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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)."
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.
"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?
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.
Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.
The reason places like Luxembourg, Cayman Islands, etc. can get away with charging low (or no) corporate tax is that those places are small and relatively lightly populated. Therefore, the government there doesn't have a whole lot of needs, and can get away with a light budget. The solution to this inequality, as others have suggested, is to close loopholes and make sure that corporations are paying their fair share of taxes, not to reduce the size of our government to that of Luxembourg.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Wrong. The solution is mass genocide, so that the United States is just as sparsely populated as Luxembourg and our taxes go down to similar levels.
Vote Genocide in 2010!
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I love how crazy people talk about how much percentage of taxes a percentage of people should pay, like that has anything to do with anything. We are taxed on income here, not per person.
Those 1% earned 22% of all income. Hence at the very least they should have paid 22% of all income tax, in a crazy world where everyone pays exactly the same proportion of income tax.
But no, loons like you like to imply they're paying a huge huge huge burden by using '1%' and '40%', instead of twice as much proportionally.
Same with the top 5%, which earned 37% of all income, and hence should have paid at least 37% of all income taxes. So 60% is not some amazing step, that's only about 50% more than they should be paying in a completely 'fair' system.
But I'm sure if it was like that, people like you would be whining that the top 1% paid 22% of all income tax.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
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.