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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."
Socialism is a straw man used by the largely irrelevant right wing to make the populace afraid to take what they are due!
Why bother
I just love that US citizens are blatantly disregarding broadly accepted(the US doesn't count) international rules regarding national sovereignity for some easy profit.
The US is one of the worlds biggest parasites. Setting up tinpot dictators and removing them at will and invading some countries after a decade or so is utterly dispicable and the United States(and by extension its citizens) should keep their mouths shut about other countries.
Stay out of the affairs of the world. Go stage a parade and act all important in your own backyard. Fuck off.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
First of all I would HARDLY call anyone in business smart. They know how to bullshit, know how to scam, but having worked in business no one at the top is ANY smarter than your common worker, they just are more privileged. And second, they dont HAVE US operations, so you basically ruined your point. They are working in this county but their "operations" are on paper, someplace else, thus they dont pay a lick of taxes the rest of us (including small business) have to pay. So if they leave who GIVES A RATS ASS, they are getting tax benefits and government money left and right while giving back nothing to the US.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
You know who pays taxes? People... who work for multinational companies. If the people are in the US they pay taxes here, if they are in another country they can't "contribute" to Obama's socialist utopia.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Oh stuff it! Some of us like these topics, and don't want to dig in 'sections' to find them!
If, because of their prior tax evasion, they were prevented from doing business in the United States, then let them move to Madrid and go broke. Who cares?
Seems to me that would be a perfectly reasonable solution.
... just maybe, because that is what everybody else was talking about?
Thanks for the information, but I don't care. You are the only one griping here, so guess who is the asshat? Not Me. I prefer the default setup. Don't come crying to me that a feature you use does not work! I don't use it, and I am not on the bufix team! Have a truly, awesomely. crappy day!
Why do you believe corporations should have equal or more rights than a person? What statistical evidence have you read that proves to you that less corporate tax leads to a more productive and healthy society?