, drawing support from the professions, merchants, and urban middle class. Like other west European liberal parties, it advocates both social legislation and minimum government involvement in the economy. It also is strongly pro-NATO. In the opposition since 1984, the DP had been a partner in the three previous consecutive coalition governments.

The Green Party has received growing support since it was officially formed in 1983. It opposes both nuclear weapons and nuclear power and supports environmental and ecological preservation measures. This party generally opposes Luxembourg's military policies, including its membership in NATO.

National elections are held at least every 5 years and municipal elections every 6 years. In the June 1999 parliamentary elections, the CSV won 19, the DP 15, the LSAP 13, the ADR (a single-issue party that emerged from the LSAP focused on pension rights) 6, the "Greens" 5, and the PCL 1. Hence, for the first time since 1974, the Socialists (LSAP) ceded their junior coalition position with the long-reigning Christian Socialist (CSV) majority to the Liberal Democrats. Jean-Claude Juncker (CSV) remained for a second 5-year term as Prime Minister, and Lydie Polfer (DP), the former Luxembourg City mayor, was named Vice Prime Minister and Foreign Minister.

The language of Luxembourg is Luxembourgish, a blend of Dutch, old German, and Frankish elements. The official language of the civil service, law, and parliament is French, although criminal and legal debates are conducted partly in Luxembourgish and police case files are recorded in German. German is the primary language of the press. French and German are taught in the schools, with German spoken mainly at the primary level and French at the secondary level. Luxembourg is the 2nd richest country per capita, at $81,500 per person and has been for many years due to many banks and financial institutes being drawn to Luxembourg.

CASE 427 - Tax avoidance

Tax avoidance is the legal utilization of the tax regime to one's own advantage, to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. The term tax mitigation is not however a synonym for tax avoidance. Its original use was by tax advisors as an alternative to the pejorative term tax avoidance. The term has also been used in the tax regulations of some jurisdictions to distinguish tax avoidance foreseen by the legislators from tax avoidance which exploits loopholes in the law. The United States Supreme Court has stated that "The legal right of an individual to decrease the amount of what would otherwise be his taxes or altogether avoid them, by means which the law permits, cannot be doubted." Tax evasion, on the other hand, is the general term for efforts by individuals, corporations, trusts and other entities to evade taxes by illegal means. Both tax avoidance and evasion can be viewed as forms of tax noncompliance, as they describe a range of activities that are unfavorable to a state's tax system.

The world’s best offshore banking and banking services can be found in the best tax havens. In the best tax havens, offshore banking can be achieved in a tax free environment. Offshore banking can be done by both individuals and corporations in some of the best tax havens available. This includes Cyprus, Luxembourg, Panama, Anguilla, Gibraltar, Dominica, Nevis, the Bahamas and Seychelles among others. Any interest earned by offshore bank accounts in the best tax havens has no taxed imposed. This guarantees the growth of capital invested in the offshore banks.

Offshore banking secrecy is synonymous with offshore tax havens. In fact it is banking secrecy which led to an increase in offshore banking clients in most offshore tax havens of the world. Banking secrecy laws simply provides protection for the information on offshore bank accounts. In the best tax havens where banking secrecy laws have been passed, the laws prohibit the disclosure of information in offshore bank accounts. Exceptions are made if a court order is handed down. Persons who divulge information of offshore bank accounts will have committed a criminal offense and are liable to serve a prison term and or pay monetary fines.

Without a doubt, an offshore tax haven provides clients with a safe place for asset protection. Many offshore clients choose to go offshore to protect their assets from prying hands and eyes. The best offshore tax havens, when utilized properly, can help investors and offshore clients reduce on their tax liabilities. When choosing an offshore tax haven it wise for offshore clients to choose a tax haven which will protect their privacy. In the best tax havens the governments work together with other authorities to ensure that the tax haven remains free from criminal activities such as money laundering.

Tax avoidance reduces government revenue and brings the tax system into disrepute, so governments need to prevent tax avoidance or keep it within limits. The obvious way to do this is to frame tax rules so that there is no scope for avoidance. In practice this has not proved achievable and has led to an ongoing battle between governments amending legislation and tax advisors' finding new scope for tax avoidance in the amended rules. To allow prompter response to tax avoidance schemes, the US Tax Disclosure Regulations (2003) require prompter and fuller disclosure than previously required, a tactic which was applied in the UK in 2004. Some countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand have introduced a statutory General Anti-Avoidance Rule (or General Anti-Abuse Rule, GAAR). Canada also uses Foreign Accrual Property Income rules to obviate certain types of tax avoidance. In the United Kingdom, there is no GAAR, but many provisions of the tax legislation (known as "anti-avoidance" provisions) apply to prevent tax avoidance where the main object (or purpose), or one of the main objects (or purposes), of a transaction is to enable tax advantages to be obtained. In the United States, the Internal Revenue Service distinguishes some schemes as "abusive" and therefore illegal.

In the UK, judicial doctrines to prevent tax avoidance began in IRC v Ramsay (1981) followed by Furniss v. Dawson (1984). This approach has been rejected in most commonwealth jurisdictions even in those where UK cases are generally regarded as persuasive. After two decades, there have been numerous decisions, with inconsistent approaches, and both the Revenue authorities and professional advisors remain quite unable to predict outcomes. For this reason this approach can be seen as a failure or at best only partly successful. In the judiciary, different judges have taken different attitudes. As a generalisation, for example, judges in the United Kingdom before the 1970s regarded tax avoidance with neutrality; but nowadays they may regard aggressive tax avoidance with increasing hostility.

In the UK in 2004, the Labour government announced that it would use retrospective legislation to counteract some tax avoidance schemes, and it has subsequently done so on a few occasions, notably BN66. Initiatives announced in 2010 suggest an increasing willingness on the part of HMRC to use retrospective action to counter avoidance schemes, even when no warning has been given.

The super rich get away with not paying any or little tax because some of them get payed only in Gold, some give a few million to charities and others buy people gifts, thus getting away with it

CASE 426 - Vaccinations and harmfull drugs

Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material (a vaccine) to stimulate an individual's immune system to develop adaptive immunity to a pathogen. Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate the morbidity from infection. The effectiveness of vaccination has been widely studied, but only government sponsored reports only ever see the light, but more and more are proving that most vaccins dont work especially flu vaccines, but still the government and your local doctors surgery will still be pushing it onto the people especially the elderly.

You may not have heard the explosion, but it happened, the vaccine empire is collapsing.

A review from The Cochrane Collaboration, a widely respected research-analysis team, went over all the evidence, and entered its conclusion:

In healthy adults, no flu vaccine delivers protection from the flu. It doesn't protect against transmission of flu viruses from person to person, either.

So all the promotion and all the pandering and all the scare tactics and all the "expert medical opinion" and all the media coverage...useless, worthless, and irrelevant. Billions of dollars of financed lies about flu vaccines were just that: lies. It gets worse, because the entire theory about how and why vaccines work is sitting on a razor's edge, ready to fall into the abyss of discarded fairy tales. We've been told that vaccines stimulate the immune system with a "rehearsal" of what will happen when an actual disease comes down the pipeline. When the disease does show up, the immune system will be locked and loaded, ready to destroy the attacking germ and since flu vaccines don't protect against flu or even stop the transmission of flu viruses from person to person, the so-called "rehearsing" of the immune system is merely somebody's fancy story. A legend. A myth, they just make people feel worse.

As always, The Cochrane Collaboration did an exhaustive review of all previous studies on flu vaccines they could discover. They rejected the studies that were badly constructed. In some cases, to expand available data, they contacted individual researchers who had conducted studies. Therefore, Cochrane's findings represent the best of the published literature on flu vaccines. However, because the Cochrane team owes nothing to pharmaceutical companies, they analyzed the literature with sober eyes and minds.

"The review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions..."

The Cochrane review, published by John Wiley and Sons, appeared online on July 7, 2010.

Over two years ago. We must have missed the massive mainstream media coverage.

What? There was no massive media coverage?

Sources: http://gaia-health.com