title: Jean Louisa Kelly

text: In the mid-1990s, after graduating from Columbia University, Kelly became well known for a series of television commercials she did for MCI long distance, in which she played a telephone operator who challenged AT&T. In 1995, she starred as Luisa in the musical film "The Fantasticks" with Joey McIntyre and Joel Grey, although the film was shelved until 2000. The same year, she appeared as Rowena Morgan, the muse for the title character of "Mr. Holland's Opus". In the 1990s, other films followed, including “Origin of the Species,” “The Day Lincoln was Shot” and "Landfall" (2001). Kelly appeared Off Broadway at the York Theatre in the title role in Paul McKibbins and B.T. McNicholl's "The It Girl", based on the 1927 movie "It". She also appeared in the York's "Musicals in Mufti" series as Lois Lane in "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman".


title: Jean Louisa Kelly

text: In 1996, Kelly voiced the title role in the second season of the animated series "Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders". After several made-for-TV movies, Kelly's broadest exposure came from her roles in situation comedies, first guest starring in such shows as "Mad About You", and then as a cast member of the short-lived NBC version of "Cold Feet". From 2000 to 2006, she starred as Kim Warner on the long-running sitcom "Yes, Dear". In 2006 she guest starred in the ABC drama "Grey's Anatomy". After her series ended, she guest starred on numerous television shows and starred in movies of the week. She recurred as Bernice Pope in the Yahoo production of "Sin City Saints".


title: Jean Louisa Kelly

text: She played opposite William Fichtner in the movie “The Neighbor” and opposite John Diehl in “Out of the Wild” in 2015. In 2019 she played opposite Bradley Whitford in “Call of the Wild,” and played Jane Doe/Serena May in the James Wan movie “Malignant.”


title: Jean Louisa Kelly

text: She released an album of children's music called "Color of Your Heart" in 2013. In 2015, she released a five-song EP called "Willing", and in 2017 she released an album titled "For My Folks", which features a collection of standards.


title: Jean Louisa Kelly

text: Kelly appears as Sarah Kazansky - wife of Val Kilmer's character Tom "Iceman" Kazansky - in the 2022 action drama movie "".


title: Jean Louisa Kelly

text: Kelly was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, the daughter of J. Joseph Kelly III and Wendy Kelly. Her father was a high school English teacher, and her mother taught piano. She attended Easton High School in Easton, Maryland. In 1994, Kelly graduated from Columbia University's Columbia College with a Bachelor of Arts in English.


title: Jean Louisa Kelly

text: She is close friends with Jennifer Garner, having hosted the baby shower for Garner's daughter Violet Anne Affleck and interviewed Garner for "Self" magazine in 2005.


title: Berghain

text: Berghain () is a nightclub in Berlin, Germany. It is named after its location near the border between Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain in Berlin, and is a short walk from Berlin Ostbahnhof main line railway station. Founded in 2004 by friends Norbert Thormann and Michael Teufele, it has since become one of the world's most famous clubs, and has been called the "world capital of techno."


title: Berghain

text: Thormann and Teufele became party promoters in the 1990s, hosting a male-only fetish club night called Snax, which launched in 1992 at Bunker. In 1999 they founded their first club, Ostgut, in a former railway repair depot in Friedrichshain. Unlike Snax, the club was open to the general public. According to Deutsche Welle, Ostgut, "known for unique parties and boundless freedoms, sexual and otherwise, is considered to have paved the way for Berghain." Ostgut closed in January 2003, with the building slated for demolition and later replaced by a large indoor arena, the O World Berlin (since 2015: Mercedes-Benz Arena).


title: Berghain

text: Berghain opened in 2004 as a reincarnation of Ostgut. The name "Berghain", a portmanteau of the two city quarters that flank the south and north sides of the building, Kreuz"berg" (formerly in West Berlin) and Friedrichs"hain" (formerly in East Berlin), has been described as evocative of the club's "post-1989 identity." The literal meaning of the German word "Berghain" is "mountain grove."


title: Berghain

text: The club is located in a former heating plant built in 1953 as part of the flagship post-war Stalinallee development and abandoned in the 1980s. The space was originally rented from the energy company Vattenfall but has been owned outright by the club since 2011. The building has a cavernous main room with 18-meter ceilings and is dominated by steel and concrete. The design of the club's interior, as well as later interior and exterior expansions of the venue, were carried out by the Berlin design firm "Studio Karhard".


title: Berghain

text: In 2016 a German court officially designated Berghain a cultural institution, which allows the club to pay a reduced tax rate.


title: Berghain

text: The club's main room is focused on techno, with a smaller upstairs space, Panorama Bar, featuring house. The basement holds a male-only establishment called "Lab.Oratory", which Rolling Stone described in 2014 as being "known as Berlin’s most extreme sex club."


title: Berghain

text: Berghain has a Funktion-One sound system on its main dance floor which, when it was installed in 2004, was one of the company's largest club installs. The Panorama Bar was upgraded in 2017 with a four-point line-array system with an additional six subwoofers from Studt Akustik.


title: Berghain

text: At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, in March 2020, Berghain closed along with all other nightclubs in Berlin. Over the summer, it hosted several sound art installations inside the building and the adjacent beer garden. In September 2020, the indoors club reopened as an art space, hosting an exhibition titled "Studio Berlin" featuring 115 Berlin-based artists including Tacita Dean, Olafur Eliasson and Wolfgang Tillmans. After 19 months, in October 2021, Berghain resumed indoor dance club events, with patrons still required to either be vaccinated or to have recovered from COVID-19.


title: Berghain

text: Berghain has become associated with decadence and hedonism. It is open continuously most weekends from Saturday night through late Monday morning. The club offers dark rooms dedicated to sexual activity, and media have frequently reported of guests openly indulging in sexual acts. In 2019 Frieze magazine observed that while in Berghain's early years, "the main room was mostly a space for gay men, [...] now its queer palette is more mixed [but] the club’s values remain the same: concealment, queerness and excess." The twice-yearly Snax Party is reserved for gay patrons.


title: Berghain

text: No photos are allowed inside the club, with patrons required to cover their smartphone cameras with a sticker. The policy was maintained in 2020 when the club temporarily converted into an art space for the "Studio Berlin" exhibition during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the toilets of the club there are no mirrors, so that guests are spared the "buzzkilling indignity of seeing their own faces after an epic partying session."


title: Berghain

text: A 2022 academic study described Berghain as a unique 'pharmacolibidinal constellation', where sexual orientations may become porous, and preexisting behaviors altered, owing to the environment.


title: Berghain

text: The club's door policy is notorious for being both strict and opaque, generating accusations of racism and frequent debate and speculation about how to get in. Head bouncer Sven Marquardt, who is also a photographer, is a minor celebrity in the techno scene.


title: Berghain

text: In 2005 Berghain's owners started a record label, Ostgut Ton, conceived by former Ostgut resident DJ Nick Höppner after Ostgut's closure in 2003. Its first releases were by Berghain/Panorama Bar DJ residents such as Marcel Dettmann, Cassy and Ben Klock. The label's music is mostly techno, tech house, Detroit techno and minimal techno.


title: Berghain

text: In 2007 Berghain collaborated with the Berlin State Ballet to create "Shut Up and Dance! Updated", a ballet for five dancers that was performed at the club in late June and early July that year. The ballet's soundtrack, released on Ostgut Ton on May 29, 2007, is made up of five specially composed tracks by prominent minimal techno artists, such as Luciano, Âme, Sleeparchive and Luke Slater (The 7th Plain). The soundtrack received some positive reviews, while the ballet was less well received.


title: Berghain

text: In October 2010 the label released a five-year anniversary compilation, "Fünf", for which field recordings from within the club were used. Nick Höppner explained that the idea had come from his collaborator Emika on "a regular Sunday morning [at Berghain, where] she noticed how everything in the building was resonating and vibrating and swinging and humming–she realized that there were a lot of sounds coming from the building itself. That led to the idea of doing field recordings within the building while it's not open to the public."


title: Berghain

text: In the same 2010 interview, Höppner stated that Ostgut Ton was turning down many recordings because there are "so many in-house artists", while the label at that time was selling more product than other labels, but not generating much profit.


title: Berghain

text: Ostgut Ton closed in December 2021, having been (according to Resident Advisor) "a dominant force in dance music, beloved for its mix series and dozens of EPs, albums and compilations" for 16 years.


title: Berghain

text: Around 2007, Berghain also launched its own booking agency Ostgut Booking, which among other artists represented Ben Klock, Steffi, and Marcel Dettmann. In October 2022, it was announced that Ostgut Booking (which at the time represented 28 acts and had eight employees) would be closing down at the end of the year.


title: Berghain

text: Berghain first entered "DJ Magazine's" Top 100 Clubs list in 2008, ranking 20th, and reached the top position the next year.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Sheena Shirley Easton (; born 27 April 1959) is a Scottish singer and actress. Easton came into the public eye in an episode of the first British musical reality television programme "The Big Time: Pop Singer", which recorded her attempts to gain a record contract and her eventual signing with EMI Records.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Easton's first two singles, "Modern Girl" and "9 to 5", both entered the UK Top Ten. She became one of the most successful British female performers of the 1980s.


title: Sheena Easton

text: A six-time Grammy nominee in the US, Easton is a two-time Grammy Award winner, winning Best New Artist in 1982 and Best Mexican-American Performance in 1985, for her duet with Luis Miguel on the song "Me Gustas Tal Como Eres". She has received five US Gold albums and one US Platinum album. She has recorded 15 studio albums, released 45 singles total worldwide, and had 20 consecutive US singles, including 15 US Top 40 singles, seven US Top Tens and one US #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1981 and 1991. She had 25 top 40 hits internationally. In Canada, Easton scored three gold and two platinum albums. She has sold over 30 million records worldwide.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Easton became the first and only recording artist in Billboard history to have a top 5 hit on each of Billboard's primary singles charts: "Morning Train (Nine to Five)" (pop and AC), "We've Got Tonight" with Kenny Rogers (country and AC), and "Sugar Walls" (R&B and dance).


title: Sheena Easton

text: Easton's other hits include the James Bond theme "For Your Eyes Only", "Strut", "U Got the Look" and "The Arms of Orion" with Prince, "The Lover in Me", and "What Comes Naturally". She has worked with prominent vocalists and producers, such as Prince, Christopher Neil, Kenny Rogers, David Foster, Luis Miguel, L.A. Reid & Babyface, Patrice Rushen, and Nile Rodgers.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Sheena Shirley Orr was born on 27 April 1959, at Bellshill Maternity Hospital in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, the youngest of six children of Annie and steel mill labourer Alex Orr. She has two brothers, Robert and Alex, and three sisters, Marilyn, Anessa, and Morag. Her earliest-known public performance as a singer was in 1964 at the age of five, when she sang "Early One Morning" for her uncle and aunt and various relatives at the couple's 25th wedding anniversary celebration.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Easton's father died in 1969 and her mother had to support the family. According to Easton's website, despite her mother's heavy workload she was always available for her children: "Sheena always speaks very highly of her mum and the wonderful job she did in bringing up her and her siblings, including teaching them all to read at home before they were even enrolled in school."


title: Sheena Easton

text: Easton did not consider a singing career until she saw the movie "The Way We Were", with Barbra Streisand. Streisand's singing over the opening credits "overtook" the young girl and convinced her that what she wanted most was to be a singer and to have the same effect on others.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Her top grades in school earned her a scholarship to attend the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, where she trained from 1975 to 1979 as a speech and drama teacher by day, while singing with a band called "Something Else" by night at local clubs. She chose to study teaching rather than performing, because it was a course of study that would let her perfect her craft as a singer.


title: Sheena Easton

text: In 1979, she married Sandi Easton, the first of her four husbands. They divorced after eight months, and Sheena decided to keep the surname Easton. That year, one of her tutors coaxed her into auditioning for Esther Rantzen, producer of the BBC programme "The Big Time". Rantzen was planning a documentary film to chronicle a relative unknown's rise to pop-music stardom. Easton was selected as the subject for the programme; EMI executives awarded her a contract, and Christopher Neil was assigned as her recording producer. Deke Arlon became her first manager, and Easton spent much of 1980 being followed by camera crews, who filmed her throughout the process of her audition through to making her first EMI single, "Modern Girl". In the course of the filming, she met and sang for Dorothy Squires, Dusty Springfield and Lulu, whose manager Marion Massey told her that she saw Easton as a potential TV star with her own series, but not as a pop singer for the 1980s as she lacked "rugged individuality".


title: Sheena Easton

text: The encounter with Massey (then Marion London), at which Lulu was present, was filmed and included in the broadcast, at which time Massey was not entirely incorrect, as "Modern Girl" had flopped on its release, peaking at no.56 in just three weeks on the UK Singles Chart in April 1980. However, once the programme aired in August 1980, "Modern Girl" was reissued and the track and its follow up "Nine to Five" both leapt into the top 10, disproving Massey's prediction. In a revised and extended version of this episode of "The Big Time", broadcast in 1981; this special concluded with news of Easton's breaking into the American market.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Easton's first single, the disco-tinged soft-synth-pop tune, "Modern Girl", was released in the UK before "The Big Time" aired, reached number 56. At the end of the show, Easton was still unsure of her future as a singer. The question was resolved soon after the show aired, when her second single, "9 to 5", reached number 3 on the UK Singles Chart and was certified a Gold single in 1980. "Modern Girl" re-entered the chart subsequently and climbed into the top 10, being certified a Silver single, and Easton found herself with two songs in the UK top 10 simultaneously. During 1980, Easton was voted "Best British Female Singer" by the "Daily Mirror" Pop & Rock Awards, "Best Newcomer" by Capital Radio, and "Best Female Singer" by the "TV Times" Readers Awards.


title: Sheena Easton

text: "9 to 5" was Easton's first single release in the United States, although it was renamed "Morning Train (Nine To Five)" for its release in the US and Canada to avoid confusion with Dolly Parton's hit movie title song "9 to 5". "Morning Train (Nine to Five)" became Easton's first and only number 1 hit in the US and topped both the "Billboard" Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts in "Billboard" magazine. "Modern Girl" was released as the follow-up and peaked at number 18, and before 1981 was over she had a Top 10 hit in both the US and UK with the Academy Award-nominated James Bond movie theme "For Your Eyes Only". The song was nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe award in 1982 in the category "Best Music (Original Song)". Easton's US success culminated in her winning the Grammy Award for "Best New Artist" for 1982. Easton actually appears in the opening credits of "For Your Eyes Only", performing the song; as of 2022, she remains the only Bond theme singer to be featured in this way.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Easton's first three US albums, "Sheena Easton" (1981) (retitled edition of "Take My Time"), "You Could Have Been with Me" (1981), and "Madness, Money & Music" (1982), were all in the same soft rock/pop vein. The title track from "You Could Have Been with Me" made it in to the US top 15; however, by the end of 1982, she saw her sales slumping. Easton was one of the first artists to record "Wind Beneath My Wings" (included on "Madness, Money & Music"), which later was a hit for Bette Midler.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Then, in 1982, Easton undertook her first US tour. Her performance in Los Angeles was videotaped and broadcast on HBO and later released on VHS and Laserdisc as "Sheena Easton Live at the Palace, Hollywood".


title: Sheena Easton

text: On 8 November 1982 she appeared in the Royal Variety Performance in front of the Queen Mother singing Maybe This Time.


title: Sheena Easton

text: In January 1983, Easton duetted with Kenny Rogers and had a top 10 hit in the US with "We've Got Tonight", a cover of the Bob Seger song. The recording also earned her a number 1 single on the Country chart, and it reached the UK Top 30. Around the time of her hit record with Rogers, Easton headlined "Act One", a one-hour variety special broadcast on NBC that featured Rogers and a cameo appearance by Johnny Carson.


title: Sheena Easton

text: October 1983 saw the release of the album" Best Kept Secret" and its first single, the synthesized dance-pop tune "Telefone (Long Distance Love Affair)", became her fourth Top 10 hit. The single was Grammy-nominated for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" of 1983. The follow-up single, "Almost Over You", reached the US Top 30 and was a number 4 AC chart hit. "Almost Over You" was very popular in Asia and was covered by the Chinese singer Cass Pang. It also became a hit on the Country charts for Lila McCann in 1998.


title: Sheena Easton

text: In 1984, Easton recorded a Spanish-language single, "Me Gustas Tal Como Eres" ("I Like You Just the Way You Are"), a duet with Mexican star Luis Miguel. The single earned her a second Grammy, this time for Best Mexican-American Performance. The track was taken from the album "Todo Me Recuerda a Ti" (1984), and reissued by Capitol/EMI-Latin in 1989, which featured Spanish-language covers of seven previous Easton recordings and three new tracks. In the same year, she also made a transformation into a sexy dance-pop siren, changing her performance style in the process. She was rewarded with the biggest-selling US album of her career, RIAA certified gold & platinum "A Private Heaven" (1984), and her sixth Top 10 US single, "Strut". In the UK, however, the move was not a commercial success, as Easton would find herself shut out of the UK top 75 for the next three years.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Her career on the rise in the US, Easton was again Grammy nominated, this time for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" in 1984. She was also one of the first artists to have a music video banned because of its lyrics rather than its imagery; some broadcasters refused to air the sexually risqué "Sugar Walls", which had been written for her by Prince (using the pseudonym "Alexander Nevermind"). "Sugar Walls" was named by Tipper Gore of the Parents Music Resource Center as one of the "Filthy Fifteen", a list of songs deemed indecent because of their lyrics, alongside Prince's own "Darling Nikki". The song eventually hit number 3 on the R&B singles chart, number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100, and number 1 on the Billboard Dance Chart in 1985.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Easton's follow-up to "A Private Heaven", entitled "Do You" (1985), was produced by Nile Rodgers and achieved gold status, although it failed to generate any breakout singles of the chart calibre of "Strut" or "Sugar Walls". In late 1985, Easton contributed "It's Christmas (All Over the World)" to the holiday release "". In 1987, the release of a follow-up album, "No Sound But a Heart" (1987), was hampered in the United States after an initial single release, "Eternity" (another Prince composition), failed to reach the pop, R&B or adult contemporary charts. The album's release moved from February to June; then in August the release was further held up as Easton's attorneys asked that the album be delayed after EMI Records was absorbed into EMI/Manhattan. (This did not prevent the album from being released in Canada, Europe and other territories.)


title: Sheena Easton

text: Songs from the album were covered by other artists: Crystal Gayle and Gary Morris featured "Wanna Give My Love" and "What if We Fall in Love" on a 1987 duet album named for the latter song; Celine Dion recorded "The Last to Know" on 1990's "Unison" while Mexican singer Yuri featured the tune on her album "Espejos De Alma" (1995); Patti LaBelle covered "Still in Love" on 1989's "Be Yourself;" Pia Zadora recorded "Floating Hearts" on 1989's "Pia Z". "No Sound But a Heart" eventually did get released in the United States in 1999, with four bonus tracks, including Easton's contributions to the soundtrack of the 1986 film "About Last Night", "Natural Love" and the Top 50 single "So Far, So Good".


title: Sheena Easton

text: In 1987, Easton appeared in Prince's concert film "Sign o' the Times", during which she sang duet vocals for Prince's hit, "U Got the Look", which became a No. 2 hit in the US. This led to Grammy nominations for "Best R&B Vocal, Duo or Group" and "Best R&B Song" of 1987. The track also returned Easton to the UK hit parade for the first time in nearly four years, although Easton is not credited on the label for the song's single release. During her time collaborating with Prince, Easton was encouraged to write her own material. The most successful effort from their co-writes was "The Arms of Orion", another duet with Prince and a single from 1989's Batman soundtrack. The song reached number 36 on the US Billboard Chart and number 27 in her native UK. She also co-wrote the song "Love '89" with Prince for Patti LaBelle's album "Be Yourself" and "La, La, La, He, He, Hee", which Prince recorded for the B-side of the single "Sign o' the Times". Tabloid press linked the two romantically, which she has always denied.


title: Sheena Easton

text: In November 1987, Easton made her first dramatic acting appearance on the television program "Miami Vice". She played a singer named Caitlin Davies, whom Sonny Crockett was assigned to protect until her court appearance to render crucial testimony against certain corrupt music industry mavens. Sonny and Caitlin ended up married by the end of the episode, the first of five episodes for Easton.


title: Sheena Easton

text: By the spring of 1988, a volume of the "Miami Vice" soundtrack was released and featured "Follow My Rainbow", which Easton had finished singing on her last appearance just moments before her character was eliminated.


title: Sheena Easton

text: The song also appeared on her next album "The Lover in Me" (1988), RIAA gold-disc debut released the following autumn on her new label MCA Records, that put Easton back on the US and UK charts after the release of "No Sound But a Heart" was cancelled in the US. This album features Urban R&B and Dance-pop, and a sexier image. The title song from "The Lover in Me" reached number 2 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and UK number 15 and became her biggest pop hit since "Morning Train". It also became a number 5 hit on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Tracks chart. It was followed on the US R&B chart by "Days Like This" (number 35), which missed the Billboard Hot 100. The third single, the Prince-penned "101", made it to number 2 on the "Billboard" Dance chart. A final single was released "No Deposit, No Return" and failed to chart. The album received positive reviews and featured collaborations with L.A. Reid and Babyface, Prince, Angela Winbush and Jellybean Benitez.


title: Sheena Easton

text: In 1990, Easton revisited her home country of Scotland to perform at a festival (The Big Day) in Glasgow. After announcing that it was "good to be back home" in an American accent, she had bottles (some containing urine) thrown at her and, visibly shaken, she was forced to cut her set short. She vowed never to perform in Scotland again.


title: Sheena Easton

text: In 1991, "What Comes Naturally" became the last of Easton's albums to chart in the United States, peaking at number 90. The title song was also her last Top 40 single to date, reaching number 19. It also became her first hit in Australia since the mid-1980s, peaking at number 4. Two other singles, "You Can Swing It" and "To Anyone," followed but failed to chart. "What Comes Naturally" remained on the US pop chart for 10 weeks and 11 weeks on the ARIA Chart in Australia. Easton has songwriting credits on three tracks. She is also one of the few pop artists to adopt the new jack swing sound with chart success from the early 1990s.


title: Sheena Easton

text: In 1992 an unofficial recording of "Modern Girl" (Live in San Diego) was released by "That's Life" recordings in Germany and Japan. The music was from her early output with EMI and became a sort of bootleg version of her concert when she performed stateside on her first worldwide tour in 1982.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Easton followed this with the non-charting but critically acclaimed "No Strings" (1993), an album of jazz standards produced by Patrice Rushen. It included her version of "The Nearness of You," which was also featured on the soundtrack of the film, "Indecent Proposal," in which Easton appeared in a cameo role.


title: Sheena Easton

text: "My Cherie" (1995) was her last pop album to date to see domestic release in the United States. The album saw Sheena reunite with producer Christopher Neil for the first time in over a decade.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Easton contributed vocals to the soundtrack of "All Dogs Go to Heaven 2" and voiced the character Sasha La Fleur on "Count Me Out" and "I Will Always Be With You". Easton also contributed the theme song "Are There Angels" to the soundtrack for "Shiloh" in 1997; and provided the song "A Dream Worth Keeping" for the 1992 animated film "".


title: Sheena Easton

text: In 1997, she played 'Melissa McCammon', a recording star, who is visited by time travellers from the future in a second-season episode of the Canadian television series "The Outer Limits" entitled "Falling Star". The episode featured her singing two songs from "My Cherie".


title: Sheena Easton

text: In the late 1990s, Easton retained an album contract with MCA Japan and released two discs of new material. However, neither album was originally released in the United States. "Freedom", released in 1997 to coincide with the launch of her website and finally released in (Limited Edition) stateside in 2007, was a return to her trademark pop, including a remake of her debut single "Modern Girl".


title: Sheena Easton

text: In 1999 Universal/Victor released the self-produced acoustic set, "Home". Also around this time, Sheena Easton Greatest Hits collection featuring 12 MCA singles recorded from 1988 to 1995 released and charted in Japan at number 98 (additional greatest hits collections surfaced in the US and UK, but did not chart).


title: Sheena Easton

text: Easton adopted a boy (Jake) and girl (Skylar) between 1995 and 1996. Motherhood led her to curtail her appearances and focus on casino gigs, corporate shows and theatrical work. "Because I adopted my children, I could plan my timing", she told "The Arizona Republic". "I knew exactly when they were coming along, so I knew when I had to change my life so it would be a stable life."


title: Sheena Easton

text: Easton continued acting in America, starring in lead Broadway revivals of "Man of La Mancha" as (Aldonza) opposite Raul Julia in his last stage role (1992), and "Grease" as Rizzo (1996). Between 1994 and 1996, she played several characters in "Gargoyles" the animated series, including Lady Finella, the Banshee, Molly and Robyn Canmore. In 1999, she voice-acted a part-demon character, Annah-of-the-Shadows, in the computer game "". She lives in Las Vegas with her two children and often performs in various casinos' entertainment venues. She voiced the character of Fiona Canmore for a scripted but unfinished episode of the cancelled animated feature, "Team Atlantis".


title: Sheena Easton

text: In December 1998, Easton toured with "The Colors of Christmas" with artists Roberta Flack, Melissa Manchester, Peabo Bryson and Jeffrey Osborne. Windham Hill Records produced "The Colors of Christmas" disc by Robbie Buchanan of holiday music. Easton contributed two tracks, "The Place Where We Belong" (a duet with Jeffrey Osborne) and "The Lord's Prayer".


title: Sheena Easton

text: In 1999 New York based One Way Records reserved the rights to release all of Easton's EMI-America catalog. For the first time in the US, "No Sound But a Heart" was released, 12 years after the album was made available elsewhere. All of Easton's EMI back catalogue (with another exception of her Spanish-language album "Todo Me Recuerda a Ti") was re-released and remastered with bonus tracks, incorporating B-sides and remixes.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Universal Japan released "Best Ballads", a disc of ballads from her six previous albums from her MCA catalog with the exception of "For Your Eyes Only" for the Japanese market that failed to chart.


title: Sheena Easton

text: She also signed an album contract with Universal International UK and attempted a comeback with "Fabulous" (2000), an album of classic disco covers. The first single, "Giving Up, Giving In", reached UK number 54, and the album charted at UK number 185. A second single, a cover of Donna Summer's hit "Love is in Control", with double A-side "Don't Leave Me This Way", was withdrawn. This was to be Easton's last album release to date. The album was released throughout Europe, Japan, Australia, and Argentina but not in the US. In Australia, "Fabulous" was released 24 February 2001 and Easton was asked to perform songs from the album to close out 2001 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras ceremonies.


title: Sheena Easton

text: In 2003, Easton contributed vocals to "If You're Happy", a cover for a Japanese disc called "Cover Morning Musume-Hello Project". She also began to host "Vegas Live", a talk show with Clint Holmes (later replaced by Brian McKnight). In 2004, she was inducted into the Casino Legends Hall of Fame at the Tropicana Resort & Casino.


title: Sheena Easton

text: In February 2013, Demon/Edsel Records (UK) reissued Easton's "You Could Have Been with Me" and "Madness, Money & Music" along with "A Private Heaven" and "Do You" in two compact disc packages remastered with bonus tracks, with the latter including the extended version of "Jimmy Mack" that has never been included on any of her reissues. In November 2014, a box set of Easton's first five albums in an original album series CD collection was released by Warner Music in the United Kingdom.


title: Sheena Easton

text: In 2015 Easton embarked on symphony concerts with guest vocalists entitled "The Spy Who Loved Me" with material from spy movies of the past and present and featuring Bond-style music with symphonies around the United States beginning in San Francisco from July 2015 and continuing into 2016. Easton also performed a small tour of dates during the latter part of 2015 in Australia featuring her Greatest Hits.


title: Sheena Easton

text: In November 2016, Easton accepted the role of Dorothy Brock in the revival production of "42nd Street", which premiered on 20 March 2017 in London's West End, Drury Lane. Lulu replaced Easton in March 2018.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Easton performed at the 2021 New York State Fair, and two of her albums, "Fabulous" and an expanded edition of "What Comes Naturally" were reissued digitally through Apple Music.


title: Sheena Easton

text: On Sept. 17, 2021, RT Industries (US) and Cherry Red Records (UK) launch a re-issue campaign of the EMI star's back catalog and issued the three-CD box set "The Definitive Singles 1980–1987", which collected all of Easton's English-language singles recorded for EMI, along with format-edit versions and some previously unreleased vault material along with the additional releases throughout 2022. On Nov. 19, 2021, Apple Music made additional Easton material available digitally, with the collections "Best Ballads" and "Greatest Hits", which feature material from Easton's post-1987 era with MCA/Universal.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Easton has been married, and divorced, four times and has two adopted children. Her first marriage was in Britain to Sandi Easton at the age of 19. The marriage lasted eight months. Sandi Easton died in 1998, aged 48.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Her second marriage in 1984 to Rob Light, a talent agent, ended after 18 months. Easton became a US citizen in 1992, carrying dual citizenship with the United Kingdom, and adopted her first child, Jake Rion Cousins Easton, in 1994. Two years later, she adopted again, this time a baby girl she named Skylar. In the summer of 1997, she met producer Tim Delarm while filming an episode of ESPN Canon Photo Safari in Yellowstone National Park and they married in Las Vegas in July 1997; the marriage lasted one year. On 9 November 2002, she married John Minoli, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon; they divorced in 2003.


title: Sheena Easton

text: The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Easton has won two awards from six nominations.


title: Sheena Easton

text: Note: "U Got the Look" was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song. This nomination is credited to the songwriter (Prince) and not to Easton.


title: Monotheism

text: Monotheism is the belief that there is only one deity, an all-supreme being that is universally referred to as God. A distinction may be made between exclusive monotheism, in which the one God is a singular existence, and both inclusive and pluriform monotheism, in which multiple gods or godly forms are recognized, but each are postulated as extensions of the same God.


title: Monotheism

text: Monotheism is distinguished from henotheism, a religious system in which the believer worships one God without denying that others may worship different gods with equal validity, and monolatrism, the recognition of the existence of many gods but with the consistent worship of only one deity. The term "monolatry" was perhaps first used by Julius Wellhausen.


title: Monotheism

text: Monotheism characterizes the traditions of Bábism, the Baháʼí Faith, Cheondoism, Christianity, Deism, Druzism, Eckankar, Sikhism, some sects of Hinduism (such as Shaivism and Vaishnavism), Islam, Judaism, Mandaeism, Rastafari, Seicho-no-Ie, Tenrikyo, Yazidism, and Atenism. Elements of monotheistic thought are found in early religions such as Zoroastrianism, ancient Chinese religion, and Yahwism.


title: Monotheism

text: The word "monotheism" comes from the Greek ("monos") meaning "single" and ("theos") meaning "god". The English term was first used by Henry More (1614–1687).


title: Monotheism

text: Quasi-monotheistic claims of the existence of a universal deity date to the Late Bronze Age, with Akhenaten's "Great Hymn to the Aten" from the 14th century BCE.


title: Monotheism

text: In the Iron-Age South Asian Vedic period, a possible inclination towards monotheism emerged. The Rigveda exhibits notions of monism of the Brahman, particularly in the comparatively late tenth book, which is dated to the early Iron Age, e.g. in the Nasadiya Sukta. Later, ancient Hindu theology was monist, but was not strictly monotheistic in worship because it still maintained the existence of many gods, who were envisioned as aspects of one supreme God, Brahman.


title: Monotheism

text: In China, the orthodox faith system held by most dynasties since at least the Shang Dynasty (1766 BCE) until the modern period centered on the worship of "Shangdi" (literally "Above Sovereign", generally translated as "God") or Heaven as an omnipotent force. However, this faith system was not truly monotheistic since other lesser gods and spirits, which varied with locality, were also worshiped along with "Shangdi". Still, later variants such as Mohism (470 BCE–c.391 BCE) approached true monotheism, teaching that the function of lesser gods and ancestral spirits is merely to carry out the will of "Shangdi", akin to the angels in Abrahamic religions which in turn counts as only one god.


title: Monotheism

text: Since the sixth century BCE, Zoroastrians have believed in the supremacy of one God above all: Ahura Mazda as the "Maker of All" and the first being before all others. While this is true, Zoroastrianism is not considered monotheistic as it has a dualistic cosmology, with a pantheon of lesser "gods" or Yazats, such as Mithra, who are worshipped as lesser divinities alongside Ahura Mazda. Along with this, Ahura Mazda is not fully omnipotent engaged in a constant struggle with Angra Mainyu, the force of evil, although good will ultimately overcome evil.


title: Monotheism

text: Post-exilic Judaism, after the late 6th century BCE, was the first religion to conceive the notion of a personal monotheistic God within a monist context. The concept of ethical monotheism, which holds that morality stems from God alone and that its laws are unchanging, first occurred in Judaism, but is now a core tenet of most modern monotheistic religions, including Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and Baháʼí Faith.


title: Monotheism

text: Also from the 6th century BCE, Thales (followed by other Monists, such as Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Parmenides) proposed that nature can be explained by reference to a single unitary principle that pervades everything. Numerous ancient Greek philosophers, including Xenophanes of Colophon and Antisthenes, believed in a similar polytheistic monism that bore some similarities to monotheism. The first known reference to a unitary God is Plato's Demiurge (divine Craftsman), followed by Aristotle's unmoved mover, both of which would profoundly influence Jewish and Christian theology.


title: Monotheism

text: According to Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition, monotheism was the original religion of humanity; this original religion is sometimes referred to as "the Adamic religion", or, in the terms of Andrew Lang, the "Urreligion". Scholars of religion largely abandoned that view in the 19th century in favour of an evolutionary progression from animism via polytheism to monotheism, but by 1974, this theory was less widely held, and a modified view similar to Lang's became more prominent. Austrian anthropologist Wilhelm Schmidt had postulated an "Urmonotheismus", "original" or "primitive monotheism" in the 1910s. It was objected that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam had grown up in opposition to polytheism as had Greek philosophical monotheism. More recently, Karen Armstrong and other authors have returned to the idea of an evolutionary progression beginning with animism, which developed into polytheism, which developed into henotheism, which developed into monolatry, which developed into true monotheism.


title: Monotheism

text: The Tikar people of Cameroon have a traditional spirituality that emphasizes the worship of a single god, Nyuy.


title: Monotheism

text: The Himba people of Namibia practice a form of monotheistic panentheism, and worship the god Mukuru. The deceased ancestors of the Himba and Herero are subservient to him, acting as intermediaries.


title: Monotheism

text: The Igbo people practice a form of monotheism called Odinani. Odinani has monotheistic and panentheistic attributes, having a single God as the source of all things. Although a pantheon of spirits exists, these are lesser spirits prevalent in Odinani expressly serving as elements of Chineke (or Chukwu), the supreme being or high god.


title: Monotheism

text: Waaq is the name of a singular God in the traditional religion of many Cushitic people in the Horn of Africa, denoting an early monotheistic religion. However this religion was mostly replaced with the Abrahamic religions. Some (approximately 3%) of Oromo still follow this traditional monotheistic religion called Waaqeffanna in Oromo.


title: Monotheism

text: Amenhotep IV initially introduced Atenism in Year 5 of his reign (1348/1346 BCE) during the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom. He raised Aten, once a relatively obscure Egyptian solar deity representing the disk of the sun, to the status of Supreme God in the Egyptian pantheon. To emphasise the change, Aten's name was written in the cartouche form normally reserved for Pharaohs, an innovation of Atenism. This religious reformation appears to coincide with the proclamation of a Sed festival, a sort of royal jubilee intended to reinforce the Pharaoh's divine powers of kingship. Traditionally held in the thirtieth year of the Pharaoh's reign, this possibly was a festival in honour of Amenhotep III, who some Egyptologists think had a coregency with his son Amenhotep IV of two to twelve years.


title: Monotheism

text: Year 5 is believed to mark the beginning of Amenhotep IV's construction of a new capital, Akhetaten ("Horizon of the Aten"), at the site known today as Amarna. Evidence of this appears on three of the boundary stelae used to mark the boundaries of this new capital. At this time, Amenhotep IV officially changed his name to Akhenaten ("Agreeable to Aten") as evidence of his new worship. The date given for the event has been estimated to fall around January 2 of that year. In Year 7 of his reign (1346/1344 BCE), the capital was moved from Thebes to Akhetaten (near modern Amarna), though construction of the city seems to have continued for two more years. In shifting his court from the traditional ceremonial centres Akhenaten was signalling a dramatic transformation in the focus of religious and political power.


title: Monotheism

text: The move separated the Pharaoh and his court from the influence of the priesthood and from the traditional centres of worship, but his decree had deeper religious significance too—taken in conjunction with his name change, it is possible that the move to Amarna was also meant as a signal of Akhenaten's symbolic death and rebirth. It may also have coincided with the death of his father and the end of the coregency. In addition to constructing a new capital in honor of Aten, Akhenaten also oversaw the construction of some of the most massive temple complexes in ancient Egypt, including one at Karnak and one at Thebes, close to the old temple of Amun.


title: Monotheism

text: In Year 9 (1344/1342 BCE), Akhenaten declared a more radical version of his new religion, declaring Aten not merely the supreme god of the Egyptian pantheon, but the only God of Egypt, with himself as the sole intermediary between the Aten and the Egyptian people. Key features of Atenism included a ban on idols and other images of the Aten, with the exception of a rayed solar disc, in which the rays (commonly depicted ending in hands) appear to represent the unseen spirit of Aten. Akhenaten made it however clear that the image of the Aten only represented the god, but that the god transcended creation and so could not be fully understood or represented. Aten was addressed by Akhenaten in prayers, such as the "Great Hymn to the Aten": "O Sole God beside whom there is none".


title: Monotheism

text: The details of Atenist theology are still unclear. The exclusion of all but one god and the prohibition of idols was a radical departure from Egyptian tradition, but scholars see Akhenaten as a practitioner of monolatry rather than monotheism, as he did not actively deny the existence of other gods; he simply refrained from worshiping any but Aten. Akhenaten associated Aten with Ra and put forward the eminence of Aten as the renewal of the kingship of Ra.


title: Monotheism

text: Under Akhenaten's successors, Egypt reverted to its traditional religion, and Akhenaten himself came to be reviled as a heretic.


title: Monotheism

text: Native American religions may be monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, animistic, or some combination thereof. Cherokee religion, for example, is monotheist as well as pantheist.


title: Monotheism

text: The Great Spirit, called "Wakan Tanka" among the Sioux, and "Gitche Manitou" in Algonquian, is a conception of universal spiritual force, or supreme being prevalent among some Native American and First Nation cultures. According to Lakota activist Russell Means a better translation of "Wakan Tanka" is the Great Mystery.


title: Monotheism

text: Some researchers have interpreted Aztec philosophy as fundamentally monotheistic or panentheistic. While the populace at large believed in a polytheistic pantheon, Aztec priests and nobles might have come to an interpretation of Teotl as a single universal force with many facets. There has been criticism to this idea, however, most notably that many assertions of this supposed monotheism might actually come from post-Conquistador bias, imposing an Antiquity pagan model unto the Aztec.


title: Monotheism

text: The orthodox faith system held by most dynasties of China since at least the Shang Dynasty (1766 BCE) until the modern period centered on the worship of "Shangdi" (literally "Above Sovereign", generally translated as "High-god") or Heaven as a supreme being, standing above other gods. This faith system pre-dated the development of Confucianism and Taoism and the introduction of Buddhism and Christianity. It has some features of monotheism in that Heaven is seen as an omnipotent entity, a noncorporeal force with a personality transcending the world. However, this faith system was not truly monotheistic since other lesser gods and spirits, which varied with locality, were also worshiped along with "Shangdi". Still, later variants such as Mohism (470 BCE–c.391 BCE) approached true monotheism, teaching that the function of lesser gods and ancestral spirits is merely to carry out the will of "Shangdi." In Mozi's "Will of Heaven" (天志), he writes:


title: Monotheism

text: Worship of "Shangdi" and Heaven in ancient China includes the erection of shrines, the last and greatest being the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, and the offering of prayers. The ruler of China in every Chinese dynasty would perform annual sacrificial rituals to "Shangdi", usually by slaughtering a completely healthy bull as sacrifice. Although its popularity gradually diminished after the advent of Taoism and Buddhism, among other religions, its concepts remained in use throughout the pre-modern period and have been incorporated in later religions in China, including terminology used by early Christians in China. Despite the rising of non-theistic and pantheistic spirituality contributed by Taoism and Buddhism, Shangdi was still praised up until the end of the Qing Dynasty as the last ruler of the Qing declared himself son of heaven.


title: Monotheism

text: Tengrism or Tangrism (sometimes stylized as Tengriism), occasionally referred to as Tengrianism, is a modern term for a Central Asian religion characterized by features of shamanism, animism, totemism, both polytheism and monotheism, and ancestor worship. Historically, it was the prevailing religion of the Bulgars, Turks, Mongols, and Hungarians, as well as the Xiongnu and the Huns. It was the state religion of the six ancient Turkic states: Avar Khaganate, Old Great Bulgaria, First Bulgarian Empire, Göktürks Khaganate, Eastern Tourkia and Western Turkic Khaganate. In "Irk Bitig", Tengri is mentioned as "Türük Tängrisi" (God of Turks). The term is perceived among Turkic peoples as a "national" religion.


title: Monotheism

text: In Chinese and Turco-Mongol traditions, the Supreme God is commonly referred to as the ruler of Heaven, or the Sky Lord granted with omnipotent powers, but it has largely diminished in those regions due to ancestor worship, Taoism's pantheistic views and Buddhism's rejection of a creator God. On some occasions in the mythology, the Sky Lord as identified as a male has been associated to mate with an Earth Mother, while some traditions kept the omnipotence of the Sky Lord unshared.


title: Monotheism

text: The head deity of the Proto-Indo-European religion was the god *"Dyḗus Pḥtḗr ". A number of words derived from the name of this prominent deity are used in various Indo-European languages to denote a monotheistic God. Nonetheless, in spite of this, Proto-Indo-European religion itself was not monotheistic.


title: Monotheism

text: In Eastern Europe, the ancient traditions of the Slavic religion contained elements of monotheism. In the sixth century AD, the Byzantine chronicler Procopius recorded that the Slavs "acknowledge that one god, creator of lightning, is the only lord of all: to him do they sacrifice an ox and all sacrificial animals." The deity to whom Procopius is referring is the storm god Perún, whose name is derived from *"Perkunos", the Proto-Indo-European god of lightning. The ancient Slavs syncretized him with the Germanic god Thor and the Biblical prophet Elijah.


title: Monotheism

text: The surviving fragments of the poems of the classical Greek philosopher Xenophanes of Colophon suggest that he held views very similar to those of modern monotheists. His poems harshly criticize the traditional notion of anthropomorphic gods, commenting that "...if cattle and horses and lions had hands or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do... [they] also would depict the gods' shapes and make their bodies of such a sort as the form they themselves have." Instead, Xenophanes declares that there is "...one god, greatest among gods and humans, like mortals neither in form nor in thought." Xenophanes's theology appears to have been monist, but not truly monotheistic in the strictest sense. Although some later philosophers, such as Antisthenes, believed in doctrines similar to those expounded by Xenophanes, his ideas do not appear to have become widely popular.


title: Monotheism

text: Although Plato himself was a polytheist, in his writings, he often presents Socrates as speaking of "the god" in the singular form. He does, however, often speak of the gods in the plural form as well. The Euthyphro dilemma, for example, is formulated as "Is that which is holy loved by the gods because it is holy, or is it holy because it is loved by the gods?"


title: Monotheism

text: The development of pure (philosophical) monotheism is a product of the Late Antiquity. During the 2nd to 3rd centuries, early Christianity was just one of several competing religious movements advocating monotheism.


title: Monotheism

text: "The One" (Τὸ Ἕν) is a concept that is prominent in the writings of the Neoplatonists, especially those of the philosopher Plotinus. In the writings of Plotinus, "The One" is described as an inconceivable, transcendent, all-embodying, permanent, eternal, causative entity that permeates throughout all of existence.


title: Monotheism

text: A number of oracles of Apollo from Didyma and Clarus, the so-called "theological oracles", dated to the 2nd and 3rd century CE, proclaim that there is only one highest god, of whom the gods of polytheistic religions are mere manifestations or servants. 4th century CE Cyprus had, besides Christianity, an apparently monotheistic cult of Dionysus.


title: Monotheism

text: The Hypsistarians were a religious group who believed in a most high god, according to Greek documents. Later revisions of this Hellenic religion were adjusted towards monotheism as it gained consideration among a wider populace. The worship of Zeus as the head-god signaled a trend in the direction of monotheism, with less honour paid to the fragmented powers of the lesser gods.


title: Monotheism

text: Judaism is traditionally considered one of the oldest monotheistic religions in the world, although in the 8th century BCE the Israelites were polytheistic, with their worship including the gods El, Baal, Asherah, and Astarte. Yahweh was originally the national god of the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. During the 8th century BCE, the worship of Yahweh in Israel was in competition with many other cults, described by the Yahwist faction collectively as Baals. The oldest books of the Hebrew Bible reflect this competition, as in the books of Hosea and Nahum, whose authors lament the "apostasy" of the people of Israel, threatening them with the wrath of God if they do not give up their polytheistic cults.


title: Monotheism

text: As time progressed, the henotheistic cult of Yahweh grew increasingly militant in its opposition to the worship of other gods. Later, the reforms of King Josiah imposed a form of strict monolatrism. After the fall of Judah and the beginning of the Babylonian captivity, a small circle of priests and scribes gathered around the exiled royal court, where they first developed the concept of Yahweh as the sole God of the world.


title: Monotheism

text: Second Temple Judaism and later Rabbinic Judaism became strictly monotheistic. The Babylonian Talmud references other, "foreign gods" as non-existent entities to whom humans mistakenly ascribe reality and power. One of the best-known statements of Rabbinic Judaism on monotheism is the Second of Maimonides' 13 Principles of faith:


title: Monotheism

text: Some in Judaism and Islam reject the Christian idea of monotheism. Modern Judaism uses the term "shituf" to refer to the worship of God in a manner which Judaism deems to be neither purely monotheistic (though still permissible for non-Jews) nor polytheistic (which would be prohibited).


title: Monotheism

text: Among early Christians, there was considerable debate over the nature of the Godhead, with some denying the incarnation but not the deity of Jesus (Docetism) and others later calling for an Arian conception of God. Despite at least one earlier local synod rejecting the claim of Arius, this Christological issue was to be one of the items addressed at the First Council of Nicaea.


title: Monotheism

text: The First Council of Nicaea, held in Nicaea (in present-day Turkey), convoked by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in 325, was the first ecumenical council of bishops of the Roman Empire, and most significantly resulted in the first uniform Christian doctrine, called the Nicene Creed. With the creation of the creed, a precedent was established for subsequent general ecumenical councils of bishops (synods) to create statements of belief and canons of doctrinal orthodoxy— the intent being to define a common creed for the Church and address heretical ideas.


title: Monotheism

text: One purpose of the council was to resolve disagreements in Alexandria over the nature of Jesus in relationship to the Father; in particular, whether Jesus was of the same substance as God the Father or merely of similar substance. All but two bishops took the first position; while Arius' argument failed.


title: Monotheism

text: Christian orthodox traditions (Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and most Protestants) follow this decision, which was reaffirmed in 381 at the First Council of Constantinople and reached its full development through the work of the Cappadocian Fathers. They consider God to be a triune entity, called the Trinity, comprising three "persons", God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. These three are described as being "of the same substance" ().


title: Monotheism

text: Christians overwhelmingly assert that monotheism is central to the Christian faith, as the Nicene Creed (and others), which gives the orthodox Christian definition of the Trinity, begins: "I believe in one God". From earlier than the times of the Nicene Creed, 325 CE, various Christian figures advocated the triune mystery-nature of God as a normative profession of faith. According to Roger E. Olson and Christopher Hall, through prayer, meditation, study and practice, the Christian community concluded "that God must exist as both a unity and trinity", codifying this in ecumenical council at the end of the 4th century.


title: Monotheism

text: Most modern Christians believe the Godhead is triune, meaning that the three persons of the Trinity are in one union in which each person is also wholly God. They also hold to the doctrine of a man-god Christ Jesus as God incarnate. These Christians also do not believe that one of the three divine figures is God alone and the other two are not but that all three are mysteriously God and one. Other Christian religions, including Unitarian Universalism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism and others, do not share those views on the Trinity.


title: Monotheism

text: Some Christian faiths, such as Mormonism, argue that the Godhead is in fact three separate individuals which include God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. Each individual having a distinct purpose in the grand existence of human kind. Furthermore, Mormons believe that before the Council of Nicaea, the predominant belief among many early Christians was that the Godhead was three separate individuals. In support of this view, they cite early Christian examples of belief in subordinationism.


title: Monotheism

text: Unitarianism is a theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism.


title: Monotheism

text: Some in Judaism and some in Islam do not consider Trinitarian Christianity to be a pure form of monotheism due to the pluriform monotheistic Christian doctrine of the Trinity, classifying it as "shituf" in Judaism and as "shirk" in Islam. Trinitarian Christians, on the other hand, argue that the doctrine of the Trinity is a valid expression of monotheism, citing that the Trinity does not consist of three separate deities, but rather the three persons, who exist consubstantially (as one substance) within a single Godhead.


title: Monotheism

text: In Islam, God (Allāh) is all-powerful and all-knowing, the Creator, Sustainer, Ordainer and Judge of the universe. God in Islam is strictly singular ("tawhid") unique ("wahid") and inherently One ("ahad"), all-merciful and omnipotent. Allāh exists on the "Al-'Arsh" [Quran 7:54], but the Quran states that "No vision can grasp Him, but His grasp is over all vision. God is above all comprehension, yet is acquainted with all things" [Quran 6:103] Allāh is the only God and the same God worshiped in Christianity and Judaism.().


title: Monotheism

text: Islam emerged in the 7th century CE in the context of both Christianity and Judaism, with some thematic elements similar to Gnosticism. Islamic belief states that Muhammad did not bring a new religion from God, but rather the same religion as practiced by Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus and all the other prophets of God. The assertion of Islam is that the message of God had been corrupted, distorted or lost over time, and the Quran was sent to Muhammad in order to correct the lost message of the Tawrat (Torah), Injil (Gospel) and Zabur.


title: Monotheism

text: The Quran asserts the existence of a single and absolute truth that transcends the world; a unique and indivisible being who is independent of the creation. The Quran rejects binary modes of thinking such as the idea of a duality of God by arguing that both good and evil generate from God's creative act. God is a universal god rather than a local, tribal or parochial one; an absolute who integrates all affirmative values and brooks no evil. Ash'ari theology, which dominated Sunni Islam from the tenth to the nineteenth century, insists on ultimate divine transcendence and holds that divine unity is not accessible to human reason. Ash'arism teaches that human knowledge regarding it is limited to what has been revealed through the prophets, and on such paradoxes as God's creation of evil, revelation had to accept "bila kayfa" (without [asking] how).


title: Monotheism

text: "Tawhid" constitutes the foremost article of the Muslim profession of faith, "There is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God. To attribute divinity to a created entity is the only unpardonable sin mentioned in the Quran. The entirety of the Islamic teaching rests on the principle of "tawhid".


title: Monotheism

text: Medieval Islamic philosopher Al-Ghazali offered a proof of monotheism from omnipotence, asserting there can only be one omnipotent being. For if there were two omnipotent beings, the first would either have power over the second (meaning the second is not omnipotent) or not (meaning the first is not omnipotent); thus implying that there could only be one omnipotent being.


title: Monotheism

text: As they traditionally profess a concept of monotheism with a singular entity as God, Judaism and Islam reject the Christian idea of monotheism. Judaism uses the term Shituf to refer to non-monotheistic ways of worshiping God. Although Muslims venerate Jesus (Isa in Arabic) as a prophet, they do not accept the doctrine that he was a begotten son of God.


title: Monotheism

text: Mandaeism or Mandaeanism ( ""), sometimes also known as Sabianism, is a monotheistic, Gnostic, and ethnic religion. Mandaeans consider Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem and John the Baptist to be prophets, with Adam being the founder of the religion and John being the greatest and final prophet. The Mandaeans believe in one God commonly named Hayyi Rabbi meaning 'The Great Life' or 'The Great Living God'. The Mandaeans speak a dialect of Eastern Aramaic known as Mandaic. The name 'Mandaean' comes from the Aramaic "manda" meaning "knowledge", as does Greek "gnosis". The term 'Sabianism' is derived from the Sabians (, ), a mysterious religious group mentioned three times in the Quran alongside the Jews, the Christians and the Zoroastrians as a 'people of the book', and whose name was historically claimed by the Mandaeans as well as by several other religious groups in order to gain the legal protection () offered by Islamic law. Mandaeans recognize God to be the eternal, creator of all, the one and only in domination who has no partner.


title: Monotheism

text: God in the Baháʼí Faith is taught to be the Imperishable, uncreated Being Who is the source of existence, too great for humans to fully comprehend. Human primitive understanding of God is achieved through his revelations via his divine intermediary Manifestations. In the Baháʼí faith, such Christian doctrines as the Trinity are seen as compromising the Baháʼí view that God is single and has no equal,


title: Monotheism

text: and the very existence of the Baháʼí Faith is a challenge to the Islamic doctrine of the finality of Muhammad's revelation.


title: Monotheism

text: God in the Baháʼí Faith communicates to humanity through divine intermediaries, known as Manifestations of God. These Manifestations establish religion in the world. It is through these divine intermediaries that humans can approach God, and through them God brings divine revelation and law.


title: Monotheism

text: The Oneness of God is one of the core teachings of the Baháʼí Faith. The obligatory prayers in the Baháʼí Faith involve explicit monotheistic testimony. God is the imperishable, uncreated being who is the source of all existence. He is described as "a personal God, unknowable, inaccessible, the source of all Revelation, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent and almighty". Although transcendent and inaccessible directly, his image is reflected in his creation. The purpose of creation is for the created to have the capacity to know and love its creator. God communicates his will and purpose to humanity through intermediaries, known as Manifestations of God, who are the prophets and messengers that have founded religions from prehistoric times up to the present day.


title: Monotheism

text: Rastafari, sometimes termed Rastafarianism, is classified as both a new religious movement and social movement. It developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It lacks any centralised authority and there is much heterogeneity among practitioners, who are known as Rastafari, Rastafarians, or Rastas.


title: Monotheism

text: Rastafari refer to their beliefs, which are based on a specific interpretation of the Bible, as "Rastalogy". Central is a monotheistic belief in a single God—referred to as Jah—who partially resides within each individual. The former emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, is given central importance. Many Rastas regard him as an incarnation of Jah on Earth and as the Second Coming of Christ. Others regard him as a human prophet who fully recognised the inner divinity within every individual.


title: Monotheism

text: Zoroastrianism combines cosmogonic dualism and eschatological monotheism which makes it unique among the religions of the world. It is contested whether they are monotheistic, due to the prescense of Ahura Mainyu, and the existence of worshipped lesser divinities such as Aharaniyita.


title: Monotheism

text: By some Zoroastrianism is considered a monotheistic religion, but this is contested as both true and false by both scholars, and Zoroastrians themselves. Although Zoroastrianism is often regarded as dualistic, duotheistic or bitheistic, for its belief in the hypostasis of the ultimately good Ahura Mazda "(Wise Lord)" and the ultimately evil Angra Mainyu "(destructive spirit)". Zoroastrianism was once one of the largest religions on Earth, as the official religion of the Persian Empire. By some scholars, the Zoroastrians ("Parsis" or "Zartoshtis") are sometimes credited with being some of the first monotheists and having had influence on other world religions. Gathered statistics estimates the number of adherents at between 100,000 and 200,000, with adherents living in many regions, including South Asia.


title: Monotheism

text: Aboriginal Australians are typically described as polytheistic in nature. Although some researchers shy from referring to Dreamtime figures as "gods" or "deities", they are broadly described as such for the sake of simplicity.


title: Monotheism

text: In Southeastern Australian cultures, the sky father Baiame is perceived as the creator of the universe (though this role is sometimes taken by other gods like Yhi or Bunjil) and at least among the Gamilaraay traditionally revered above other mythical figures. Equation between him and the Christian god is common among both missionaries and modern Christian Aboriginals.


title: Monotheism

text: The Yolngu had extensive contact with the Makassans and adopted religious practises inspired by those of Islam. The god Walitha'walitha is based on Allah (specifically, with the "wa-Ta'ala" suffix), but while this deity had a role in funerary practises it is unclear if it was "Allah-like" in terms of functions.


title: Monotheism

text: The religion of the Andamanese peoples has at times been described as "animistic monotheism", believing foremost in a single deity, Paluga, who created the universe. However, Paluga is not worshipped, and anthropomorphic personifications of natural phenomena are also known.


title: Monotheism

text: As an old religion, Hinduism inherits religious concepts spanning monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, monism, and atheism among others; and its concept of God is complex and depends upon each individual and the tradition and philosophy followed.


title: Monotheism

text: Hindu views are broad and range from monism, through pantheism and panentheism (alternatively called monistic theism by some scholars) to monotheism and even atheism. Hinduism cannot be said to be purely polytheistic. Hindu religious leaders have repeatedly stressed that while God's forms are many and the ways to communicate with him are many, God is one. The "puja" of the "murti" is a way to communicate with the abstract one god ("Brahman") which creates, sustains and dissolves creation.


title: Monotheism

text: Traditions of Gaudiya Vaishnavas, the Nimbarka Sampradaya and followers of Swaminarayan and Vallabha consider Krishna to be the source of all avatars, and the source of Vishnu himself, or to be the same as Narayana. As such, he is therefore regarded as "Svayam Bhagavan".


title: Monotheism

text: When Krishna is recognized to be "Svayam Bhagavan", it can be understood that this is the belief of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, the Vallabha Sampradaya, and the Nimbarka Sampradaya, where Krishna is accepted to be the source of all other avatars, and the source of Vishnu himself. This belief is drawn primarily "from the famous statement of the Bhagavatam" (1.3.28). A viewpoint differing from this theological concept is the concept of Krishna as an "avatar" of Narayana or Vishnu. It should be however noted that although it is usual to speak of Vishnu as the source of the avataras, this is only one of the names of the God of Vaishnavism, who is also known as Narayana, Vasudeva and Krishna and behind each of those names there is a divine figure with attributed supremacy in Vaishnavism.


title: Monotheism

text: "Devas are always looking to the supreme abode of Vishnu" ("tad viṣṇoḥ paramaṁ padaṁ sadā paśyanti sṻrayaḥ" Rig Veda 1.22.20)


title: Monotheism

text: "When at first the unborn sprung into being, He won His own dominion beyond which nothing higher has been in existence" (Atharva Veda 10.7.31)


title: Monotheism

text: "There is none to compare with Him. There is no parallel to Him, whose glory, verily, is great." (Yajur Veda 32.3)


title: Monotheism

text: The number of auspicious qualities of God are countless, with the following six qualities ("bhaga") being the most important:


title: Monotheism

text: In the Shaivite tradition, the "Shri Rudram" (Sanskrit श्रि रुद्रम्), to which the Chamakam (चमकम्) is added by scriptural tradition, is a Hindu "stotra" dedicated to Rudra (an epithet of Shiva), taken from the Yajurveda (TS 4.5, 4.7). Shri Rudram is also known as "Sri Rudraprasna", "", and "Rudradhyaya". The text is important in Vedanta where Shiva is equated to the Universal supreme God. The hymn is an early example of enumerating the names of a deity, a tradition developed extensively in the sahasranama literature of Hinduism.


title: Monotheism

text: The Nyaya school of Hinduism has made several arguments regarding a monotheistic view. The Naiyanikas have given an argument that such a god can only be one. In the "Nyaya Kusumanjali", this is discussed against the proposition of the "Mimamsa" school that let us assume there were many demigods ("devas") and sages ("rishis") in the beginning, who wrote the Vedas and created the world. Nyaya says that:


title: Monotheism

text: In other words, Nyaya says that the polytheist would have to give elaborate proofs for the existence and origin of his several celestial spirits, none of which would be logical, and that it is more logical to assume one eternal, omniscient god.


title: Monotheism

text: Many other Hindus, however, view polytheism as far preferable to monotheism. The famous Hindu revitalist leader Ram Swarup, for example, points to the Vedas as being specifically polytheistic, and states that, "only some form of polytheism alone can do justice to this variety and richness."


title: Monotheism

text: God in Sikhi is called Akal Purakh (which means "the true immortal") or "Vāhigurū" the Primal being. However, other names like Ram, Allah etc. are also used to refer to the same god, who is shapeless, timeless, and sightless: "niraṅkār", "akaal", and "alakh". Sikhi presents a unique perspective where God is present ("sarav viāpak") in all of its creation and does not exist outside of its creation. God must be seen from "the inward eye", or the "heart". Sikhs follow the Aad Guru Granth Sahib and are instructed to meditate on the Naam (Name of God - "Vāhigurū") to progress towards enlightenment, as its rigorous application permits the existence of communication between God and human beings.


title: Monotheism

text: Sikhism is a monotheistic faith that arose in northern India during the 16th and 17th centuries. Sikhs believe in one, timeless, omnipresent, supreme creator. The opening verse of the Guru Granth Sahib, known as the Mul Mantra, signifies this:


title: Monotheism

text: The word "ੴ" ("Ik ōaṅkār") has two components. The first is ੧, the digit "1" in Gurmukhi signifying the singularity of the creator. Together the word means: "One Universal creator God".


title: Monotheism

text: It is often said that the 1430 pages of the Guru Granth Sahib are all expansions on the Mul Mantra. Although the Sikhs have many names for God, some derived from Islam and Hinduism, they all refer to the same Supreme Being.


title: Monotheism

text: The Sikh holy scriptures refer to the One God who pervades the whole of space and is the creator of all beings in the universe. The following quotation from the Guru Granth Sahib highlights this point:


title: Monotheism

text: However, there is a strong case for arguing that the Guru Granth Sahib teaches monism due to its non-dualistic tendencies:


title: Monotheism

text: Sikhs believe that God has been given many names, but they all refer to the One God, VāhiGurū. Sikh holy scripture (Guru Granth Sahib) speaks to all faiths and Sikhs believe that members of other religions such as Islam, Hinduism and Christianity all worship the same God, and the names Allah, Rahim, Karim, Hari, Raam and Paarbrahm are, therefore, frequently mentioned in the Sikh holy scripture (Guru Granth Sahib) . God in Sikhism is most commonly referred to as Akal Purakh (which means "the true immortal") or Waheguru, the Primal Being.


title: Hannah Simone

text: Hannah Simone (born 3 August 1980) is a British-Canadian actress, television host, and former VJ and fashion model. She is known for portraying Cece on the Fox sitcom "New Girl".


title: Hannah Simone

text: Simone was born in London to an Indian father and an English mother of German, Italian, and Greek Cypriot descent. She has a brother named Zack. Simone spent her early childhood in Calgary. From ages 7–10, Simone moved through three continents, attending schools in each one. At the age of 13, Simone was living in Cyprus and was working as a fashion model. At 16 years old, Simone lived in New Delhi where she attended the American Embassy School. A year later, at 17, she returned to Canada. Initially settling in White Rock, British Columbia, she subsequently relocated to Vancouver where she attended the University of British Columbia. After her first degree, she returned to Hounslow, United Kingdom for a year, where she worked as a human rights and refugees officer for the United Nations.


title: Hannah Simone

text: Following her 2005 graduation from The Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), Simone became host of HGTV Canada's television show "Space for Living" for its first season.


title: Hannah Simone

text: Simone worked at MuchMusic as a VJ at MuchMusic Headquarters, as a news presenter for "Much News Weekly" and, the host of the show "The NewMusic". From May 2006 to November 2008, she worked as a VJ for MuchMusic in Canada. She related well to youth interested in alternative artists and interviewed many artists and bands during her time at Much. Simone stopped working at MuchMusic on 21 November 2008, stating that she had plans to move to Los Angeles, California.


title: Hannah Simone

text: Simone earned a role hosting "WCG Ultimate Gamer" alongside Joel Gourdin on Syfy. The series premiered on 10 March 2009 and ended after its second season on 7 October 2010. From 2011 to 2018, Simone was on Fox's comedy "New Girl", where she played Cece, the best friend to title character Jess (Zooey Deschanel).


title: Hannah Simone

text: Alongside Kate Upton and Génesis Rodríguez, she was featured in Gillette's "What Women Want" campaign in 2013.


title: Hannah Simone

text: In 2016, she starred in music video "Same Air" from The Rocket Summer. In 2017, she hosted the reality competition television series "Kicking & Screaming".


title: Hannah Simone

text: On 12 February 2018, Simone was announced as the lead in ABC's reboot of "The Greatest American Hero"; however, ABC declined to pick up the series.


title: Hannah Simone

text: She began cohosting "Welcome to Our Show", a "New Girl" rewatch podcast with co-stars Lamorne Morris and Zooey Deschanel, distributed by IHeartRadio, in January 2022.


title: Hannah Simone

text: In 2016, after dating for nearly four years, Simone married musician Jesse Giddings. Simone announced her pregnancy in April 2017, and she gave birth to their son in early August 2017.


title: Value-added tax

text: A value-added tax (VAT), known in some countries as a goods and services tax (GST), is a type of tax that is assessed incrementally. It is levied on the price of a product or service at each stage of production, distribution, or sale to the end consumer. If the ultimate consumer is a business that collects and pays to the government VAT on its products or services, it can reclaim the tax paid. It is similar to, and is often compared with, a sales tax. VAT is an indirect tax because the person who ultimately bears the burden of the tax is not necessarily the same person as the one who pays the tax to the tax authorities.


title: Value-added tax

text: Not all localities require VAT to be charged, and exports are often exempt. VAT is usually implemented as a destination-based tax, where the tax rate is based on the location of the consumer and applied to the sales price. The terms VAT, GST, and the more general consumption tax are sometimes used interchangeably. VAT raises about a fifth of total tax revenues both worldwide and among the members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). As of 2018, 166 of the 193 countries with full UN membership employ a VAT, including all OECD members except the United States, where many states use a sales tax system instead.


title: Value-added tax

text: There are two main methods of calculating VAT: the credit-invoice or invoice-based method and the subtraction or accounts-based method. In the credit-invoice method, sales transactions are taxed, the customer is informed of the VAT on the transaction, and businesses may receive a credit for the VAT paid on input materials and services. The credit-invoice method is by far the more common and is used by all national VATs except for Japan. In the subtraction method, a business at the end of a reporting period calculates the value of all taxable sales, subtracts the sum of all taxable purchases, and applies the VAT rate to the difference. The subtraction method VAT is currently used only by Japan although it, often by using the name "flat tax," has been part of many recent tax reform proposals by US politicians. With both methods, there are exceptions in the calculation method for certain goods and transactions that are created to help collection or to counter tax fraud and evasion.


title: Value-added tax

text: Germany and France were the first countries to implement VAT, doing so in the form of a general consumption tax during World War I. The modern variation of VAT was first implemented by France in 1954 in Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) colony. Recognizing the experiment as successful, the French introduced it in 1958. Maurice Lauré, Joint Director of the France Tax Authority, the Direction Générale des Impôts implemented VAT on 10 April 1954, although German industrialist Wilhelm von Siemens proposed the concept in 1918. Initially directed at large businesses, it was extended over time to include all business sectors. In France it is the most important source of state finance, accounting for nearly 50% of state revenues.


title: Value-added tax

text: A 2017 study found that the adoption of VAT is strongly linked to countries with corporatist institutions.


title: Value-added tax

text: The amount of VAT is decided by the state as a percentage of the price of the goods or services provided. As its name suggests, value-added tax is designed to tax only the value added by a business on top of the services and goods it can purchase from the market.


title: Value-added tax

text: To understand what this means, consider a production process (e.g., take-away coffee starting from coffee beans) where products get successively more valuable at each stage of the process. Each VAT-registered company in the chain will charge VAT as a percentage of the selling price, and will reclaim the VAT paid to purchase relevant products and services; the effect is that net VAT is paid on the value added. When an end-consumer makes a purchase subject to VAT—which is not in this case refundable—they are paying VAT for the entire production process (e.g., the purchase of the coffee beans, their transportation, processing, cultivation, etc.), since VAT is always included in the prices.


title: Value-added tax

text: The VAT collected by the state from each company is the difference between the VAT on sales and the VAT on purchase of goods and services upon which the product depends, i.e., the net value added by the company.


title: Value-added tax

text: The standard way to implement a value-added tax involves assuming a business owes some fraction on the price of the product minus all taxes previously paid on the good.


title: Value-added tax

text: By the method of collection, VAT can be "accounts-based" or "invoice-based". Under the "invoice method" of collection, each seller charges VAT rate on his output and passes the buyer a special invoice that indicates the amount of tax charged. Buyers who are subject to VAT on their own sales (output tax) consider the tax on the purchase invoices as input tax and can deduct the sum from their own VAT liability. The difference between output tax and input tax is paid to the government (or a refund is claimed, in the case of negative liability). Under the "accounts based method", no such specific invoices are used. Instead, the tax is calculated on the value added, measured as a difference between revenues and allowable purchases. Most countries today use the invoice method, the only exception being Japan, which uses the accounts method.


title: Value-added tax

text: By the timing of collection, VAT (as well as accounting in general) can be either "accrual" or "cash based". "Cash basis" accounting is a very simple form of accounting. When a payment is received for the sale of goods or services, a deposit is made, and the revenue is recorded as of the date of the receipt of funds—no matter when the sale had been made. Cheques are written when funds are available to pay bills, and the expense is recorded as of the cheque date—regardless of when the expense had been incurred. The primary focus is on the amount of cash in the bank, and the secondary focus is on making sure all bills are paid. Little effort is made to match revenues to the time period in which they are earned, or to match expenses to the time period in which they are incurred. "Accrual basis accounting" matches revenues to the time period in which they are earned and matches expenses to the time period in which they are incurred. While it is more complex than cash basis accounting, it provides much more information about your business. The accrual basis allows you to track receivables (amounts due from customers on credit sales) and payables (amounts due to vendors on credit purchases). The accrual basis allows you to match revenues to the expenses incurred in earning them, giving you more meaningful financial reports.


title: Value-added tax

text: The main reason that VAT has been successfully adopted in 116 countries as of 2020 is because it provides an incentive for businesses to both register and keep invoices, and it does this in the form of zero rated goods and VAT exemption on goods not resold. A business essentially through registration, is waived VAT on goods purchased for its own use.


title: Value-added tax

text: In general, countries that have a VAT system require most businesses to be registered for VAT purposes. VAT-registered businesses can be natural persons or legal entities, but countries may have different thresholds or regulations specifying at which turnover levels registration becomes compulsory. VAT-registered businesses are required to add VAT on goods and services that they supply to others (with some exceptions, which vary by country) and account for the VAT to the taxing authority, after deducting the VAT that they paid on the goods and services they acquired from other VAT-registered businesses.


title: Value-added tax

text: Like an income tax, VAT is based on the increase in value of a product or service at each stage of production or distribution. However, there are some important differences:


title: Value-added tax

text: Value-added tax avoids the cascade effect of sales tax by taxing only the value added at each stage of production. For this reason, throughout the world, VAT has been gaining favor over traditional sales taxes. In principle, VAT applies to all provisions of goods and services. VAT is assessed and collected on the value of goods or services that have been provided every time there is a transaction (sale/purchase). The seller charges VAT to the buyer, and the seller pays this VAT to the government. If, however, the purchasers are not the end users, but the goods or services purchased are costs to their business, the tax they have paid for such purchases can be deducted from the tax they charge to their customers. The government receives only the difference; in other words, it is paid tax on the gross margin of each transaction, by each participant in the sales chain.


title: Value-added tax

text: A sales tax incentivizes vertical integration and therefore discourages specialization and trade due to the fact that it taxes the full value of the product at each stage of production, instead of only the value that has been added to the product.


title: Value-added tax

text: In many developing countries such as India, sales tax/VAT are key revenue sources as high unemployment and low per capita income render other income sources inadequate. However, there is strong opposition to this by many sub-national governments as it leads to an overall reduction in the revenue they collect as well as of some autonomy.


title: Value-added tax

text: In theory, sales tax is normally charged on end users (consumers). The VAT mechanism means that the end-user tax is the same as it would be with a sales tax. The main disadvantage of VAT is the extra accounting required by those in the middle of the supply chain; this is balanced by the simplicity of not requiring a set of rules to determine who is and is not considered an end user. When the VAT system has few, if any, exemptions such as with GST in New Zealand, payment of VAT is even simpler.


title: Value-added tax

text: A general economic idea is that if sales taxes are high enough, people start engaging in widespread tax evading activity (like buying over the Internet, pretending to be a business, buying at wholesale, buying products through an employer etc.). On the other hand, total VAT rates can rise above 10% without widespread evasion because of the novel collection mechanism. However, because of its particular mechanism of collection, VAT becomes quite easily the target of specific frauds like carousel fraud, which can be very expensive in terms of loss of tax incomes for states.


title: Value-added tax

text: Consider the manufacture and sale of any item, which in this case is a widget. In what follows, the term "gross margin" is used rather than "profit". Profit is the remainder of what is left after paying other costs, such as rent and personnel costs.


title: Value-added tax

text: So the consumer has paid 10% ($0.15) extra, compared to the no taxation scheme, and the government has collected this amount in taxation. The retailers have not paid any tax directly (it is the consumer who has paid the tax), but the retailer has to do the paperwork in order to correctly pass on to the government the sales tax it has collected. Suppliers and manufacturers have the administrative burden of supplying correct state exemption certifications, and checking that their customers (retailers) are not consumers. The retailer must verify and maintain these exemption certificates. In addition, the retailer must keep track of what is taxable and what is not along with the various tax rates in each of the cities, counties and states for the 35,000+ global taxing jurisdictions.


title: Value-added tax

text: A large exception to this state of affairs is online sales. Typically if the online retail firm has no nexus (also known as substantial physical presence) in the state where the merchandise will be delivered, no obligation is imposed upon the retailer to collect sales taxes from "out-of-state" purchasers. Generally, state law requires that the purchaser report such purchases to the state taxing authority and pay the use tax, which compensates for the sales tax that is not paid by the retailer.


title: Value-added tax

text: In the VAT example above, the consumer has paid, and the government received, the same dollar amount as with a sales tax. At each stage of the production, the seller collects a tax on behalf of the government and the buyer pays for the tax by paying a higher price. The buyer can then be reimbursed for paying the tax, but only by successfully selling the value-added product to the buyer or consumer in the next stage. In the previously shown examples, if the retailer fails to sell some of its inventory, then it suffers a greater financial loss in the VAT scheme in comparison to the sales tax regulatory system by having paid a higher price on the product it wants to sell. Each business is responsible for handling the necessary paperwork in order to pass on to the government the VAT it collected on its gross margin. The businesses are freed from any obligation to request certifications from purchasers who are not end users, and of providing such certifications to their suppliers, but they incur increased accounting costs for collecting the tax, which are not reimbursed by the taxing authority. For example, wholesale companies now have to hire staff and accountants to handle the VAT paperwork, which would not be required if they were collecting sales tax instead.


title: Value-added tax

text: In the above examples, we assumed that the same number of widgets were made and sold both before and after the introduction of the tax. This is not true in real life.


title: Value-added tax

text: The supply and demand economic model suggests that any tax raises the cost of transaction for "someone", whether it is the seller or purchaser. In raising the cost, either the demand curve shifts rightward, or the supply curve shifts upward. The two are functionally equivalent. Consequently, the quantity of a good purchased decreases, and/or the price for which it is sold increases.


title: Value-added tax

text: This shift in supply and demand is not incorporated into the above example, for simplicity and because these effects are different for every type of good. The above example assumes the tax is "non-distortionary".


title: Value-added tax

text: A VAT, like most taxes, distorts what would have happened without it. Because the price for "someone" rises, the quantity of goods traded decreases. Correspondingly, some people are "worse" off by "more" than the government is made "better" off by tax income. That is, more is lost due to supply and demand shifts than is gained in tax. This is known as a deadweight loss. If the income lost by the economy is greater than the government's income, the tax is inefficient. VAT and a non-VAT have the same implications on the microeconomic model.


title: Value-added tax

text: The entire amount of the government's income (the tax revenue) may not be a deadweight drag, if the tax revenue is used for productive spending or has positive externalitiesin other words, governments may do more than simply "consume" the tax income. While distortions occur, consumption taxes like VAT are often considered superior because they distort incentives to invest, save and work "less" than most other types of taxationin other words, a VAT discourages consumption rather than production.


title: Value-added tax

text: Being a consumption tax, VAT is usually used as a replacement for sales tax. Ultimately, it taxes the same people and businesses the same amounts of money, despite its internal mechanism being different. There is a significant difference between VAT and sales tax for goods that are imported and exported:


title: Value-added tax

text: This means that, without special measures, goods will be taxed twice if they are exported from one country that does have VAT to another country that has sales tax instead. Conversely, goods that are imported from a VAT-free country into another country with VAT will result in no sales tax and only a fraction of the usual VAT. There are also significant differences in taxation for goods that are being imported / exported between countries with different systems or rates of VAT. Sales tax does not have those problemsit is charged in the same way for both imported and domestic goods, and it is never charged twice.


title: Value-added tax

text: To fix this problem, nearly all countries that use VAT use special rules for imported and exported goods:


title: Value-added tax

text: For these reasons VAT on imports and VAT rebates on exports form a common practice approved by the World Trade Organization (WTO).


title: Value-added tax

text: → In Germany a product is sold to a German reseller for $2500+VAT ($3000). The German reseller will claim the VAT back from the state (the refund time change in base of local laws and states) and will then charge the VAT to the customer.


title: Value-added tax

text: → In the USA a product is sold to another US reseller for $2500 (without the sales tax) with a certificate of exemption. The US reseller will charge the sales tax to the customer.


title: Value-added tax

text: Note: The VAT system adopted in Europe affects company cashflow due to compliance costs and fraud risk for governments due to overclaimed taxes.


title: Value-added tax

text: It's different for B2B sales between countries, where will be applied the reverse charge (no VAT charged) or sales tax exemption, in case of B2C sales the seller should pay the VAT or sales tax to the consumer state (creating a controversial situation by asking to a foreign company to pay taxes of their taxable residents/citizens without jurisdiction on seller).


title: Value-added tax

text: In Armenia, the value added tax (VAT) is 20%. However, the expanded application is zero VAT for many operations and transactions in Armenia. That zero VAT is the source of controversies between the trade partners and Armenia, mainly between Russia, which is against the zero VAT and promotes wider use of tax credits.


title: Value-added tax

text: VAT is replaced with fixed payments, which are utilized for many taxpayers, operations, and transactions.


title: Value-added tax

text: The present VAT legislation in Armenia is based largely on the EU VAT Directive's principles. The VAT system in Armenia is input-output based. Companies who have registered for VAT are allowed to subtract the VAT on their inputs from the VAT they charged on their sales and report the difference to the tax authorities.


title: Value-added tax

text: VAT is purchased quarterly. However, it is an exception when taxpayers state monthly payments. VAT is disbursed to the state's budget until the 20th day of the month after the tax period.


title: Value-added tax

text: It came into effect on January 1, 2022. The draft law on the VAT plans were passed on November 11, 2021, and the plans were accepted on November 17.


title: Value-added tax

text: The goods and services tax (GST) is a value-added tax introduced in Australia in 2000, which is collected by the Australian Tax Office. The revenue is then redistributed to the states and territories via the Commonwealth Grants Commission process. In essence, this is Australia's program of horizontal fiscal equalisation. Whilst the rate is currently set at 10%, there are many domestically consumed items that are effectively zero-rated (GST-free) such as fresh food, education, and health services, certain medical products, as well as exemptions for Government charges and fees that are themselves in the nature of taxes.


title: Value-added tax

text: Value-added tax (VAT) in Bangladesh was introduced in 1991, replacing sales tax and most excise duties. The Value Added Tax Act, 1991 was enacted that year and VAT started its passage from 10 July 1991. In Bangladesh, 10 July is observed as National VAT Day. Within the passage of 25 years, VAT has become the largest source of Government Revenue. About 56% of total tax revenue is VAT revenue in Bangladesh. Standard VAT rate is 15%. Export is zero rated. Besides these rates there are several reduced rates, locally called Truncated Rates, for service sectors ranging from 1.5% to 10%. To increase the productivity of VAT, the Government enacted the Value Added Tax and Supplementary Duty Act of 2012. This law was initially scheduled to operate online with an automated administration from 1 July 2017, however this pilot project was extended for another two years.