Up The Wazoo! Following The Money In All The Right Places

Could be some more 'probing' after public testimony yesterday - here's some news from  Axios retrieved from the inbox: More trails to chase

The coming proctology exam

A check President Trump signed to Michael Cohen, while in office, is displayed during the hearing. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP) Near the end of Michael Cohen's testimony yesterday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked the former fixer whether President Trump had ever run an insurance fraud, Jonathan Swan writes. Cohen said yes. She asked Cohen who else would have known. He named three Trump Organization executives: Allen Weisselberg, Ron Lieberman and Matthew Calamari. Why it matters: Cohen offered no proof for this allegation — and given his record of lying, his claims can't be believed without evidence. But by making this allegation — and coughing up the names of the executives — Cohen gave House investigators and federal prosecutors yet another a trail to chase. Unless you're a student of The Trump Organization — the thinly-staffed Trump family business — you may never have heard of Weisselberg, Lieberman or Calamari.  But over the next year, these men and their colleagues may become household names as they endure a far-reaching, multi-armed investigation into Trump's family business and personal finances. The bottom line: "This organization has never had a proctology exam like it's about to get," Bloomberg's Timothy O'Brien told Swan shortly after watching Cohen's testimony. "It's going to surface records that's going to become problematic for all of them to keep their stories straight."  O'Brien is in a good position to know. In 2006, Trump tried — and failed — to sue O'Brien for $5 billion for writing that Trump had a much lower net worth than he claimed. In the course of that litigation, because Trump went after O'Brien on financial grounds, O'Brien got his tax returns and financial records. Here's what Trump's businesses face:  Five House committees (Financial Services, Intel, Judiciary, Oversight, Ways and Means) plan to look at Trump's business deals and finances. The state of Maryland and the District of Columbia are suing Trump, alleging he violated the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution by taking gifts from foreign governments through his properties. The New York attorney general has a lawsuit against the Trump Foundation, alleging Trump misused his charitable foundation in a "shocking pattern of illegality." Cohen may have bolstered that case yesterday. The Southern District of New York has dealt with Trump Organization executives in its investigation of Cohen. By all accounts, Trump still has Weisselberg's loyalty. NBC reported yesterday that Weisselberg still works with The Trump Organization and has never been a cooperating witness against Trump. "Any law enforcement person who's trying to build a case around insurance fraud, tax fraud, money laundering is going to have to wind up spending a lot of time [with] ... Allen Weisselberg," says O'Brien, who spent time with Weisselberg while writing his book "TrumpNation." "It's the classic thing: Follow the money." Axios reached out to senior Trump Organization executives Alan Garten and George Sorial for comment on Cohen's allegations against Weisselberg, Lieberman and Calamari. They didn't respond.

The Curious Case of the BYU Campus Police & The State of Utah

In somewhat un-similar  'internal investigations' conducted here by the Mesa Police Department , it's a little too soon to distinguish details for breaking news. The case at the BYU campus involves not officer-involved use-of-force but improper access and records-sharing of public police data in a review of the Lauren McCluskey rape allegation case.
Both do, however, involve openness, accountability and transparency.

Attorneys for the privately-owned  campus have argued that as a private institution, it should not be subject to record laws meant for government agencies.
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The controversy stems from a Government Records Access and Management Act request made by the Salt Lake Tribune seeking emails sent by BYU police regarding rape allegations made by a 19-year-old student in 2016.
BYU declined to release the emails, arguing it is a "privately funded, managed and operated police department within a private university." University attorneys contended the "stated purpose of GRAMA is to allow access to certain government records held by governmental entities — not to allow access to private records of private institutions such as BYU, or internal departments of private institutions, such as university police."Reference: Deseret News   (Published: February 26, 2019 9:34 am)
According to a report today just seven hours in The Salt Lake Tribune
"Police officers at Brigham Young University would lose their authority to make arrests and investigate crimes on Sept. 1 under sanctions announced Tuesday by Utah’s commissioner of public safety.

It’s the first time in Utah history the state has moved to decertify an entire police force, said Marissa Cote, a spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Public Safety, or DPS. The private school, owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said it plans to appeal

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A letter released Tuesday by DPS revealed the ongoing dispute between it and BYU police as well as campus administrators . . .

In the decertification letter, DPS officials also say that BYU police failed to respond to a subpoena that was issued as police regulators were investigating an officer for misconduct.

The Salt Lake Tribune obtained BYU documents in 2016 that showed that BYU police Lt. Aaron Rhoades accessed a countywide database of police records to collect information from another police department for an Honor Code investigation by the school in one case.

Honor Code investigations are administrative matters involving university rules. The Honor Code at BYU

• forbids alcohol and coffee
• restricts contact between male and female students
• imposes a strict dress code
• bans expressions of romantic affection between people of the same gender.

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> A December letter to BYU police instructed the agency to allow DPS access to all “records, personnel and electronic data” records so investigators could assess how its officers use a police records database, the command structure at BYUPD and “the powers, authority and limitations” of BYU police officers.

> In the decertification letter, DPS officials also say that BYU police failed to respond to a subpoena that was issued as police regulators were investigating an officer for misconduct.

> BYU said it disagrees with the grounds cited by DPS for decertification. It said DPS believes campus police “failed to meet criteria” for an internal investigation and a response to a subpoena. “BYU, however, believes that University Police met all applicable criteria and is surprised that the commissioner is issuing a letter on these technical grounds,” it said.

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It’s unclear whether the practice of searching police records for information related to potential Honor Code violations went beyond the one case connected to Rhoades.

On Oct. 25, Rhoades voluntarily relinquished his peace officer certification rather then undergo a state investigation by Utah Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) into his use of police databases.

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Up-Date on OZones: No Reporting Requirements To Ensure The Program Achieves Intended Goals

U.S. Treasury Moving to Implement Opportunity Zone Tax Breaks

February 25, 2019 By Benjamin Dietderich 

PLEASE NOTE THIS FIRST:

“The Opportunity Zone Program was passed through the TCJA without any reporting requirements to ensure that the program is achieving its intended goals—mainly, bringing investment to economically distressed communities, . . "

Economically Distressed: Nearly 35 million Americans live in the census tracts designated as Opportunity Zones, according to data from the 2011-2015 American Community Survey, the Treasury reports.
Opportunity Zones are an experiment he supports and hopes will succeed in economically developing depressed areas, says Stephen Moore, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and economic advisor to the Trump presidential campaign.
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There are already location-based tax incentive programs throughout the United States and at all government levels, often referred to as enterprise zones, says Scott Eastman, federal research manager at the Tax Foundation. Eastman is the coauthor of a recent Tax Foundation report, “What We Know and Don’t Know About Opportunity Zones.”

Unlike enterprise zone tax incentives, Opportunity Zone incentives do not require the employment of residents of the zone and instead focus solely on capital gains tax reductions as a way to increase investment in distressed communities, Eastman says.

The TCJA does not require the program to generate reports on the affected communities, though the Trump Administration has taken some steps by creating an Opportunity and Revitalization Council, says Eastman.

One of the council’s tasks is to determine what data, metrics, and methodology can be used to measure the effectiveness of Opportunity Zones.
Reference > click here
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BLOGGER NOTES:
Readers of this blog can access every post featured here about Opportunity Zones by typing those two words into the SEARCHBOX
Official Information from the City of Mesa:

Opportunity Zones | City of Mesa

https://www.selectmesa.com/business-environment/incentives.../opportunity-zones

As of April 9, 2018, all of Arizona's 168 submitted tracts became officially designated as Opportunity Zones. Mesa's designated Opportunity Zones are anchored by our four central business districts: Downtown Mesa, the Fiesta District, the Falcon District, and the Gateway Area.

City of Mesa announces approved Opportunity Zones - Mesa Now

www.mesanow.org/news/public/article/2109

May 31, 2018 - City of Mesa announces approved Opportunity Zones. The City of Mesa has 11 census tracts now approved as Opportunity Zones by the U.S. Department of Treasury. This federal program is meant to spur investment in low-income areas by providing tax benefits to investors who reinvest capital gains into Opportunity Zones.

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Related Internet Info
“Investing in Qualified Opportunity Funds,”
Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Treasury Department
Docket No. 2018-23382, Oct. 29, 2018:
https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publications/irs-draft-regulations-investing-in-qualified-opportunity-funds

Scott Eastman and Nicole Kaeding,
“Opportunity Zones: What We Know and What We Don’t,”
Fiscal Fact No. 630, Tax Foundation, January 2019:
https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publications/tax-foundation-what-we-know-and-dont-know-about-opportunity-zones
  

Barney Bristles AZ State Attorney General Brnovich Over ASU Regents Land Deal Lawsuit

It didn't take too long for the Times Media Group's East Valley Tribune to ask Denny Barney, the new President and CEO as of February 1 2019 for the East Valley Partnership, to be a Tribune Guest Writer for The Sunday Edition 24 Feb.
Barney starts off with "Few would disagree. . . " in the first paragraph to "If we can agree that business and education are good . . . " in the second paragraph "then it's no stretch to consider attempts to stifle these efforts as, well, bad."
So far nobody has agreed on anything in his circular diatribe.

Any reasonable person might question his lines of reasoning about what he calls "business and education" but he doesn't bring up what last Sunday's guest writing is all about - a lawsuit against the ASU Board of Regents by Arizona General Mark Brnowich that Barney characterizes as "a step in the wrong direction" and "a position that stands against what the vast majority of Arizonans would view as the way our government should be operating." 
Both are questionable assertions.
Let's step back for a second and see how ASU wanted to stifle any legal action when this question is asked:
Can Brnovich sue ASU?
. . . and who's trying to stifle whom when ASU requires consent to them?
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Blogger Note: Ethics Rules and State Laws
"In a letter sent today to the Arizona Board of Regents, the Attorney General’s Office outlined its legal rationale that allows them to move forward with the lawsuit, despite the State Bar’s ethics rules that require written consent from ASU and the Board of Regents in order to sue them.
“The governing ethical rules and Arizona case law both make it clear that the Attorney General’s Office is not treated the same as a private law firm for purposes of imputing conflicts,” Angela Paton, ethics counsel for the Attorney General’s Office, said in her letter. “[W]hen the Attorney General has statutory authority to sue a state agency, it may do so even if the state agency is otherwise a client.”
. . . Among the state agencies exempted from using the attorney general is the Arizona Board of Regents. . ."
You can view the original documentation in https://www.azmirror.com/blog/can-brnovich-sue-asu/ that was published on 11 Jan 2019.
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What's all this "double-talk" and "double-dealing" from Barney all about in his Guest Writer column where he also states that he's spent most of his career in business and as a "champion for economic development" around Maricopa County.
Here we have it: estimates of how public universities can contribute to the local economy where "universities are among other things a place to convene capable and innovative people to work on and solve the problems facing our society . . . " and in this case - the Attorney General's lawsuit over land-lease deals in ASU's Tempe Campus to build a hotel, it's about what Barney calls "much-needed revenue" and it's a Win-Win.
"It's a model to be emulated" by public-private partnerships [the P3-ers].
He goes on to cite The Novus Innovation Corridor, "a remarkable project underway in Tempe and enabled by ASU P3s".  Barney goes on to state that "During the buildup, economists predict the creation of 22,000 jobs, and over $3B in economic impact for the Metro Phoenix Metropolitan Area." - and - "Once complete , estimates indicate that Novus will generate $4.5B of ongoing, annual economic activity and more than 34,000 jobs."
A Judge will decide whether this lawsuit has merit. But there's a bigger issue at stake . . .
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3 days before Barney's Guest Writer column there was report appearing in Heartland that's more clear-headed over details:
Arizona AG Sues State University Over Real Estate Deals

February 21, 2019 By Bonner R. Cohen, Kenneth Artz

Arizona State University land deals allow commercial developments to benefit from tax exemption 
(The author Bonner R. Cohen, Ph.D. (bcohen@nationalcenter.org) is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research.)
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a lawsuit against the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) to stop Arizona State University (ASU) from entering into land deals that allow commercial developments to benefit from educational institutions’ property tax exemption.
Two recent transactions—one completed, the other proposed—brought matters to a head. 
> In one deal, ASU rented out some of its property for a massive State Farm Insurance campus.  State Farm pays rent to ASU but enjoys the university’s property tax exemption because ASU retains ownership of the land.
>A similar deal is in the works for a proposed 330-room Omni Hotel with a 30,000-square-foot conference center. As with State Farm, Omni’s development would be exempt from property taxes.
The lawsuit filed in Arizona Tax Court on January 10 alleges ABOR lacks the legal authority to approve the ASU land deals allowing private companies to avoid paying taxes.
ASU's ‘Straw Man Role’
“ASU is a public university, not a commercial enterprise or an urban development authority,” says the lawsuit. “It is inappropriate for this educational institution to pick winners and losers in the highly competitive property development industry by negotiating for the use of ABOR’s tax shielding status.”
‘A Real Legal Question’
The authority of ABOR to abate taxes on commercial developments through these deals is  questionable, says Sean McCarthy, a senior research analyst with the Arizona Tax Research Association.
“We’re in strong agreement with the AG that there is a real legal question as to whether the universities have the authority to abate taxes in this matter,” said McCarthy.
“We look forward to a quick resolution to this matter in the courts,” McCarthy said.



 

AZ Income Tax Credits 93,000% Larger For Companies Than Individuals

Skewed or Screwed?

You can find out in a new report from Jim Small, managing editor of the AZ Mirror who likes to probe into things covering state government, policy and politics.

He's been on the job since 2004.

 

Arizona income tax credits are 93,000% larger for companies than individuals

By Jim Small February 25, 2019

If you’ve ever wanted proof that Arizona’s tax laws are skewed in the favor of businesses and not individuals, here it is: The average income tax credit claimed by corporations is 93,286% larger than the average income tax credit claimed by individuals.
In tax year 2016, the last year for which data is available, there were 549 corporations that took advantage of 17 different income tax credits, totaling more than $127 million. (Another nine tax credits on the books received no claims.)
By comparison, there were almost 1.8 million Arizonans who claimed 31 different types of credits that same year, totaling about $447 million. (There are eight tax credits that had no claims.)
That makes the average claim for businesses $232,284, while we individuals averaged claims of a mere $249 . . .
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READ MORE > https://www.azmirror.com/blog

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Jim Small

Jim Small is a native Arizonan and has covered state government, policy and politics since 2004, with a focus on investigative and in-depth policy reporting, first as a reporter for the Arizona Capitol Times, then as editor of the paper and its prestigious sister publications, the Yellow Sheet Report and Arizona Legislative Report.

Under his guidance, the Capitol Times won numerous state, regional and national awards for its accountability journalism and probing investigations into state government operations

 

Technology, Disruption and the Pace of Innovation

New Vocabulary for sure
What are they talking about? A re-configuration of assets that NOT 100% clear. It's a complicated task!

Published on Feb 25, 2019

Views: 378

Feb.25 -- Omar Abbosh, CEO for Accenture’s communications, media and technology group, discusses technological innovation and disruption at the Bloomberg CEO Forum at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. He speaks with Bloomberg's Nejra Cehic.

Shaping the Workforce of the Future

O Yeah > 'Challenges, threat and opportunities . . . " or ________________________________________________

Published on Feb 25, 2019

Views: 377+

Feb.25 -- Ericsson CEO and North America President Niklas Heuveldop, Singtel Group CEO Chua Sock Koong, and Telenor Chairman Gunn Waersted discuss how AI and robots will impact the workforce of the future. They sit down with Bloomberg’s Nejra Cehic at the Bloomberg CEO Forum at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.