I disavow...

This is not a fabulous time to be a New Yorker!

The weather is so cold. It's been ranging between 1 and 2 degrees Celsius. All this in the middle of Thanksgiving! Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I hear it's going to rain. Terrible, Terrible, Terrible! I've cancelled any plans for attending the Parade. I'll just stay indoors and draw inspiration from the cold arms of my tax texts.

Have you thought of what to give thanks for this year? In that regard, a few interesting things happened to me this week. I got in touch with 2 'old' friends. One of them isn't really old at all. She was an admin staff at the Houston law firm. She was very kind to me and she generally smiled a lot. I think she didn't get along too well with the other women in the office but she always put up a brave face.

The other friend is over 80 years old. He is the most learned person I know. He speaks every modern language I can think of - spanish, english, russian, french, portuguese, german, etc., as well as latin. I call him 'The Sphinx' cos I think he knows things only the Pyramids have seen. He had been on the verge of death lately. When I called, he was feeling better. He was as vivacious as a dew drop dancing in the sunlight. I am glad he is alive and well. There would be less of me if he were not.

I am a tad too busy to rant about the niceties of this week besides the weather and my old friends. Let me hope that you are warm wherever you are. As for me, while the weather stays this deathly, I disavow my relationship with it...lest I fade away like a sliver of ice!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

My Trip to the Met!

Hey there!

I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art tonight. Yeah, that's how I spend my Friday nights -intellectual masturbation with relics from another age. Even though I had to be convinced [nearly dragged, in fact] to "The Met", it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience! Forget the fact that I lost an argument about whether the E train stops at 53rd St. on 5th Avenue. [I said it didn't; my companion said it did. I take the train every blessed day. I should know if it does or not. As I said earlier, I was stupidly wrong...grrrrr!]

I'll try not to bore you with too many words. Here are some pictures from my trip.

Enjoy!

My times are mine no longer.

Wow! It's been another hectic week. Exams are closing in and blogging is apparently not a priority... for now. I'll try to string together some disjointed thoughts here. Please forgive my apparent lack of orientation in advance.

Not much has been happening, except studying and more greek in my tax classes. I forgot my laptop in a Yellowcab on my trip back from Michigan. The nice bloke acting as the taxi driver dropped it off at the 107th precinct which was where I retrieved it at 3 am the next morning. If you ever lose anything in New York City, call 3-1-1 and make a report of it. Something positive might happen, or maybe not. But if you don't report it, your chances are reduced. I was glad to have my 'top back. My shaky exam preparations would have taken a fatal dip, for sure.

I visited the Nigerian consulate in New York for the first time today. I must say I felt no comfort being within its glass walls. I think my experiences with Nigerians home and abroad have not been amazing. They make me wary, I'm sorry to confess. I'm sure some others react likewise to me. I wish we could change things. I'm afraid we may not. Not in this generation. Anyways, I wanted to renew my passport. As I guessed, they stop operating at 12.00 noon. I'm not sure which is better - working at a foreign consulate with ridiculous hours; or, being a summer associate at a top law firm. Surely, the latter pays better but you gotta love the hours at the former!

Anyways, no more ranting for the present. I have to get back to figuring out S.904 and it's odd treatment of credits and losses.

On a lighter note, I did see this quote today: "A friend doesn't come to visit you in jail; he's in there with you, sitting on your bed saying, 'we f$%#*&^d up, didn't we?!'

Smile!

Tales from the Motor City [sort of...] Pt. III

Today, I decided to blog from 30,000 feet above the Motor City.

Yes, yes, the conference is over and I'm in the air, flying back to New York City. It is very comforting to be going back home even though Detroit, Ann Arbor and Michigan were terribly interesting. [I refer to them as though they were three distinct places. There not.] This flight is packed - partially due to a cancellation or a postponement of the flight to a later time for some unexplained reason. I may have to reconsider my thoughts on Spirit Air…hummph! So, rather that arriving in New York before dusk, I shall have to steal into the city like a thief in the night. Not that I have any problem with that in any way shape or form whatsoever!

The last day of the conference continued much like the earlier parts of it. Lively discussion, interesting presentations, some humor and lots of ideas [real and imaginary]. I had to leave a few minutes before the closing remarks in order to catch a free ride to the airport. I left right after the former Justice Minister of Japan made his presentation in stuttering English fit only for the truly discerning! I thought the whole conference was great though, generally and in many subtle ways.

I can say that tax policy in relation to developing countries produced more questions than answers. This is characteristic of any sincere query regarding the issues that affect development in any real sense. Invariably, there are many alternatives before these "Left-behind" nations. Many scholars - from the West and the Rest - have as many theories to help drag the Third World out of the quagmire that it finds itself. As tax practitioners, our inquiry has been to see if there are ways in which tax can fulfill the optimal fiscal growth of this bloc of countries. All in all, it is inevitable that, as a developing country, your fate lies in your hands. There is very little that the West knows about the true issues of development. The Third World does not operate with the panache, finesse and regularity that the West finds as commonplace. The laws of economics produce irrational results in these tangentially different market systems. The fate of a developing country is dire, but its recovery is certainly possible.

I am really glad I got out of my usual triangular regime to come to Detroit. I am very glad I met the extremely nice OECD guys and the tax scholars that care enough about development to attempt to do something about it - however futile their attempts might be. It may take a couple of generations to get things going. By then, the rest of the world may be in another age. The road is uphill. The wind is averse. But perhaps, hope is not totally absent.

And so, now that I have totally exhausted myself with my dramatic plane-catching on Friday coupled with a whirlwind weekend, I think it's time I sat back and enjoyed this flight. The rigor of Laurie, John and Rosenbloom still await me in Corporate tax, International Tax and Transfer Pricing. No. I shall try not to think about them for the 75minutes that this flight lasts. I doubt that that is possible. Yet, it won't stop me from trying….

Tales from the Motor City [sort of...] Pt. II

Today was a whirlwind at the INTR Conference!

Let me describe the general format for the conference. Every morning, a chartered bus leaves at 8.30am from the Marriott Hotel where all the attendees reside. [Yes, including yours truly!] There is a continental breakfast at the University of Michigan School of Law and the conference papers start at 9.30am. Each day is divided into three sections. Usually, the first section contains three presentations. Thereafter, there is a lunchbreak. A second section follows with three or four short presentations interrupted by a coffee break. Finally, the third section hosts two or three presentations with a nice dinner at the end.

There are usually comments by the members of the audience after each section. Today's first section was mainly by OECD-type speakers. Most of yesterday's sections were very high level policy papers on tax issues relating to developing countries. Today's first section papers were no different. It was a bit upsetting altogether since the papers rather showed how much the speakers didn't know about true developing country-issues. And so, I decided to speak. I commented about the way we were all ignorant about tax issues and developing countries; I spoke about how Nigeria and other developing countries really do not care about the fine points of a trade tarriff over a VAT, or a consumption tax over an income tax base. I said it was unfortunate that the people who might be able to provide informed opinions about these issues were not present - as is characteristic of these type of high level think-tanks. I also said I wished the acumen were present in developing countries to actually appreciate the issues we were discussing.

You cannot imagine how much attention my comments raised! Since I was the last commentator in the first section (before the lunch break), the conference rose immediately after I spoke - and everyone (almost) crowded around my chair!!! Everyone was talking simultaneously - "What you just said was so true", "I totally agree with you", "You were so eloquent in expressing what I've been hoping to hear throughout this conference". Unfortunately, I cannot tell all the nice things that happened immediately after my comments but two directors from the OECD offered to sit at my table for lunch. I guess what a professor from George Washington University said was most characteristic. She said: "What you said today was the best thing I've heard since the conference began, and is probably the best thing I will hear. I'm very glad you spoke and you've made all the difference." Comments like this went on and on. People kept stopping me to pass a nice comment or the other. I was very surprised by people's reactions and I was very, very, proud indeed.

As a spin-off from my new-found fame, I got invited to a private dinner by some of the other participants. Normally, I would have just gone back to my bed. I got to speak personally with some of the other INTR participants and they were really down to earth and very nice! It was nice to talk to such grand achievers. Almost everyone had an SJD/PhD in tax law - which is certainly no mean feat. Of course, I was just a lowly LL.M. student. No pretences to the intellectual edge whatsoever from me. I shall have to send an email of thanks to all the people who have been especially nice to me.

The conference ends tomorrow. Most people will leave early right after the conference. I am flying back to New York at 4 p.m. I really am grateful that I took the initiative to come for this conference. It is nice to mix with the rest of the world in some microcosmic sense. It is so nice to speak my mind and to hear that people better than me thought it was highly impressive. I am optimistic about the future but I'm just happy for today.

Tales from the Motor City [sort of...]

My interesting pilgrimage in America has brought me to Michigan. This weekend, I am at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor attending the inaugural conference of a budding association called the International Network of Tax Researchers, a think-tank birthed by the OECD. Right now, it is already past lunch time and a number of interesting things have taken place.

But how could I miss telling you about my near miss - I was 3 seconds from missing my flight (literally)! [Didn't that sentence have a lot of "miss"es in it?!] The conference was scheduled to start at 9.00 am and since I didn't want to forgo Tax Procedure on Thursday night, I booked a Friday flight for 6.08 am. It was the first flight out of NYC going to Michigan. I should have known that such an early trip would "en-doom" me. Indeed, it almost did. [And my alliterations go on!] The foreboding of a troubled morning was the fact that I didn't sleep until 2.30am. Of course, if you want to make it through the security checks at a U.S. airport, it is crucial that you give yourself 45mins (if you're not checking in luggage) prior to your flight. Otherwise, you may have contributed your flight funds to the airline ex gratia. Anyways, sleeping at 2.30 meant that I had to be awake just 2hours later - to take a bath -to dress up-to finish packing and, then, hit the road.

Well, my alarm went off as it should but, for some inexplicable reason, it was 30mins later that my eyes opened - at the phonecall of the cab driver! Of course, those 30mins chopped out the time I'd scheduled for a bath, packing, etc. Nevertheless, I went off on a prayer and asked the driver for 15mins. I hit the bathroom and was dressed in 11mins. I threw everything into the cab and the driver sped off into the morning. I finished packing by stretching my small frame across the back seat of the cab driver's vehicle. He got me to the airport, and I ran through all the lines by not checking my luggage (it was rather light anyways) and telling everyone "my flight leaves in 10mins" (which was true). Stupidly, I had my bottle of perfume with me and the airport security didn't waste time in confiscating it (grrr...how come no one said there were restrictions on liquids in hand luggage and that you cannot take more than 3 ounces on board??? - I don't even know what an ounce means! When will these Americans go metric?!!!) Anyways, I was too much in a rush and didn't mind foregoing my prefume. Finally, I got to the door [you know, the door that leads to the airplane walkway...) just as it was being shut!

Having gone through the drama of catching my flight, it was nice to find that the plane was sooo comfortable! If you ever have the chance to fly Spirit Airlines, please do. The comfort was sublime. To crown my trip, when we touched down in Detroit, it was snowing! Naturally, that excites me cos I hadn't seen snow until this morning!!! The weather in Michigan was 23 degrees...brrrr...cold. My cab driver from the airport to Ann Arbor was a sick Sikh who tried to get on my last nerve and charged me an arm and a leg [yes, right now, I'm a cripple....] but I was just so glad to be here.

About the conference: There are quite a number of scholars here...over 50. I'm just making up the diversity percentage here even though I think I'm the only one really from a developing country. This is significant because the conference is about Tax Policy and Developing Countries. We've had the morning session and it was rather high level. The subjects spoke largely about european concepts of policy and really didn't get into the underlying tax reasoning that drives developing countries' policies. We'll see how the rest of the program unfolds. Hopefully I'll be able to say something and bring them down to earth to think about the real concepts and the way taxation affects developing countries. Indeed, I've been wondering what a "developing" country is and the unique, identifying factor that seperates such countries from "developed" countries. It certainly isn't the World Bank's parameter based on per capita income - which makes China, India and Brazil developing countries.

I also hope I get to do some networking. I doubt that anything tangible will come out of it but, regardless, the food and hotel are free so I am certainly not complaining! I shall walk the university, sleep the sleep of the free, and enjoy the intellectual discourse. Amen!

Let's see how it goes.

Election days

If you haven't heard [apparently because you don't live in the U.S.; don't like politics; or, just plainly don't care], the U.S mid-term elections are taking place on the 7th of November. That's just a few days away. The mid-term elections are the platform for contesting a portion of the seats in the U.S. Congress. Very reasonably, elections to seats in the U.S. Congress are staggered so that there is no lacuna in Congress eliminating the need for its dissolution or significant interruption.

The stakes are very high this time. The previously Republican Congress is due for a shift in the balance of power to the other major U.S. party - the Democrats. The verbal barbs are out; the stakes are high; and the campaigns are ugly in many senatorial districts. What is remarkable to me is how polar the Democrats and the Republicans appear to be. How is it possible to stick to granting or denying federal funds for stem cell research; accepting or rejecting the recognition of same-sex marriages; or, sticking to the Right or Left merely for the sake of consistency in one's liberalism or otherwise?

In some ways, I am conservative. On other issues, I am clearly liberal. Society has pillars that need to stay constant. In the same way, society has pillars that need to be flexible enough to move - for the benefit of society itself. America is polarized by this conservatism/liberalism vistas. It permeates the minds of the common populace up to the elite chambers of the Supreme Court. I think it is absurd. It is perhaps why I have no stomach for politics; only for revolutions. I wish most of society would cast away its ideological branding; we might all the better off for it.

Nevertheless, enjoy the political show!