The questions-not-worth-their-own-thread question thread IX

[Mirc]

It's not always like that in Catalan. Sometimes is adjective-noun and, where there is more than one adjective, it's always adjective-noun-adjective. Here some examples:

The red house -> the house red and sometimes the red house too (usually when you put emphasis on this characteristic, or when you want to deliberetly sound pedantic).

The old red house -> the old house red

Heh, that's identical to Romanian actually. That's why I said "generally". Although in Romanian you are allowed to put two adjectives at the end of the word, if you want to, the construction "the old house red" (or more accurately "oldthe house red" - articles are postclitic in Romanian) is quite common too.

The rules however on the declination of adjectives when put ahead of a noun are extremely hard to remember, and to use, and generally considered too complicated to bother with, which is why the construction is very seldomly used. Basically the adjective takes the declination of the noun and the noun remains in its original, nominative unarticulated form. Compare "vechea casă roşie" to "casa veche (şi) roşie".

However, all those are weird exceptions. The general rule in most Romance languages is that whatever is attached to a noun comes after it. In western Romance languages, there are some other exceptions too (like for example, how the possessive pronouns are supposed to come before nouns, although they are after the nouns in Romanian - you would say "casa mea" and not "mea casa"), but in any case, I'm pretty sure they are just the exception, not the rule.

BTW, about what you said in regards to emphasis - that definitely works too, but my native language is a particular case here. Having preserved a fully-fledged case system, you can bring pretty much anything to the beginning of the sentence in order to put an emphasis on it. Which is the reason why SVO, OVS, VSO and VOS are almost fully acceptable word orders there. I'm actually not aware of too many languages to have such a flexibility, although there definitely are some.

I'm still waiting for a bit more of a clear answer about how it is in Slavic languages (and I don't mean only Russian, although what works there might certainly be a general characteristic of the family).

 

[gangleri2001]

Nice post there, and weird language you got.

BTW, about what you said in regards to emphasis - that definitely works too, but my native language is a particular case here. Having preserved a fully-fledged case system, you can bring pretty much anything to the beginning of the sentence in order to put an emphasis on it. Which is the reason why SVO, OVS, VSO and VOS are almost fully acceptable word orders there. I'm actually not aware of too many languages to have such a flexibility, although there definitely are some.

You want to know one of these languages? Try basque. All that SVO/SOV/OVS/VSO crap just doesn't work in it. The galdegaia concept of Basque grammar will certainly rock your (linguistic) world.

 

[Yared]

Can someone explain to me what the concept of Rén in Confucianism is?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I got a small-ish cut that scabbed over. However, the scab keeps falling off and blood keeps coming out. It's making my nice white pajamas turn pink. What should I do? (I just put a band-aid on it.)

 

[Cutlass]

Keep it bandaged until it's fully healed.

 

[Earthling]

And wear clothes you're not worried about staining/easier to get stains out/not white if it's really a problem.

 

[Mesousa]

How exactly does tax evasion work? The kind where you make use of a Swiss bank account.

 

[Lord Baal]

How exactly does tax evasion work? The kind where you make use of a Swiss bank account.

Not declaring income, then hiding it where you don't think the government will find it.

 

[mitsho]

protected by oath of citizenship, I cannot tell you ;-)

Seriously, the question is more complex as we distinguish between Steuerbetrug (tax fraud) and Steuerhinterziehung (tax "evasion"/"dodging"). We're the only ones in the whole wide World to do that, so...

Basically, if you have money on a Swiss account and you don't write the amount (and the account) down on your tax form, your home country will not know about it as there is a bank secret (We're not gonna tell you who that Numberaccount belongs to - the same problem we "had" with the Jewish Nazi Gold...). Now the difference: Tax fraud = You know you have the account and don't write it down on the tax form, tax evasion = You don't write it down on the tax form as you have "forgotten" that you have that account.

Then there is the whole topic of place of residence and the tax market between the Swiss Cantons. And of course the "Bank secret", there are contracts that we will tell you about bank accounts if there is a tax fraud happening (As it is with most countries now, except the channel islands and some bahamas who are protected by the English ;-) ...).

Now the whole conflict is about that other states want us to tell about tax fraud and we don't because we think it's just tax "dodging".

Of course the whole thing is totally ridiculous and Switzerland has been on an unorganized retreat for about 20 years, accelerating it in the last two.

The story of these days is that a banker wants to sell a CD full of contact names and account numbers which he/she got illegaly to Germany in order to help them hunt down tax frauders/dodgers.

Hope it's a bit more clear.

 

[Yeekim]

How is it in Estonian then?

Adjective->noun as well.

 

[really]

How exactly does tax evasion work? The kind where you make use of a Swiss bank account.

You invest or hide money abroad and then don't declare the income to the tax authorities in your home country.

 

[Mesousa]

Okay, I get that let's say the German authorities are unable to access information from Swiss banks directly and can't tell how much I have in my account there, but shouldn't they be able to tell that money was transferred to a Swiss account? Let's say I'm in Germany and receive money from someone. Job income, or some trade deal. The other party either transfers the money directly to my Swiss account, or they transfer it to my normal account and I transfer it to the Swiss account then. Shouldn't the authorities (be able to) know I got that money? Can't they ask my employer or business partner (or me), "Hey, what's the deal with that money you transferred?" and assume I got it / have it, and tax me accordingly? If the other party is doing their taxes correctly and declaring everything, how can the authorities lose track of my side of the deal?

 

[Cutlass]

Okay, I get that let's say the German authorities are unable to access information from Swiss banks directly and can't tell how much I have in my account there, but shouldn't they be able to tell that money was transferred to a Swiss account? Let's say I'm in Germany and receive money from someone. Job income, or some trade deal. The other party either transfers the money directly to my Swiss account, or they transfer it to my normal account and I transfer it to the Swiss account then. Shouldn't the authorities (be able to) know I got that money? Can't they ask my employer or business partner (or me), "Hey, what's the deal with that money you transferred?" and assume I got it / have it, and tax me accordingly? If the other party is doing their taxes correctly and declaring everything, how can the authorities lose track of my side of the deal?

The downside of an income tax is that the government is reliant on self reporting of income. Most people on the low to middle-high incomes work for some organization, and the organization reports their income. So their opportunity to falsely report their income is slight. But they can often falsely report the deductions that they are legally entitled to take. When someone is self employed, runs an organization and therefor controls the accounting, employed by the shadow economy, then the opportunities to falsely report income are greatly higher. And there remains the opportunities to falsely report deductions.

Outside of voluntary compliance, governments have limited ability to independently confirm the accuracy of reported incomes and deductions. And in the US, the IRS is very limited in how many audits it can do. Because of that, the risk of being caught out becomes so low as to cease to be a deterrent. The US federal government looses $300 or 400 billion a year that way.

Once money is not declared for taxes, it must be hidden from areas where the government can have an independent confirmation of it. US banks have to issue reports on deposits. So many people use a variety of methods of sending money to those banks in nations that do not. The more anonymous, the better. The US could end that, but has been more content to nibble around the edges of it.

 

[really]

but shouldn't they be able to tell that money was transferred to a Swiss account?

Not if it comes from outside DE and goes direct to CH. Or if you don't use a bank to transfer the money:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a62_boqkurbI

June 17 (Bloomberg) -- It’s a plot better suited for a John Le Carre novel.

Two Japanese men are detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland. Details are maddeningly sketchy, so naturally the global rumor mill is kicking into high gear.

Or you could do a side deal where some of your income is paid to DE and this is declared as income to make it seem as if you are legit but the rest is sent straight to CH and not declared.

It all depends on what you tell the tax authorities and what they can find out from other sources.

 

[GinandTonic]

At the simplest and most undetectable level people do some work for cash-in-hand and dont tell the tax man.

In fact the income tax trail is a powerful tool for the gov. There are plenty of drug-dealers who work a job just to have some kind of taxed income to keep the authorities seeing them as a regular citizen within the system. Similar with tax dodgers. Self-certified mortgages were a life saver for these people. So long as they plausibly could be making their payments on their taxed income, though it would require them to be living in total poverty, the equity in their house becomes 100% squeaky clean and tax free.

 

[Quackers]

This is madness?!

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

No, this is Patrick.

But anyway,
how effective is a spill-proof keyboard? If you spill a drink on it, what happens?

 

[Earthling]

Which would be a better title for a thread?

"I am not the wittiest person on CFC"
or
"I have never met a person born Feb 29th who wasn't a cannibal"

I should note the threads would be on the same topic; only the titles differ.

 

[Cutlass]

Which would be a better title for a thread?

"I am not the wittiest person on CFC"
or
"I have never met a person born Feb 29th who wasn't a cannibal"

I should note the threads would be on the same topic; only the titles differ.

Go with the second.

 

[Earthling]

All right, sound advice, it should be an interesting psychology related-topic, be on the lookout tomorrow.