Battle Lines Being Drawn As Obama Plans To Curb Tax Avoidance

theodp writes "Barack Obama has squared up for a major battle with big business, announcing a crackdown on offshore tax avoidance and evasion by US multinationals that's designed to raise $210B and make it easier for companies to create 'good jobs here at home'. Obama cited a building in the Cayman Islands where more than 18,000 US companies are housed: 'Either this is the biggest building in the world or it is the biggest tax scam in the world,' he said. 'I think the American people know which it is.' The administration says that more than a third of US foreign profits in 2003 came from Bermuda, the Netherlands and Ireland, and noted US companies paid an effective tax rate of just 2.3% on the $700bn they earned in foreign profits in 2004. Among tech companies affected by the crackdown, Microsoft joined 200 companies who signed a letter complaining that the proposed tax changes would put them at a disadvantage with their rivals, Cisco moaned that the measures 'would adversely impact our ability to invest and grow our business in the US,' and Google declined to comment for the time being."

Comments

Not a tax scam

[Aranykai]

Its a building of holding... Duh.

Re:Not a tax scam

[Timberfox]

are you allowed to place a Building of Holding inside of another Building of Holding? I figure this would make some sort of unvierse imploding paradox, that rips apart the space-time continuum.

Re:Not a tax scam

[ArsonSmith]

Whoa!! I just figured out why we don't have bags of holding.

Because we are all trapped in one!!!

AHhhhhhhhh.....

Re:Not a tax scam

[sycodon]

They did actually and they did find a mistake. I am now $1k richer for it.

Re:Not a tax scam

[cayenne8]

"The above mentioned did not make mistakes. They knew they owed taxes but decided not to pay them."

Well, once Obama hired them, they did pay up.

Kinda of a strange policy to get tax cheats to pay up, but, it was effective.

:)

oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Not my free market! Take your hands off my free market Nobama!

Oops we're bankrupt, give us money Mr. President :(

Re:Am I cynical?

[ArsonSmith]

Nope, they're going to pick up paper routes to make up for the difference.

Re:two ways to solve the tax "scam"

[PCM2]

By not pissing away money on other things.

That's right -- eternal war should be America's first priority! Show me a legitimate "other thing" and I'll show you a traitor to the homeland.

Re:two ways to solve the tax "scam"

[nog_lorp]

Squuuuuuuuuuuuueeeezeeee more blood out of that rock, baby!

We can do it with NO TAXES AT ALL if we just make everything SOOOOOOOOOOOOO efficient!

Re:two ways to solve the tax "scam"

[pyite]

Abolish the 16th (and the idea that government owns and what you make, deigning what % you can keep yourself) and use something like apt-tax which is effectively an excise tax on currency as I understand it:
http://www.apttax.com/

And what about when they change the tax code every year? Do I have to do 'apt-tax dist-upgrade' every April 15?