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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)."
I saw the same email you did, and the originator wasn't very good at math. It is closer to $400 per American, not $300,000.
Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
So, in other words, you didn't actually read the report. Just skimmed through, and then immediately jumped on Slashdot to slap someone down. From said report:
For some of those other countries, the "local office" requirement was made at the behest of their banks, because they were scared that they'd lose the business of some of these companies when other countries introduced restrictions on the use of tax havens.
You'll notice that for many of these companies that supposedly do do business in those countries, the only address you'll find for them in the country will be, curiously enough, also the address for their lawyers in that country, or their accountants, and they'll only have one employee, who is actually "on part time secondment", curiously enough, from said lawyer or accountancy.
Nothing in this report says the companies do no business in the "tax haven" countries. Apple originally set up in Ireland to make Powerbooks, as I recall. They don't do manufacturing there any more but it's still their European headquarters.
LoL
Ireland has veeeeery friendly tax laws and is a prime example of a Country where individuals and corporations send money to dodge US taxes. Part of the reason so many individuals and businesses setup their tax shelters in Ireland is specifically because Ireland does not have the public perception of being a tax haven.
The only reason Ireland (as a member of the EU) can do this is because EU law only prevents countries that meet the 'EU economic norm' from playing such games with tax law. Once Ireland develops, those convenient tax laws will have to be changed.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
You know, the torture going on isn't just waterboarding, humiliation, koran desecration, human pyramids, being threatened with dogs, or "not getting the right jail." It includes what acts that are unarguably torture, including being beaten and chained up until dead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilawar_(torture_victim)). Even when the sadistic bastards believed the detainee was innocent.
Some other examples of "not really torture" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse):
* Urinating on detainees
* Jumping on detainee's leg (a limb already wounded by gunfire) with such force that it could not thereafter heal properly
* Continuing by pounding detainee's wounded leg with collapsible metal baton
* Pouring phosphoric acid on detainees
* Sodomization of detainees with a baton
* Tying ropes to the detainees' legs or penises and dragging them across the floor.
And some other forms of torture, with real torture names that can really kill you, like strappado (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manadel_al-Jamadi). Although folks like you, Rush Limbaugh and all the other right wing nuts seem to prefer the doublespeak term "stress positions."
And I guess because some soldiers were just so stressed out and needed to blow off steam, some prisoners were just tied up, put in sleeping bags and beaten to death (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/02/AR2005080201941.html).
But you're right, waterboarding isn't torture and it was only 4 guilty as hell terrorists anyway.
While taxpayer funds are being used in the "bailout", this is not free money. There are a few strings attached related to executive compensation and raising dividend rates on common stock. And also, it is not free money. The bailout is closer to being a loan than a gift. (Actually the bailout is the government purchases preferred stock at a specified price that pays a nice interest rate - 5% initially but this later raises to 9%.) I personally disagree with Government intervention in the market, but the bailout has been misrepresented in the press. It is not free money and the taxpayers are not out 700 Billion dollars.
No. Really you don't. Tax brackets don't work like that. The fact that you don't even understand how taxes work, makes me believe that you've never paid taxes in your life. So why would we take tax advice from someone who doesn't understand the current system, and probably doesn't even pay taxes?
You only pay the tax rate in a bracket for the money that actually falls in that bracket. In your example you'd pay 15% of the amount up to $32,500, then 25% on the $520 between $32,500 and $33,020. So the person's take home would actually go up $7.50/week to $538.75.
Luxembourg population density: 186/km2
Unites States population density: 31/km2
So you'd need to increase the US population 6x to be "just as sparsely populated as Luxembourg", so unless that mass genocide is being done in Luxembourg it isn't going to help...