Sunday, February 23, 2020

Guerrila Government In the EPA Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Guerrila Government In the EPA - Essay Example gan’s new government was sooner or later covered by public administrators who demonstrated silent disagreement from the dissatisfaction they allegedly got from the public organizations they were attached to although they did not have the audacity to openly air their concerns but instead chose to go against the will of their seniors. One such incident was with a public administrator known as John Spencer appointed in the Environment Protection Agency consisting of Washington, Alaska, Idaho, and Oregon State. Essentially, he began his ethical issues by making announcement that he had intended to purchase EPA membership in the Chamber of Commerce using taxpayers’ money. According to O’Leary (2013), Spence was aware that the use of taxpayers’ money was unethical since it was not permitted in the federal guidelines. Nevertheless, he would later ignore and drop the idea after another officer raised the issue and argued that it was meant to raise serious questions pertaining to conflict of interest. Another ethical issue related to Spencer was the audacity to take on some illegal and private trips that were at the expense of the public and not meant to benefit the government. Furthermore, some of these trips were allegedly affiliated to his previous work station, Alaska. Similarly, he is also alleged to have demanded to be assigned a personal driver who would serve him throughout notwithstanding the fact that he needed the EPA office building modified without any approval from the General Services Administration as mandated by federal law (O’Leary, 2013). It is worth noting that the career employees are obligated to report any cases of ethical issues in reference to the federal law. Preston, Sampford & Connors (2002) argues that, they receive motivation from their seniors and their personal traits. The use of guerilla tactics is denoted as the best solution in pinning down administrators who do not follow code of ethics because instead of

Friday, February 7, 2020

Global companies tax avoidance and CSR Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Global companies tax avoidance and CSR - Essay Example In the present times, companies save tax through CSR activities (Barker, 2012). This study aims at discussing the other side of the coin. CSR initiative by the companies is appreciated and motivated by government and regulatory bodies, but there another side of this aspect too, which is negative. The discussion would be evaluating the evolution of CSR from risk management to tax avoidance tool, with respect to the IT, Internet, software and electronics industry, which would mainly drawing examples of those famous companies that has been criticised for their tax avoidance through CSR activities (Elkingtom, 1998). These Companies offer funds on relief and for service to the society. However, the actual amount of fund spent for CSR activities are lesser than the amount show, but these companies get tax benefit on the amount shown by them for CSR activities. This is a general way how these companies try to avoid tax through social services. In order to discuss this issue in detail topics like drivers behind changing CSR environment, voluntary CSR initiatives, and support of the policy environment would be discussed, so as to understand the theme of this study. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Policies and Tax Avoidance According to Organization for Economic Co-operation (OECD), government of every country needs to revise their tax-system, so that they can trap the multinational companies, who dodge the corporate tax. These companies easily shift their profits and offshore and the tax authorities of the country lose billions of money which form an integral part of revenue for the government. Tax has been a missing element in the framework of CSR. CSR activities should also have tax obligations or compliance. Tax is portrayed as a cost, whereas it is a part of profit that is distributed back to stakeholders of the company. This reveals that the companies are not only generating revenue from investor’s capital but also from the funds of the society in whic h they operate. These funds are use for the development of the infrastructure of the country, growth of the society, education facilities, etc (Elkingtom, 1998) Companies like Google Inc, Amazon.com, etc were severely criticised for tax avoidance in the name of CSR activities. Corporate tax was not such a gripping subject for people previously, and the accountants of these companies easily found loop holes to hide their tax amounts behind social activities done by the company for the society (The Guardian, 2013). Google UK and Amazon are the most talked about companies who were found to be involved in tax evasion activities with the excuse of social activities. Google dropped their motto â€Å"Don’t Be Evil† suspiciously and 1 percent of the profit of the company, which was given for charity, was also stopped quietly, without any information. The company was accountable to pay a tax amount of 1.2 billion pounds, while it paid ?600,000. It channelled its revenue to Irel and, which has a more liberal tax system than UK (Barker, 2012). The issue of tax avoidance and CSR is a matter of corporate accountability. This has gained significant in the recent years due to several reasons. Firstly, these companies are acquiring more and more power, and in many cases they even become more powerful in the location than the regulatory body. Many authors blame issues like welfare standards, environment, labours, and over-commercialisation for such a scenario.