Have fun in Lon­don with your new Aus­trian cit­i­zen­ship Denise. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out:

Socialite Denise Rich dumps U.S. passport

By Lynn­ley Browning

Mon Jul 9, 2012 9:47am EDT

(Reuters) — Denise Rich, the wealthy socialite and for­mer wife of par­doned bil­lion­aire trader Marc Rich, has given up her U.S. cit­i­zen­ship — and, with it, much of her U.S. tax bill.

Rich, 68, a Grammy-nominated song­writer and glossy fig­ure in Demo­c­ra­tic and Euro­pean roy­alty cir­cles, renounced her Amer­i­can pass­port in Novem­ber, accord­ing to her lawyer.

Her maiden name, Denise Eisen­berg, appeared in the Fed­eral Reg­is­ter on April 30 in a quar­terly list of Amer­i­cans who renounced their U.S. cit­i­zen­ship and per­ma­nent res­i­dents who handed in their green cards. (link.reuters.com/naq28s)

By dump­ing her U.S. pass­port, Rich likely will save tens of mil­lions of dol­lars or more in U.S. taxes over the long haul, tax lawyers say.

Rich, who wrote songs recorded by Aretha Franklin, Mary J. Blige and Jes­sica Simp­son, is the lat­est bold-faced name to join a wave of wealthy peo­ple renounc­ing their Amer­i­can cit­i­zen­ship. Face­book co-founder Eduardo Saverin gave up his U.S. pass­port to become a cit­i­zen of Sin­ga­pore, an off­shore tax haven, before the company’s ini­tial pub­lic offer­ing in May.

Nearly 1,800 cit­i­zens and per­ma­nent res­i­dents, a record since data was first com­piled in 1998, expa­tri­ated last year, accord­ing to gov­ern­ment figures.

Rich, who was born in Worces­ter, Mass­a­chu­setts, has Aus­trian cit­i­zen­ship through her deceased father, said Michael Heidt, a lawyer in Hol­ly­wood, Florida, who rep­re­sented her in a recent lawsuit.

He said Rich had dumped her U.S. pass­port “so that she can be closer to her fam­ily and to Peter Cervinka, her long-time part­ner.” Rich’s two daugh­ters live in Lon­don; Cervinka, a wealthy prop­erty devel­oper, is an Aus­trian national. Rich plans to make Lon­don her main res­i­dence and does not intend to acquire other pass­ports, Heidt said.

MARC RICH’s PARDON

Rich’s ex-husband, com­modi­ties trader Marc Rich, fled the United States in 1983 when indicted on charges of tax eva­sion, fraud, rack­e­teer­ing and ille­gal trad­ing of oil with Iran. They divorced in 1996.

...

While Aus­tria, like the United States, gen­er­ally taxes its cit­i­zens on their world­wide income, it has gen­er­ous tax breaks for cit­i­zens who spend half the year abroad.

In Jan­u­ary, Rich put her 5th Avenue pent­house in New York on the mar­ket for $65 mil­lion, accord­ing to the list­ing agent, The Cor­co­ran Group. New York prop­erty records show Rich acquired a 100 per­cent stake in the apart­ment, described by Cor­co­ran as “the epit­ome of lux­ury and grandeur,” for $200,000 in 2006. Bon­nie Evans, the Cor­co­ran bro­ker for the prop­erty, declined to dis­cuss details.

COOK ISLANDS TRUST

The recent law­suit against Rich was filed on behalf of Lee Gold­berg, the for­mer pro­tec­tor of a Cook Islands trust of which Rich is a ben­e­fi­ciary, in Feb­ru­ary. The case was dis­missed in April, court records show.

The Cook Islands, a South Pacific tax haven, offers Swiss-style secrecy for wealthy investors.

The law­suit accused Rich and Richard Kil­stock, a British real estate entre­pre­neur who is mar­ried to Rich’s daugh­ter Daniella, of “trans­fer­ring, mov­ing or secret­ing trust assets, in vio­la­tion of the trust’s guide­lines and with­out the knowl­edge or per­mis­sion of Goldberg.”

Rich and Kil­stock denied the charges and accused Gold­berg of alter­ing trust doc­u­ments, court fil­ings show.

...

“The appeal of barter deals is that because pay­ments are made in goods rather than money, trans­ac­tions are kept off the inter­na­tional finan­cial grid and are less likely to be iden­ti­fied by gov­ern­ments try­ing to curb Iran’s nuclear pro­gram.” Tip of the iceberg?

Exclu­sive: Glen­core bartered with firm linked to Iran nuclear program

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS | Fri Mar 1, 2013 1:15am EST

(Reuters) — Com­modi­ties giant Glen­core sup­plied thou­sands of tons of alu­mina to an Iran­ian firm that has pro­vided alu­minum to Iran’s nuclear pro­gram, intel­li­gence and diplo­matic sources told Reuters.

The pre­vi­ously undis­closed barter arrange­ment between Glen­core, the world’s biggest com­modi­ties trader, and the Iran­ian Alu­minum Com­pany (Iralco) illus­trates how dif­fi­cult it is for West­ern pow­ers to curb Iran’s abil­ity to trade with the rest of the world. Even as the West imposes strin­gent restric­tions on banks that do busi­ness with Iran, United Nations diplo­mats say that Tehran keeps find­ing new ways to do busi­ness with will­ing partners.

Reuters first learned about Glencore’s barter deal with Iralco, and an alu­minum sup­ply con­tract that Iralco had with Iran Cen­trifuge Tech­nol­ogy Co (TESA), from a West­ern diplo­matic source in early Novem­ber. That was about six weeks before the Euro­pean Union’s Decem­ber 2012 deci­sion to levy sanc­tions on Iralco for sup­ply­ing alu­minum metal to TESA, which is a sub­sidiary of the Atomic Energy Orga­ni­za­tion of Iran (AEOI).

The source showed Reuters a West­ern intel­li­gence report con­cern­ing Glencore’s arrange­ment with Iralco. It described how Baar, Switzerland-based Glen­core pro­vided Iralco with thou­sands of tons of alu­mina last year in exchange for a lesser amount of alu­minum metal. The report’s authen­tic­ity was con­firmed by U.N. diplomats.

It is not known whether any of the alu­minum pro­duced by Iralco from Glencore’s alu­mina raw mate­r­ial actu­ally ended up with TESA. As part of AEOI, TESA has been sub­ject to U.N. sanc­tions in place since 2006.

In a state­ment to Reuters, Glen­core said it first learned about the TESA-Iralco rela­tion­ship in Decem­ber and imme­di­ately “ceased trans­ac­tions” with Iralco. It said its last actual trade as part of the barter arrange­ment was in Octo­ber 2012, two months before the EU move.

Glen­core acknowl­edged that it did sign the barter deal with Iralco in August 2011, say­ing it was per­fectly legal and denied any wrong­do­ing by the firm or attempts to help Iran bypass sanc­tions. It declined to pro­vide details about the barter deal, the value of which is unclear.

Iralco did not respond to an emailed request for a com­ment. Iran’s U.N. mis­sion said it was not in a posi­tion to comment.

Iran denies alle­ga­tions by West­ern pow­ers and their allies that it is seek­ing atomic weapons and has refused to stop enrich­ing ura­nium. As a result, in addi­tion to four rounds of U.N. sanc­tions, Iran has faced much tougher U.S. and EU mea­sures, specif­i­cally tar­get­ing its finan­cial and energy sectors.

ALUMINUM TUBES

Alu­minum can be used to make alu­minum tubes for ura­nium enrich­ment gas cen­trifuges, though most newer gas cen­trifuges are made of a car­bon com­pos­ite mate­r­ial. Alu­minum is also used in every­thing from cars to air­craft, build­ings and cans.

Glen­core had sup­plied Iralco with about five tons of alu­mina for every ton of alu­minum that Glen­core received in return, accord­ing to the intel­li­gence report. Given that on aver­age it takes only about two tons of alu­mina to pro­duce one ton of alu­minum, the barter deal may have left Iralco with more alu­minum after pro­cess­ing the alu­mina than it sup­plied to Glencore.

Iralco cov­ered costs inside Iran, while all activ­ity involv­ing for­eign cur­rency pay­ments was cov­ered by Glen­core, includ­ing ship­ping costs and insur­ance, accord­ing to the intel­li­gence report.

In its state­ment, Glen­core said: “Glen­core com­plies with applic­a­ble laws and reg­u­la­tions, includ­ing applic­a­ble sanc­tions. We closely mon­i­tor all new legal devel­op­ments to ensure that we con­tinue to be in com­pli­ance with applic­a­ble laws and reg­u­la­tions, includ­ing applic­a­ble sanctions.”

The com­pany said that alu­mina and alu­minum metal were not pro­hib­ited com­modi­ties under the sanc­tions, and that bar­ter­ing is one of the old­est and most trans­par­ent forms of trans­ac­tion and an accepted method in the met­als business.

Swiss author­i­ties said they saw no evi­dence of U.N. or Swiss sanc­tions vio­la­tions by Glen­core. Iralco is not under U.S. or U.N. sanctions.

The intel­li­gence report described the Glen­core deal as a good way for Tehran to get around global finan­cial restric­tions, though it did not say that Glen­core vio­lated sanc­tions.

OFF THE GRID

A U.N. expert panel has repeat­edly reported to the U.N. Secu­rity Coun­cil that Iran has learned to dodge sanc­tions with the aid of shell com­pa­nies and inter­me­di­aries and a small group of friendly coun­tries. But it has become extremely dif­fi­cult for any Iran­ian firm to make or receive pay­ments abroad due to sanc­tions on Iran­ian banks — includ­ing the cen­tral bank — and the bar­ring of Iran from the inter­na­tional bank­ing clear­ing­house SWIFT.

The appeal of barter deals is that because pay­ments are made in goods rather than money, trans­ac­tions are kept off the inter­na­tional finan­cial grid and are less likely to be iden­ti­fied by gov­ern­ments try­ing to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

“From Iran’s point of view, the busi­ness offered through the exchange agree­ment (with Glen­core) offers a model that can be repli­cated for trade in a range of com­modi­ties that it requires, by reach­ing sim­i­lar deals with other for­eign com­pa­nies that have com­mer­cial inter­ests but are reluc­tant to deal with Iran in the cur­rent cir­cum­stances,” the intel­li­gence report said. “Each side ben­e­fits from the trade agree­ment, while risks of expo­sure through inevitable con­tact with third par­ties are dra­mat­i­cally reduced.”

The EU said it imposed sanc­tions on Iralco in Decem­ber because the com­pany was allegedly “assist­ing des­ig­nated enti­ties to vio­late the pro­vi­sions of U.N. and EU sanc­tions on Iran and is directly sup­port­ing Iran’s pro­lif­er­a­tion sen­si­tive nuclear activ­i­ties.” The EU said that Iralco had a con­tract to sup­ply alu­minum to Iran’s cen­trifuge firm TESA from the mid­dle of 2012, accord­ing to the offi­cial EU bul­letin on the sanctions.

A source close to Glen­core said that Iralco received its last alu­mina ship­ment from Glen­core in Sep­tem­ber while Glen­core received its last deliv­ery of alu­minum from Iralco in October.

The source declined to com­ment when asked if the firm con­tin­ued to do other busi­ness with Iran. Glen­core announced an end to its fuel sales to Iran in Jan­u­ary 2010 to avoid breach­ing U.S. sanctions.

...

Glen­core has been involved in con­tro­ver­sies before. It was founded as ‘Marc Rich & Co’ in 1974 by Marc Rich, who was charged by the U.S. author­i­ties in the early 1980s with evad­ing taxes and sell­ing oil to Iran dur­ing the 1979–81 hostage cri­sis. He fled to Switzer­land where he lived as a fugi­tive for 17 years before being par­doned by then U.S. Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton just before he left office in 2001. After a bet on the zinc mar­ket failed, the firm strug­gled badly and Rich even­tu­ally sold it through a man­age­ment buy­out in 1994.

Hmmm...perhaps let­ting hyper-secretive power-obsessed worka­holics define the social-contract will prob­a­bly result in a world that works for no one. Except for maybe the power-obsessed worka­holics:

Hul­la­baloo
If you can’t work 70 hours a week, “you’re not com­pe­tent to do the work“
5/14/2013 03:30:00 PM
by David Atkins

If any­one needed proof that cor­po­rate lead­ers shouldn’t be mak­ing pub­lic pol­icy, this should seal the deal:

For many, work-life bal­ance is seen as the ulti­mate goal. For oth­ers, that mind­set is hog­wash that’s hold­ing you back in your career.

Tak­ing time off for fam­ily or pas­sions “can offer a nice life,” leg­endary GE CEO Jack Welch once told The Wall Street Jour­nal. But he said that it lessens the chances for pro­mo­tion or to reach the top of a career path.

Welch is not the only one who believes this.

Recently, Glen­core Xstrata PC CEO Ivan Glasen­berg argued that exec­u­tives who start to focus on fam­ily and hob­bies will find them­selves under­cut and replaced by ones who don’t.

It’s easy to dis­miss these atti­tudes as out­dated, macho, and unrea­son­able. But it’s pos­si­ble that peo­ple seek­ing work-life bal­ance are just avoid­ing find­ing a way to work extremely hard and be very happy about it.

Marty Nemko, a career coach, author, colum­nist, and radio host, argues that the most suc­cess­ful and con­tented peo­ple pre­fer a heav­ily work-centric life over work-life balance.

“The real win­ners of the world, the peo­ple that are the most pro­duc­tive, think that this notion of work-life bal­ance is grossly over­rated,” Nemko told Busi­ness Insider. “Most of the highly suc­cess­ful and not-burned out peo­ple I know work single-mindendly towards a goal they think is impor­tant, whether it’s devel­op­ing a new piece of soft­ware, invent­ing some­thing, or a car­di­ol­o­gist who’s see­ing patients on nights and week­ends instead of play­ing Monop­oly with his kids on the weekend...”

He argues that many peo­ple who cham­pion work-life bal­ance aren’t over­worked, but are using the term as a polit­i­cally cor­rect tool, a smoke­screen for the desire to not do work.

So rather than focus­ing on work-life bal­ance, focus on being in the moment, on giv­ing every­thing at work instead of imag­in­ing relax­ing at home on the week­end. If you can’t bring your­self to work 70 hours occa­sion­ally or it feels like tor­ture, then you’re prob­a­bly at the wrong job.

Even startup founders, known for work­ing incred­i­ble hours under a lot of stress, shouldn’t blame burnout on a lack of work-life balance.

“Don’t blame the hours,” Nemko says. “If some­body says they got burned out work­ing 70 hours a week it’s because they weren’t com­pe­tent enough to do the work, they hired the wrong peo­ple, or the prod­uct they were work­ing on wasn’t good enough, and they were try­ing to make it work when they really shouldn’t have.“

...

Earth to our over­lords: You appear to have jumped ahead in your dystopian scripts. We aren’t the mind­less robots you so des­per­ately want us to be quite yet. Give us a lit­tle more time. We’re work­ing on it.