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GAO Reports Bailout and Tech Firms Love Tax Havens
theodp writes "Most of America's largest publicly traded corporations and Federal contractors — including those receiving billions of dollars from US taxpayers to finance their recovery — have set up offshore operations that could help them avoid paying US taxes, according to a GAO study released yesterday. Of the 100 largest public companies, 83 do business in tax-haven hot-spots like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and the British Virgin Islands. The report found that Citigroup, a recipient of $45B in bailout funds so far, has set up 427 subsidiaries in tax-haven countries, including 91 in Luxembourg, 90 in the Cayman Islands, and 35 in the British Virgin Islands. Household names on the lists from the tech sector include Apple (1 tax haven subsidiary), Cisco (38), Dell (29), HP (14), Intel (6), IBM (10), Microsoft (8), Motorola (4), and Oracle (77)."
Isn't the way this worded presuming guilt before innocence? Is doing business in a tax-haven country an automatic fail?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Maybe if the US tax policy wasn't insanely out of line with the rest of the world, we wouldn't have this problem. Can you blame these companies for getting away?
Other countries charge income tax based on income earned in that country. The US charges income tax for income earned in any country. Where would you set up your company?
The FairTax would instantly make the US the world's tax haven.
So instead of giving out $300,000 per person to these corps that have already proven they don't know how to run a business (and now might be shuffling all the money offshore, THX BUSH!), couldn't we have just given $300,000 to each man, woman and child in America?
I was against the bailout to begin with, but this is silly.
We give them money, then they are supposed to give it back?
Is this so Hank Paulson and some IRS agent can siphon some off to keep their jobs?
2nd highest in the industrialized world behind only Japan, as I recall the most recent article.
California has the highest or 2nd highest corp. (and other) taxes and has a net outflow of population compared to inflow.
You don't think taxes has something to do with economic decisions?
Think again.
Theoretically, their duty is to maximize return on investment for their stockholders, which means doing everything they can legally to minimize their tax liability. So if a tax shelter is legal, expect them to use it. (If it's not legal, expect them to try to pretend it's legal.)
Now, though, because in some cases their partial owner is the U.S. government, there is a conflict of interest between the interests of the government shareholder and the private shareholders.
--- Thousands are enslaved every day.
If the government is willing to give your tax dollars to companies that cheat the US, then the only appropriate response is to refuse to pay your taxes, and get as many people as possible to do the same.
I came here for a good argument
What's more, even if they were guilty, who cares? I mean, if they need a bailout, obviously they can't afford something so proletarian as taxes...
We know what to do with the ones we own now.
rd
So this is a surprise that companies are dodging taxes?
I didn't even read your comment!
"there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible".
People and companies respond to incentives -- it is really surprising that the bizarre tax structure in the US pushes companies to form subsidiaries? Apparently it is, to either clueless or grandstanding politicians.
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
I really get frustrated when doublespeak is acceptable. It's like the question, "Are prisoners in Guantanamo being tortured?" If they weren't being tortured, they would be in New York state, sitting in the same jail cells we use for other suspected murderers. The fact that anyone is asking the question is mind-boggling.
Similarly, any company that sets up in a small country that they do no business in is obviously up to something. Otherwise they wouldn't be there.
American business is a game, where the winners are those who best exploit their workers, the tax code, government contracts, and the environment. The most important bit is not getting caught, and having a lot of lawyers if you do.
(I'd like to defuse any rebuttal by saying "Wal-Mart.")
They are receiving US GOVERNMENT funds taken from US TAXPAYERS and they're stashing them in foreign tax havens.
This is solely for the benefit of their executives. It will not help rebuild the US economy.
There needs to be a new law passed TODAY (drag Congress back in) that makes that practice illegal.
If you want "bailout" funds, you cannot use a foreign tax haven.
If you use a foreign tax haven, you cannot receive "bailout" funds.
Why should the US taxpayers finance some CEO's retirement villa in Monte Carlo while the economy drags?
The reason we got here: greed. We did nothing to address the underlying reason for the economic crisis, so is it surprising that greed continues?
Tax the full rental value of bare land, and remove all taxes on labor and capital, excluding social security.
Not only would you provide a bigger economic stimulus than any of the current proposals -- one estimate puts it at a trillion dollars per year (see http://wealthandwant.com/docs/Tideman_Applications_LVT.html) without deficit spending -- it's pretty difficult to stick an acre of Manhattan in a Swiss bank account.
Plus, capital likes to flow to where there are low taxes. The giant sucking sound would be headed back to the United States, for once.
Most of the major companies mentioned are not receiving any "rescue" from the government, and would not want or need any. Additionally, just because a business has set up a subsidiary in another country does not at all indicate that it is trying to avoid taxes. There are many reasons to set up subsidiaries, including requirements of the local governments. These are LEGAL subsidiaries, whether the purpose is for tax reasons or otherwise. The corporate tax rate is so high in the U.S. that some of these businesses (and others) feel compelled to take LEGAL action to lower their taxes to workable levels.
To drive the economy, you want the people with the LEAST money to spend MORE money.
The VELOCITY of the money is what drives our tax system. The government gets more taxes if a dollar is used 100 times than if it is used 10 times.
Buying a pizza - taxed. ... etc
Pizza shop owner pays delivery guy - taxed.
Delivery guy goes to dinner with his girlfriend - taxed.
Restaurant owner pays cook - taxed.
Cook buys muffler for car - taxed.
Pump enough money into the lower economic rungs and more pizza delivery guys will have to be hired to meet the demand for more pizzas.
Give the money to some company that's going to stash it in an off-shore tax haven ... the US jobs stagnate.
I don't know why anyone complains about this. I mean it's not like corporations are anything but the great back bone of our country. Forget rights and freedoms, we all know it's the corporations who make this country great. It is why we give them all of the rights and privileges of human beings but none of the responsibility. For instance they own copyrights much longer than mortal humans. I mean look, we have one of the highest corporate tax burdens in the free world and one of the strongest economies on the planet. Don't you see how that tax burden is crippling us. Just imagine if our corporations paid less taxes like Europe. Just think lower taxes=better business right. Bermuda is the next economic powerhouse then, right. Right?
I really get frustrated when doublespeak is acceptable. It's like the question, "Are prisoners in Guantanamo being tortured?" If they weren't being tortured, they would be in New York state, sitting in the same jail cells we use for other suspected murderers. The fact that anyone is asking the question is mind-boggling.
In addition to being a totally off-topic thread hijack, tell me when, in the history of warfare, have POW's/detainees ever gotten civil jails and courts? I thought in war, enemies went to POW camps until the war is over, like the US did with the Nazi's, the Japanese, the North Koreans, the North Vietnamese, the Confederate soldiers, the British, etc. The point being, we don't want the enemy coming back and shooting us again, as 61 released prisoners have done to date.
But now, because terrists flout all rules of war and Geneva, they should be treated better than POWs? I thought the point of Geneva was that you had to earn its protections by complying with its rules, carrot and stick. Think of the moral hazard. Now countries will actually be encouraged to foment terror, as terrorists will be treated better than POWs. And they can clog up our criminal courts with 100's even 1000's of them! Fun fun fun for Iran.
And now we have dropped the "torture" bar even lower. First it was waterboarding 4 people. But now torture is not getting the right jail? Have you ever seen a city or county jail? I assure you, Camp Delta is the nicest jail in the world. I saw a special on GB and I got hungry after I saw what they feed the detainees. So now torture isn't getting the right jail cell? And anyone who disagrees with that entirely new definition of torture is doublespeaking? Wow, just wow.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Maybe if the US tax policy wasn't insanely out of line with the rest of the world, we wouldn't have this problem. Can you blame these companies for getting away?
Absolutely, and this ludicrous, greedy policy (and regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley) are really helping to kill the US economy. Now a majority of the top IPOs every year occur in other countries. It used to be like 23 of the top 25 IPOs would always be in the US. Last year, it was like 2 of 25.
Other countries charge income tax based on income earned in that country. The US charges income tax for income earned in any country. Where would you set up your company?
Absolutely. I have three friends who got MBAs in the past 5 years. All three have separately joined or founded corporations in Ireland. Born and bred US MBAs, taking their business elsewhere. This tax policy is killing the US. And the remedy the Democrats want? Better enforcement! Right out in the open (failing) US companies are showing Congress, "look, we can't make it here, so we move our operations elsewhere." And the answer is to continue this policy, rather than, "hey, maybe we have made America business-unfriendly, and we should make the US more competitive to do business." Nope, the answer is to tighten the noose. Unbelievable.
Same thing is happening in California. Millionaires and business are fleeing. And all the want to do in Sacramento is spend more and tax more. Prescription for disaster. Oh well, they'll just spend spend spend, then blame Ahnold.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
His figure is suspiciously close to the amount of Monopoly money that $400 can by in copies of the game with your $400 of REAL money.
The Italians tried that hyperinflation thing once.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The tax dodges these companies set up is to protect investors and shareholders, which the companies are required to do BY US FEDERAL LAW. It contradicts what is best for the US, and laws should prevent moving funds (maybe a limit of 2% of revenue per year). It will allow the creation of overseas companies, but won't allow tax evasion. There isn't any guilt here as no laws have been broken, but that doesn't make it right. As a taxpayer, I don't believe that these companies are properly rewarding countries buying their products. Taxpayers have to fund bailouts for these companies (as shown), and incentives are provided. If you are big enough to form an overseas company, you are big enough to pay tax.
Sure corporations do this. And not just US ones. And not just corporations, many non-profit organizations also benefit from that status to maximize their revenue.
Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Mozilla Foundation, Wikipedia and many, more more are just flying non-profit "flags of convenience" to avoid paying taxes on their commercial operations arms.
The Tax system is deeply flawed, and since it benefits the rich, powerful, and those who aspire to be, it's not going to change any time before Hell freezes over.
The government has no inherent right to tax money. It is, in fact, impossible to cheat the government out of tax revenue, because taxes are not an actual debt that the government deserves to be paid for.
Taxes are a levy. They are a dictate that the government wants your money and plans to take it, regardless of any action by you. There is no "debt" you're paying. You're just getting robbed.
Go figure.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
dude, when you do... the coincidence is gonna blow your mind!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I see the "republicans" tag on this story and am having a hard time making the connection. If I remember right, a large number of republican members of congress didn't like the idea of the bailout and continue to speak against the release of the second half of the money. We need a tag called "bipartisans." I think part of Obama's appeal to monied interests is "All this partisan bickering is getting in the way of what we can really do for this country: get paid."
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
Just like those accountants.. never doing any real work, just saving money!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Well if you had both read the fine article before it was overloaded and had to be changed, you would have find that it had a perfect system for getting rich whilst meeting beautiful girls (or boys or non-determined goth types, depending on your taste) which unfortunately I can follow but can't explain. So don't make this mistake next time.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
These "Free Trade" acolytes love the free market until it's their ass on the line, and then tax-funded government welfare is just fine. Then they have the nerve (as many are doing in this thread) to say that they should be able to legally dodge paying taxes because "it isn't fair". If these companies think paying taxes is so horrible, then they should reject tax funded bailouts and go bankrupt just like any citizen would have to if they got themselves in a bunch of trouble. You won't see that though, because it's easier to talk tough about welfare and taxes, while you gobble up those very same funds to clean your messes up.
That they did nothing but deregulate for 10 years. The only reason some Republican politicians made political theater out of the bailout is because it was an easy way to appeal to pissed off citizens during an election year. Conservative economic policies have reigned supreme for a decade, and this mess is what we have to show for it. Don't feign surprise when blame is placed at the feet of the party that controlled the policies that lead to the mess.
Pro wrestling is faked too.
Corporations and the power-elite have ripped the US taxpayers off to the tune of trillions of dollars over the past eight years alone. They always have, of course, but it has grown so rampant and egregious that we must put a stop to it once and for all. That means cracking down on offshoring and outsourcing by companies that come to the US taxpayer begging for hand-outs. It means life-sentences or worse for the white-collar criminals like Bernie Madoff who are responsible. It means revocation of corporate charters for companies that do wrong, to curb the complicity of Boards of Directors and middle-management in white-collar crime; there must be more cases like Arthur Andersen being put out of business by the government.
And to those who contend that if we hold companies and white-collar criminals responsible for their actions that capital will simply flee the country, I ask, where are they gonna go? Where can they go that the long arm of the American people cannot reach? Mars? Because the US can make life on earth very uncomfortable for any place else that arouses its ire by sheltering them.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
They all go through it. But apparently it's too mean to use on the planner of 9/11.
Sorry, can't post using my ID, what with the rampant moderation abuse.
n/t
you had me at #!
and let the invisible hand sort them out.
I find it amusing that US politicians are always talking about decreasing personal income tax, at the same time the corporate tax take has gone from 34% (1968) to just 15% in 2008. So who is paying the missing 19% of the tax take pie you may ask ? At the end of the day you and "your children" are as the government prints money and borrows. This gives the wonderful double whammy of an inflated currency (true worth of the currency drops) and a massive debt to pay off (over $3000 per person needs to be spent just to pay the interest every year). So as your tax money is used to bail out companies who pay less than 2% tax on total income thanks to off shored holdings you have to wonder who is getting screwed during this recession.
People want to avoid being stolen from? Who would have thought? That some people are more than willing to steal from others, while hypocritically trying to avoid being stolen from themselves? One of the many unfortunate corruptions of civil society that the government brings.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
If these companies didn't minimize their corporate taxes through any (legal) means possible, then they are doing a disservice to their shareholders. I would argue that they are doing a criminal disservice by not minimizing their taxes - they are not maximimizing the return on investment to their shareholders. Assuming that the money saved in taxes doesn't end up all being spent on hookers and blow for the top executives of a company, minimizing taxes helps the business grow. If you think paying taxes is such a great idea, go ahead, volunteer some extra money to the tax department, or avoid taking any of your legal deductions.
It seems the article and the report casts the net too wide.
Some mega-corps (like Coca-Cola and Cisco) actually do business everywhere, and even though they show considerable numbers of businesses in tax havens, those are a small fraction (10%) of the total number of countries in which they have offices. For companies like that, I'd be surprised to find a country where they are *not* operating.
Others, like Chevron and Goldman Sachs, show over half of their foreign operations in tax-haven locales. To me, that sounds very slimy.
Others are somewhere in between, probably representing a somewhat disproportionate presence in tax havens.
What else would you expect? Corporations do behave like psychopaths.
It's all part of the NewParadigm (TM). The NewParadigm ends with the old-fashioned way of taking money in form of taxes and using it to provide services to the people. The NewParadigm reduces the input of taxes, and makes up the difference by issuing debt, that is in turn bought by the Chinese, that for some cultural superstition of them, like to work hard, sell merchandise, and lend back all the received money to the buyers, to allow them to buy still more stuff.
In the NewParadigm is not wrong for corporations to use tax law loopholes to evade taxes, and even receive bailout money afterwards, because the bailout money is just more debt, and debt is good. The NewParadigm states that the bigger the debt of a country, so much the better, because the debtors will be scared of forcing a default, and will keep on buying debt forever. So now, besides having companies too big to fail, we have countries too big to fail. In the NewParadigm, once you have a company deemed too big to fail, you can stop working, because the government will pay all your costs, as by definition they cannot allow you to fail. If you manage to have a country too big to fail, you also can stop working, and finance yourself just by selling bonds.
The reason because the NewParadigm works is because the world increase of productivity has generated a net production surplus. With the old paradigm, there was no way to use that surplus. If you stopped working to reduce the surplus, you stopped having money, and so you died, or got sick or something, and usually returned to work, very likely coughing. If you kept on working, the surplus just got bigger, and was from time to time wiped out by crisis and wars. However, the increase in production lately has made those two methods rather inadequate anymore. The NewParadigm, however, offers a way out of the dilemma. You can now stop working (or pretending to work in non-productive jobs like marketing or politics or the military) and keep on living well just by adding to your VISA debt balance. A whole country can do that by adding the VISA debt balances of the population and putting them into bonds, and selling the to the Chinese. In that way the surplus is eliminated and global prosperity ensues.
Those that will like to point out the current crisis as a negation of the principles of the NewParadigm should be ashamed of themselves, as the current crisis is obviously produced by _failure_ to fully apply the NewParadigm principles. Some old fashioned thinkers, worried by old fashioned guilt thoughts about getting something from nothing, got cold feet and stopped issuing more debt. But now the good work has been taken up by the governments, and all the VISA debt will be backed up by bonds, that the Chinese will promptly buy. So please don't criticize these companies, they are the backbone of the next step in economical evolution, and you are old fashioned thinkers, probably full of shit too.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Err, no. The main reason they are held in Guantanemo was for a jurisdictional dodge about holding them at all. One that didn't work out, as it turns out; the courts didn't buy the idea that they were beyond the reach of US courts just because they weren't within the boundaries of the United States.
Nope.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/opinion/17davis.html?_r=1&ex=1360990800&en=a3b1d35d17a4d480&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
My policy as the chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo was that evidence derived through waterboarding was off limits. That should still be our policy. To do otherwise is not only an affront to American justice, it will potentially put prosecutors at risk for using illegally obtained evidence.
Emphasis mine.
Nothing in this report says the companies do no business in the "tax haven" countries.
Sure. If I posited the same argument that a person who fit the profile of a crack dealer was passing "something" to someone in a car after exchanging money, you'd be the first in line to throw him into prison. I'm not saying they don't deserve due process, but a judicial branch that wasn't a secretarial service for corporate America would at least investigate.
Horrors. Why would a country ever want to do that?
I'm not blaming the country, or claiming the corporations are automatically guilty. When they do business that removes tax money from the community that built it's wealth, I consider that a worse offense than someone who is falsely collecting welfare.
I'm upset with the habit of Americans getting upset over social welfare and not over corporate welfare. When corporations have more rights than an individual person, not even equal rights, I consider that to be reprehensible. I can't buy a palm tree in Costa Rica and reduce my tax liability as an individual, but I could if I formed an LLC. In my opinion, that's bullshit.
Including you. If you want them to pay more change the law. Arranging one's affairs so as to minimize tax liability is neither wrong nor illegal.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
This kind of un-informed nonsense tells me that too many Americans believe their nonsense media:
... USA is barely hanging on in Europe, they dont argue, they just ignore you, and you have just suffered 8 years of that
Eg
1. Arthur Anderson is alive and well as Accenture.
2. Europe, Japan
No, people don't like to hear
Which moderation selection is that? Oh wait, disagreeing with a post is not a grounds to mod troll or flamebait. Just libs abusing their power, silencing those who disagree with them.
Welcome to the left: By any means necessary. Rules only apply to others.
He's arguing against setting up a tax structure that allows and encourages setting up tax havens. Similarly, Mr. Death would probably be against setting up a criminal justice system that does the same for murder.
Since there are international treaties governing both commerce and extradition, it behooves us to make sure that in both areas we discourage people of taking advantage of international political necessities.
Getting rid of the death penalty would help in the latter area wrt. other countries' extradition policies. But since the corporate tax environment is an entirely artificial construct, we don't have to make extradition equivalents. We can just set up the tax structure so that there is no advantage in overseas shell games.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I interpreted the article as saying that of the largest 100 companies, 83 "conduct business" in tax havens and 17 do not (see the first paragraph). The sentence you quoted from the article lists some of the 17 which I interpret as "not tainted" by virtue of not conducting business in tax havens.
I noted this as I work for Lockheed Martin and there is (rightfully so) a huge emphasis on ethics. I am pleased that my corporate leadership practices what they preach.
... when it was market demand that determined whether or not a company stayed in business. Today however, it seems to be politicians giving away taxpayer money to keep businesses the tax payers obviously are not supporters of, in business.
Whats wrong with this picture and where is it leading?
Bad analogy. Whoever said that accountants do no work?
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Who can blame corporations for doing this? We have the second highest corporate taxes in the industrial world.
Pass the Fair Tax. Then watch the money, jobs, industries, and investments flow into the country. It's estimated that approximately 13 trillion dollars are offshore to protect them from Uncle Sam (now Uncle Obama).
Want jobs? Separate business and state! Let capital work!!!
Mr. Cunnings wants me to come over to your house tomorrow.
I'm 6'3", 185lbs, muscular and a 9" penis.
When do you want me, loverboy?
wakeup sheeple ..
the day that corporations .. through political and legal maneuvering gained limited legal liability and the rights of persons .. this became a private planet ..
and the corporations are owned and controlled by they ..
they = the ruling class .. the one percent .. this is their world .. their planet ..
corporations are sociopathic and evil by design ..
they have an agenda and they have a plan .. and it does not include the vast majority of the rest of us .. just enough to service their wants ..
they do not believe their plan can fail ..
as they know through longstanding study and observation .. that they can count on 65% to 70% of the population to simple go along with the ruling authority(read government) .. no matter what they do .. even if it means committing acts of evil in the name of the so called common good ..
and even their very own demise ..
the old cliche says ..
that you can't fool all of the people all of the time ..
but what it doesn't say .. is that you don't have to fool all of the people .. you just have to fool enough !!!
and another one says ..
that the people get the government they deserve ..
what it should say .. is they get the government the ask for .. because personally i don't really believe they deserve it ..
Ireland's taxes are lower than most of the rest of the EU, so it makes sense for any company doing pan-EU business to be based there. It also has had a number of years where it was a cheap place to get labor, and had workers that were educated and spoke English, though there's recently been a lot of business moving to Eastern Europe, especially Poland, where the labor's cheaper.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Was your post meant to imply that it's wrong to want to keep one's own property safe from thieves?
I would define a tax haven is a jurisdiction where a corporation (or for that matter an individual) keeps a presence for tax reasons AND they do not make any significant profits at that location. By the way, locating in a tax haven does not produce profits, it only avoids paying taxes on that profit. If they produce a significant amount of their profits at the tax haven (say over 5%), I wouldn't call that a tax haven. That covers the Cayman Islands, Bermuda or Luxembourg don't have enough population to support the generation of these profits.
The collection of taxes is NOT theft! Look in the Bible about that one where Christ says that you should pay to Cesar what is due to Cesar. Not paying your fair share of taxes is immoral.
Runner!
[UID-HeinzIntel]
Any use of tax havens should summon special, punitive taxes and also preclude all sales to government agencies, schools etc..
In order to protect loyal, American companies we need to really slam those that seek to avoid taxation.
So you have to bring up several-year-old, isolated cases by rogue soldiers not doing their jobs - cases that didn't even happen at Guantanamo Bay. Nice red herrings.
Abu Ghraib is particularly silly to bring up (over and over again, as Iraq War critics love to do), since the idiots who did that have all been sentenced to prison, and the scandal was brought to light by a US soldier. Looks like the other scandals you mention have also been or are being investigated.
I think if you take any random group of people of, say, 500,000, you'd have a certain number of sociopaths and criminals within it. I guess the US military is supposed to be perfect. But I think 99% of these troops all of you "I support the troops but not the mission" types are always talking about are decent, brave, hardworking men and women making the US safe.
"Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
Of course, nowhere in your entire post do you address copponex's ludicrous (and modded +5, Insightful, despite being completely off-topic, nice job moderators) definition of torture as not having access to US jails. Well I guess Lincoln and FDR and every other wartime president were war criminals.
You can't social engineer if everyone pays the same rate.
Quoted because you touched upon the OTHER reason we have taxes (and credits). By taxing and crediting, society encourages certain behaviors and discourages others.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
If your tax-minimization strategy causes such a public uproar that your business stands to lose billions of dollars in public funds and be saddled with new regulations as a result, then you've failed in your fiduciary duty to stockholders by shooting yourself in the foot.
(In other words, management strategies that increase regulatory risk are imprudent.)
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I misspoke, not anticipating some silly nit-picker to come along and ignore the fucking obvious fact that a law which doubles the annual cost of operating a US corporation, is bad for business.
The truth is, the IPO-in-America trend has plummeted since Sarbanes-Oxley went into effect. And this happened long before 2008 - and long before 2006, the year in which the credit/housing bubble was at its zenith.
Clear enough for ya?
- Judge Learned Hand
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
It is surprising to find so many people still so ignorant of the offshore financial operations (such as banks) of multinational corporations, such as all the corporations listed above, which represent a small percentage of all the multinationals. So what? This is news? To whom? The "journalist" who just pulled his head out? It is a common business practice for multinationals and is in no way illegal. There are damned good reasons for owning banks and other financial operations offshore that have nothing to do with hiding money from the taxman. Believe it or not, anyone can own a bank offshore, even that ignorant "journalist".
What the hey: Maybe it's a slow news day.
The FairTax repeals the 16th amendment
Every legal US citizen is regularly refunded the value of retail taxation--weekly, biweekly, monthly, annually, given to charity--whatever, using the existing systems of social security, welfare and unemployment, etc.
In addition to the elimination of all income taxation, gains taxes are also nuked. This is a major stumble for many, but remember that these wealth holders make major purchases of new goods, which are taxed at the FairTax rate.
The current ballpark is $13,600,000,000,000, trillion with a T, are hiding from taxation overseas. With the FairTax, these thirteen trillion dollars come back home to work for us.
You pay no income taxes. You take home 100% of what you earn. You have more control over your federal government. You pay a 23% tax on new goods up to the poverty line, but the MASSIVE supply-side taxation cost is eliminated from those goods, meaning the price after FairTax is the same. The economy booms because every-friggin-corporation opens up shop in the new tax utopia. Jobs are plentiful.
Don't believe me! Read for yourself!
FairTax baby!
This problem is easily solved.
I see no reason to switch to a sales tax, the income tax is fine. Just get rid of corporate taxes. They don't bring in money on a consistent basis, they bring in very little, and they pervert our stock-market by discouraging companies from posting a profit.
Ohh....I get it. "a number of years" because 0 is also a number. Nice. ;)
Of-course all the bailout monies should be retained within American institutions: For those $$$.hoes who maliciously and traitorously act otherwise -- ROMAN JUSTICE: 1) strip away every property & financial asset 2) flog then 'round-the-streets 3) decimate the survivors 4) sell wives and daughters to Saudi whore-houses
"Wrong. The solution is mass genocide, ...."
Genocide of ALL Corporate executive's and board members... They are the pirates of the 19th, 20th, 21st centuries. What did the do with pirates way back when? Then hanged them in public. That is what we should do with these guys/gals. Hang em' High - publicly! Enough of the piracy of the U.S. by these coporate shills - Hang em'!!!!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
.... with things like hedge funds and what not will often setup shop in countries with less strict security laws than the US in order to avoid legal and accounting overhead as well as to be able to provide products that would be illegal or cost prohibitive in the US. US investors are often barred from these instruments. Some companies will form offshore corporations in order to invest in them. Bottom line: There a lot of reasons to have foreign subsidiaries beyond tax avoidance/tax optimization.
Tax every single steenking penny that leaves the country 25%.
We can't hit imports with heavy duties; too many international "free trade" agreements for that. But nobody says we can't tax the money when it leaves again, hmmmm?
Confiscate every dollar leaving that is not declared (whether it be via bank transaction, money order, or a shipping container full of Ben Franklins.
Simple, eh? But noooo ...
News Corp has 151 more tax haven subsidiaries. C'mon Apple!
In anarchy no person can keep more wealth then he can personally guard.
You can hire guards to watch non-portable wealth, but once they are 'guarding' the land how are you going to claim back ownership from the guards.
The wealthy do receive one benefit from government that those with no/few assets do not.
Try and squat on their land and find out exactly what that benefit is.
Not that I'm advocating anarchy. Just pointing out that the wealthy do get something for their money.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
"Tax avoidance is the legal utilization of the tax regime to one's own advantage, in order to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. The United States Supreme court has stated that "The legal right of an individual to decrease the amount of what would otherwise be his taxes or altogether avoid them, by means which the law permits, cannot be doubted." See Gregory v. Helvering."
Taxes of a modern age are things which only middle class and poor people pay. The reason for this is simple: rich people, affluent corporations, and anyone with a significant amount of money (which is who taxes were argued to take money from) do something very simply; they pay an accountant to find every tax loophole, make charitable donations, and balance revenue with expenses in such a way as to reduce the taxes they pay to as close to zero as possible.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
USA is violating the Geneva convention, the prisoners at Guatanamo has not the status of POW. They have no status ...