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What the Top US Companies Pay In Taxes
theodp writes "If you've ever wondered how it's possible that you pay more to the IRS than General Electric, Forbes has an explanation. You, my friend, do not have the tax benefit of overseas operations. Microsoft, for example, has its overseas subsidiaries license software to its US parent company in return for handsome royalties that get taxed at lower overseas rates. Exxon limits its tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands that shelter cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan, and Abu Dhabi. As a result, of the $15B it paid in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas. Likewise, GE has $84B in overseas income parked indefinitely outside the US. Now quit your carping and get back to filling out that 1040!"
If you tax them, they move to India. Shareholders don't care.
Maybe the goverment should try spending less for a change.
These types of tricks should be unacceptable. Close the loops that allow this to happen, and let it be known that if you are going to do business in the US and benefit from our educated labor pool, infrastructure, markets, and resources you are going to pay taxes like everyone else. These shenanigans should demonstrate exactly why a corporation should not be treated as a legal person. They are immortal, and can skirt current law and tax codes by existing simultaneously in multiple places and jurisdictions at the same time.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Yeah, because Exxon would never benefit from an American war against Iraq.
If you screw the businesses in one country they can move to another.
This is also why I support abolishing the corporate income tax. To me, it makes no sense to tax the artificial economic entity, and then tax every employee and owner of said entity. Let's keep our taxes limited to actual, real people.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Leo Gold: "Don’t believe me? It’s all in the numbers. For a hundred years, there’s been a conspiracy of plutocrats against ordinary people."
JC Denton: "Do you have a single fact to back that up?"
Leo Gold: "Number one: In 1945, corporations paid 50 percent of federal taxes. Now they pay about 5 percent. Number two: in 1900, 90 percent of Americans were self-employed; now it’s about two percent."
JC Denton: "So?"
Leo Gold: "It’s called consolidation. Strengthen governments and corporations, weaken individuals. With taxes, this can be done imperceptibly over time."
Fictional conspiracies aside - WTF?
Yes, it IS good for them. And bad for you. You're talking about one of the most powerful entities in the world - Exxon Mobil is larger than most countries - with no accountability to anyone. The government that you hate so much is being steadily dismantled BECAUSE private tyrannies (i.e. corporations) are using their vast coffers to break and twist it into the form they desire. Why, exactly, do you think the government gives money to banks or the MIC?
The more power corporations have, the more they can resist the controlling influence of democracy, the worse off we are. Observe Exxon's use of their power to confuse the debate on global warming for years, assuring that nothing gets done to compromise their profits and that the planet continues to choke on the waste gases their products emit.
As someone who's been an anarchist most of my adult life, I find it bizarre when so-called libertarians cheer the destruction of democratic government and the increasing devolution of power into the hands of the people who have, for the better part of this past century, been largely in control of our society. If you're REALLY in the favor of liberty, why are you such a fan of enabling so much power going into such few hands?
We need to switch to a transaction tax like http://www.apttax.com/ This would make sure that corporations like those paid their fair share of the taxs.
Shit, yeah. As TFA says, corporations have already got it so tough, man.
This deserves to be modded "insightful". Nations have constitutions, laws, and face insurrection, mutiny, and revolt if/when they trample people's rights to much. Corporations? Damned thieves can tramply anyone, and everyone, with no repercussions.
Go ahead, people, cheer for the corporations. None of them are doing anything for you. Your government supplies your drinking water, builds your roads, responds in the event of disaster, and much, much more. You have a voice in government in most countries - you have zero voice in any corporation, no matter whether you work for it or not.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
These are the same companies that want you to buy "local" products. Patriotic crap. They pay where its cheap, I buy where its cheap.
The rich get richer, the poor, well, stay poor.
Nothing has changed since the times of Pareto...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilfredo_Pareto
(Take a look - the original '80/20' was 80% of the land was owned by 20% of the people)
These days, it's more like 90% of the world's wealth belongs to 10% of its population.
If you've got the money to have to worry about these things, then you can pay smart people to avoid tax.
Note I said avoid, (legal), not evade, which is not.
It is the duty of corporate officers to (legally) minimise tax burden.
It is the duty of governments to ensure equitable distribution of wealth, without discouraging wealth creation.
Guess who's doing a better job...
If the artificial economic entity has rights, it should pay taxes too.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I'm sorry, but hat's just idiotic. How about instead we:
(1) limit our granting of civil rights to actual, real people, and
(2) limit lobbying to actual, real people.
Caveat Utilitor
I like the idea of a Value Added Tax over income tax.
Imagine we have two scenarios: The US with a 20% income tax (both personal and corporate) and one with a 20% sales tax (not the same as VAT, but for simplicity sake we will stick with sales tax). In both cases we have a competitor country with a 20% sales tax.
In each scenario, imagine a good that costs $100 to produce in each country if there were no taxes
In scenario 1, an item that would cost $100 to make in the United States costs more as labor costs more due to taxes. It also costs a bit more as there is a tax on the company to make. Now, they ship it overseas were trading partner levies a 20% tax on the consumption of that item.
In the same scenario, foreign trading partner builds the thing for $100, no tax on the company, no tax on the labor. They ship over here for less than the U.S. can sell it for. Basically the trading partner gets a competitive advantage and forces down the price of items sold in its borders. It makes its money off of the US corporation.
In scenario 2, there is equality between the trading partners.
Now, a VAT would have to allow for some type of "kick back" to lower income individuals due to the regressive nature of the tax. But overall, it would go a long way to helping our economy and balancing trade.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
No, they don't. Companies already price all their products at the highest price the market will bear--- if they could raise their prices, they would have already done so. Corporate taxes generally hurt their profit margins, and to some extent the compensation and bonuses of their top executives.
Which is why they're so against them, incidentally. If corporate taxes mainly hurt the consumer, and had no negative effect on the corporation's executives or shareholders, they wouldn't care, and wouldn't exert all this effort trying to oppose and avoid them.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I hate it when this comes up. That "artificial entity" exists to provide the "limited liability" bit. An incredibly valuable perk. Even if we are the opinion that handing that out is worth it at all(since it is pretty much what allows people to treat shares in corporations as abstract economic widgets, to be bought and sold with limited risk), the idea that taxing the resultant artificial entity is "double taxation" is nonsense.
If an artificial legal construct can have income and profit, there seems to be no reason why it ought not to be taxed, the same way as natural constructs who have income and profits are. If taxation of corporations were more costly than limited liability is valuable, people whouldn't incorporate, they'd operate businesses as themselves. The fact that virtually nobody does so, other than the smallest, most ill or un-advised people, should tell you something about whether or not that is the case.
If you don't want your synthetic entity taxed, you don't have to set one up, you can just do business as you. However, if you fuck up, you are on the hook. Corporate taxes are a small price to pay for being able to cap your liability by assigning responsibility to a legal fiction from which you get to extract the wins but not the losses.
..."What you tax, you get less of." According to legend, The Zhou Emperor (China, about 1100 B.C.E) laid a heavy tax on salt. Enterprising traders found they could dissolve 20 times the volume of salt in fermented soy. Since there was no tax on liquids, people became more accustomed to salting and preserving their foods in soy. Should the peasants have been "patriotic" and insisted on paying higher prices for the salt?
Lay a tax on items and services, and you will get less of those items and services; lay a tax on businesses and you will get less of those businesses. Yup, they will move to friendlier shores. (For those of you thinking about this, what are the implications for Health Care? Arithmetically, price controls are form of taxation, and the new Health Care Reform imposes both controls and taxes.)
At the present time, Americans in the USA have very favorable prices for petroleum products compared to the rest of the world. What would the cost of gasoline be in the USA if we had to pay taxes on all the oil revenues including the taxes on where the oil is produced? (My estimate is around 9.44 per gallon, YMMV.) Then consider the implications for the Chemical Industry and consumer products.
You want jobs? Jobs are provided by profitable businesses. The more profitable businesses there are, the more jobs available. The more jobs available, the more competition for qualified employees. The more competition for qualified employees, the better the wages, conditions and benefits. There are equilibrium points with in the system, but when non-productivity costs (like taxes) get too burdensome, it makes it profitable for business to put up with the hassles and expense of moving to those friendlier shores.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
They use the government to ensure they actually own the 1,000 acres in the first place. Is a recognition of the exclusive use of land not a service that should be paid for?
Abolishing the corporate income tax sounds great in theory. ... especially if your a conservative economist.
However, Ireland which is Europe's version of India due to its low 12% corporate income tax (lowest in world) is about to join Greece in going bankrupt. We are already under suffocating debt. Cutting spending wont get the income needed to pay for a basic government.
http://saveie6.com/
I agree. Let's tax the living shit out of the shareholders.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It has nothing to do with my empathy for corporations. It has everything to do with what I feel is best for the US. Abolishing corporate taxes would eliminate tax havens and send many foreign companies our way. The tax revenue can be made up by jacking up taxes on the people who own and work for corporations (us). The tax would be more direct and more efficient. Corporate taxes are about 1/4 that of individual income taxes, and only about 1/6 if you include social security payments... so it's not like I'm talking about huge increases in tax burden. Jack up capital gains a bit, maybe hike the top tax brackets a bit. And I guarantee that tax revenue would go up simply because of the extra business done in country.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
However, Ireland which is Europe's version of India due to its low 12% corporate income tax (lowest in world)
There are places with lower corporate income tax. Bermuda has no income tax, IIRC.
But if you think it's bad in Ireland now, try raising the corporate tax rate. How many of those companies will stay in Ireland?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Corporations have attained supercitizenship and are immune to many of the concerns of common citizens. What if the judicial system could find a company guilty of crimes to a degree that it could give the company the equivalent of a life sentence or a death sentence, or the equivalent of prison in general (with the government overseeing every aspect of the company's life)? That would keep them on their toes.
I say, tax for what people use. The government should be a service provider. Nothing more. Drive on roads? Pay for the roads. Don't drive? Don't pay. Simple as that.
Corporations as a whole should be taxed based on what they use. If their business required a new road to be put in, have them pay for that road. If the store needs extra police protection have them pay for that.
Corporations need the roads so that their employees, customers, and suppliers can actually reach them. Corporations need the court system to enforce contracts. Corporations need the police and fire systems to keep their workplaces safe and secure. Corporations need electric, garbage collection, and sewage treatment. Corporations need highly trained employees educated by public schools and universities.
Corporations use a lot of services without paying for them. Your proposal would result in corporations paying higher taxes than they are today. To me that sounds good.
I say no individual income taxes, because corporations can afford to hire a staff of full-time accountants.
The big downside to jacking up the corporate taxes is that the corporations can (and do!) flee. People are much more reluctant to emigrate, and it's not clear where they could go anyhow.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Here is all the text of the slides in a readable list.
No. 1: Wal-Mart Stores
Sales: $401 billion Pretax income: $20.9 billion Income taxes: $7.1 billion Tax rate: 34.2%
$1.2 billion of Wal-Mart Stores' taxes are international.
No. 2: ExxonMobil
Sales: $311 billion Pretax income: $35 billion Income taxes: $15 billion Tax rate: 47%
None of ExxonMobil's income taxes were paid in the U.S. In 2008 the company's income tax bill was $36 billion.
No. 3: Chevron
Sales: $172 billion Pretax income: $18.5 billion Income taxes: $8 billion Tax rate: 43%
Chevron paid $19 billion income tax in 2008. Of this year's taxes, just $200 million were paid in the U.S.
No. 4: General Electric
Sales: $157 billion
Pretax income: $10.3 billion
Income taxes: (-$1.1 billion)
Tax rate: N/A
GE's financial services unit, GE Capital, keeps the overall tax bill so low. Over the last two years, GE Capital has displayed an uncanny ability to lose lots of money in the U.S. and make lots of money overseas, where tax rates are lower.
No. 5: ConocoPhillips
Sales: $152 billion Pretax income: $10 billion Income taxes: $5 billion Tax rate: 51%
ConocoPhillips paid $13 billion in taxes in 2008.
No. 6: AT&T
Sales: $123 billion
Pretax income: $19 billion
Income taxes: $6.2 billion
Tax rate: 32.4%
AT&T's executive officers are eligible to bill the company $14,000 a year for their own income tax preparations.
No. 7: Bank of America
Sales: $120 billion
Pretax income: $4.4 billion
Income taxes: (-$1.9 billion)
Tax rate: N/A
How did Bank of America not pay any taxes on $4.4 billion in income? Because of deductions like $860 million in tax-exempt income, $670 million in low-income housing credits and a $600 million loss on shares of foreign subsidiaries. With a provision for credit losses of $49 billion, Bank of America probably won't be paying taxes for a long time.
No. 8: Ford Motor
Sales: $118 billion
Pretax income: $3 billion
Income taxes: $69 million
Tax rate: 2.3%
Ford's tax rate is so low because of past years' losses from U.S. operations.
No. 9: Hewlett-Packard
Sales: $115 billion
Pretax income: $9.4 billion
Income taxes: $1.75 billion
Tax rate: 18.6%
HP's low tax rate is due to lower tax rates in foreign countries. The company says in its annual report that President Obama's proposals to end tax deferrals on international operations would mean a big tax hike.
No. 10: Berkshire Hathaway
Sales: $112 billion
Pretax income: $11.5 billion
Income taxes: $3.5 billion
Tax rate: 30%
No. 11: JPMorgan Chase
Sales: $100 billion
Pretax income: $16 billion
Income taxes: $4.4 billion
Tax rate: 27.5%
Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has spoken out against an Obama proposal to levy a special tax on banks to recoup bailout costs. "Using tax policy to punish people is a bad idea," said Dimon. "All businesses tend to pass costs on to customers."
No. 12: Verizon
Sales: $108 billion
Pretax income: $11.6 billion
Income taxes:
The only reason those fine 2000 acres of land you have aren't taken over within weeks is because the whole damn government is there to threaten anyone who would try. It has nothing to do with "civilisation" respecting "a fence". Hell, there are Western countries which operate rather well but have very lax notions of trespass compared to the US. We're not talking about, say, mindless violence, which is pathological in every species, but a sophisticated philosophical notion of property which goes way beyond the "territory" of high order primates.
The law exists as a pragmatic codification of the common good where elements of "common" are weighted according to the magnitude of your influence.
Sorry, but that's a bad idea. What if companies and business don't get rights, no big deal right?
But what happens when a newspaper or TV show publishes a piece attacking a powerful politician? No right to free speech for that company, so the politician just shuts down the paper or station Venezuela-style.
Or what happens when the local mayor comes by to shake down your family business for campaign contributions and you don't donate? No right to due process, so he fines your business for "health code violations".
I agree with the other reply-ers who have gotten modded to oblivion. This is obviously a dumb statement. No corporation has done anything for us?? That's an ironic statement coming from someone using a computer to post to Slashdot. I'm glad the ol government made all that happen for you.
FYI, competition in health insurance does not exist. So, because competition and thus the capitalistic venture did not work out... someone had to do something.
But then what do I know, Im just a poor schmuck that got genetic diabetis and thus must suffer alone while people who are lucky enough not to get such lifetime diseases can live with their pockets lined with cash. AMIRITE?
In short, fuck you selfish prick.
You don't just feel better off. You are better off. Even though it would offend the sensibilities of the Fox/WSJ crowd, public policing is in fact way more efficient than private policing. Public fire fighting is more efficient than private fire fighting. There are things that the government does better than private enterprise, because there are such things as public goods.
This is an unpopular viewpoint. That does not make it false.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Really? If people don't like the actions of a corporation they have the right not to fucking buy that corporations products, and you'll see how quickly the things change.
While I don't disagree with you on a moral/ethical level, pragmatically you're wrong.
Think of how many large corporations out there are, in essence, mega-corporations which have their fingers into everything - usually fairly evenly diversified, at that. Companies like:
* Nestle
* General Mills
* Heinz
* General Electric
* Any petro/fuel company
* Any large pharmaceutical company
Chances are that you're going to have a hard time dealing in the modern world if you're boycotting a corporation on moral grounds. Guess what? They make a lot of shit which you depend on. Nestle does some despicable things in 3rd world countries.
Go to the grocer's some time and look at who makes/packages your food: I'd wager even the 'cheap store brand' stuff is made by a handful of large corporations or their subsidiaries.
"Then I'm only going to buy pre-packaged foods" you think. Guess what? Eggs, chicken, meat, and milk all come from large producers that purchase drugs from pharmaceutical companies to keep their animals alive. Going vegan? Most vegetables are going to be sprayed by petroleum-based fertilizers made by a large corporation with potentially objectionable practices - or might be GE crops, in which case the producers are most certainly of reprehensible character.
Shoes? Short of making your own or buying from a custom boot/shoe shop, you're going to be buying something made from China by a large US corporation, in all likelihood. Same for most of your other clothes. I doubt most Americans would agree with the economic or civil practices of China, yet clothes still get bought.
As for fuels... you're in the same boat. Unless you're living off-grid or drive an EV in an all-hydro power area, you're going to be throwing money towards petroleum producers which have diversified.
It's not so simple to "not fucking buy" a specific corporation's products. First off, if you give enough of a damn to boycott a company for their practices, chances are there are a lot of corporations you would object to, and acknowledging that concern would result in hypocritical inconsistency.
Honestly, unless you're fucked if you want to buy products from corporations with any sort of integrity. Sure, it's possible to find scrupulous companies, but they're usually smaller still, not yet reaching the crest of 'corporation'. They're also difficult to find. Realistically, a person can't spend all their time trying to find which products to buy due to a corporation's behavior (and corporations go through a lot of effort to hide the behavior of one arm from the consumers of another arm to make this more difficult).
The only way to realistically deal with this is to only buy food from local producers, live off grid, and generally consume very little. But even that's impractical.
You are 100% correct, but you forgot a even better benefit for running operations outside the US. The new health care bill wants to fine you if you are lucky enough to exceed 50 employees. Why take that hit much smarter to just hire off shore labor and worry about none of that .
Got Code?
(1) limit our granting of civil rights to actual, real people, and
Are you sure you want to do this? There are a lot of important civil rights ruling regarding corporations. Just off the top of my head.
Dartmouth College v. Woodward -- asserting that the College has the right to a binding charter that the government cannot alter at will
New York Times v. United States -- asserting the first amendment right to publish the Pentagon Papers
New York Times v. Sullivan -- asserting that defamation/libel has to be for willful or deliberate falsehood
Near v. Minnesota -- "Morally scandalous" not a good reason to shut down a newspaper
Hustler Magazine v. Falwell -- parodies of public figures which could not reasonably be taken as true are protected by the First Amendment
In all those cases, it would be pretty laughable if the government asserted that because the plaintiff is not an 'actual real person' they don't have constitutional rights.
you have zero voice in any corporation, no matter whether you work for it or not.
Isn't that why God created Shareholders?
And CEOs do get fired.
We are heading into an interesting phase of history where more wealth and commodities are held by corporations instead of the state and the church. But I think the last five years have taught everyone that giants of industry can and (inevitably) do crumble, slower because of obsolescence or outstripping resources, or faster when resulting from wrong decisions. They then turn to the governments for reparation, since governments normally can't crumble, unless it's from the right decisions.
I know this is not the best place to say good things about Bill Gates, but ask yourself if anything else can change the world better and faster than the efficiency and financial resources of industry, mixed with the philanthropy of good government. Wealth has to come from somewhere, just as it has to go somewhere. It's worth taking note when it goes to the right places, even if it didn't seem like it at the time.
The same is true of people, though. People can only: hire people, buy stuff, or put money in the bank. What is this "terminal point" you speak of? Everyone pays taxes out of money that has one step previously also had tax money paid on it, because the economy is just a big loop of money flows.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
To me, this screams for a simplification of tax law. Here's a thought:
Step 1: Eliminate corporate taxes. (and as another commenter opined, eliminate the ludicrous notion of corporate person-hood while you're at it)
Now, once you've done step 1, guess what? The argument about capital gains being double-taxation disappears. So:
Step 2: Eliminate any distinction between capital gains and any other form of income in terms of taxation. Treat all income as just income.
The big corporations aren't paying corporate taxes anyway, and all it really does is incentivize them to dump their profits into advertising to increase their market cap.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
You've provided not a single link, so your post isn't looking terribly authoritative. However, in at least four of your examples it appears it's actually the individual writers whose first amendment rights were upheld.
Sufficient context was provided. You can google, if you're interested. And the bit about individuals is relevant. When corporations (businesses really) no longer have rights, then you can infringe on the rights of people by attacking their corporation employer. This is commonly ignored in the arguing that corporations shouldn't be given the rights of people. If they can't, then how can the business protect itself and its employees from persecution?
Go ahead, people, cheer for the corporations. None of them are doing anything for you. Your government supplies your drinking water, builds your roads, responds in the event of disaster, and much, much more.
Not true. Wal-Mart and Home Depot did a better job than the gov't during Katrina. Say what you want about Wal-Mart's product sourcing but you have to admit they know more about delivering goods to remote corners of the country than anyone else. Interestingly, Wal-Mart was also a pioneer (1970s) of computerizing inventory and sales and in data mining. Wal-Mart monitors weather reports and when severe storms are *predicted* moves products that history shows will be in demand under such circumstances from unaffected regions to affected regions. When you see the Red Cross (also non-gov't by the way) handing out bottled water keep in mind that Wal-Mart probably delivered that water. FEMA is also supposedly turning to Walt-Mart for help with disaster logistics.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Not that politicians (or anybody else for that matter) take my opinion seriously but I think the 16th ammendment (and actually the 17th one too) needs to be repealed and the income tax (both personal and corporate) banished forever onto the ash-heap of history where it belongs. What taxes corporations pay are simply taken out of their profits. Where do corporate profits come from? Ultimately the consumer (i.e. you and me).
There is some merit to something analogous to the Fair Tax provided it was the only source of revenue to the U.S. Federal Government. It would bring out into the open all of the hidden taxes that are burried in the things we buy each day.
But again, nobody listens to me anyway, which is why I'll probably be modded down.
Somalia is inhabited by niggers. They aren't human and therefore don't have human nature.
Nice point troll, I'm glad you raised it. Some people continue to foster attitudes like this and in doing so they perpetuate the fucked, fucked state of the world as it exists today.
I was raised a racist, leaving me little choice as a child as to what I really believed. As an adult I re-evaluated these beliefs and found them sorely lacking. Racism (among others) is not conducive to the civilised society we profess the desire to live in.
Solving the world's problems begins with us, personally. There is no governmental, legal, or commercial alternative to rescue us from ourselves as these entities are simply manifestations of our collective personalities and our culture.
If you want the world to be a better place, take some responsibility for your attitudes towards other humans. Nothing will change until we do.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
If people don't like the actions of a corporation they have the right not to fucking buy that corporations products
So if a heavy machinery company opened a factory next door to you and dumped their waste hydraulic fluid in your garden you'll stop buying their bulldozers?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Selfish moron.
If a company is forced to pay more tax, it will simply pass those costs along to the consumer ultimately.
Sort of. In the end, everything a corporation pays out has to come from their customers. But since corporate tax rates are based on their profits rather than revenues, the corporation that makes less profit (is poorly managed) pays less tax than the one that makes higher profits (better management).
At first, this would seem to be 'fair' (i.e progressive, in that the 'wealthier' entity pays more tax), corporate profits are very easily manipulated. Corporations can incur expenses that reduce their profits by having foreign subsidiaries in low tax regimes charge high rates for their 'services'. The summary mentions one example of this: Microsoft overseas divisions charging the US corporation licensing fees. Question: When I load $10K into a suitcase or a bunch of diamonds in a little bag and carry it out of the country, Customs damned well wants to know about it. When those s/w licenses magically moved from here to there, there was nothing tangible that was carried. No license sniffing dogs alerted US officials that billions of dolars of property had just crossd the border (yet another arguing point for the reality of IP).
The basic unfairness of the tax laws is that corporations are free to structure their income and expenses in practically any way they want to manage their tax burden. Meanwhile, the individual is afforded no such expense deductions. If I were a corporation, everything I spent during the year to maintain myself (my food, my housing, my transportation) would be an expense and my profit would be the increase in my savings account at the end of the year.
Have gnu, will travel.
I'm sure you think that's a clever gybe, but it's not. The long and short of it is, oil is a fungible commodity and whoever ends up in control of an oil field anywhere in the world is going to be selling that oil in the world market. As it happens, Exxon didn't get the contracts to operate Iraq's oil fields and pipelines.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Stop wasting your time with useless comments like that. You've been provided more than enough information to look up and counter the claim -- you don't need a hyperlink. In fact, you wouldn't HAVE a hyperlink in any paper source -- just a reference to where you can look it up.
And since ALL SCOTUS decisions are published, you have that.
Now, STFU, agree with the GP, or prove him wrong.
I think we either need to abolish individual income taxes or corporate income taxes.
We can do better than that. If we abolish all taxes on earnings, and move entirely to consumption-based taxation, we'll reverse a lot of bad habits (like our negative rate of savings, for one example). Add to that, the benefit of being able to make business decisions without wasting huge amounts of time and effort on puzzling out the tax consequences. Not to mention, all the brain power we waste on tax compliance.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Exxon is not trying to prevent climate change legislation. Several years ago I heard an Exxon executive arguing in favor of cap and trade.
Exxon is not stupid. They have made sure that if cap and trade becomes law, their profits will be protected. They have developed carbon sequestration technology which will allow them to continue to sell oil without polluting. Sure, carbon sequestration is expensive (but cheaper than wars or health care). However, with cap and trade everyone will be forced to do carbon sequestration, and Exxon knows how to do it better than most other groups. Also, keep in mind that Exxon has businesses besides oil and that they have the cash to simply purchase any "green" competition.
So why do people accuse Exxon of funding global warming skeptics? Most likely Exxon is backing both sides. Large corporations will back all sides in any political competition, to make sure that whoever wins rewards them afterwards.
Anyway, do not blame corporate profiteering for global warming. Corporations would be just as willing to make their profits off of "green" energy. They will follow the government's guidance. It is congress that is sitting there and doing nothing.
Simon's Rock College
corporations can (and do!) flee. People are much more reluctant to emigrate
More accurately, corporations can relocate at will with the host country welcoming them, if not overtly giving them concessions like tax breaks. People, on the other hand, are discouraged (if not outright prohibited) from going to a different country to work. Population is a captive audience.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
but think of all the accountants and lawyers who would lose there jobs as an effect ... wont some one please think of the lawyers
why don't we hear it from the right?
corporations are:
completely unpatriotic. in fact, as this tax situation shows, they are basically anti-patriotic: their actions actively undermine the country
corporaitons work against individual rights, liberties, privacy, and freedoms
they threaten to hollow out the country into a corporatocracy, they actively turn your representatives into shills for corporate interests, not interests of the citizens
we have been hearing these howls on the left for decades
but how come we don't hear it from the right?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Hey, buddy. I sees you gots a nice little parcel o' land there. It would be horrible if something were to, say, happen to it. We, of course, will be happy to provide protection for, ahh, a small fee...
Karma is for whores
Given how so many people get riled up over patriotism and the like, why don't we point out that these companies not paying their fair share to help America through what amounts to a shell game undermines all the rest of us. If you've got a group of friends ordering pizza and one guy tells the group that he'd totally be good for it but he doesn't have any money, all his money is being held by an offshore company operated by a wholly owned subsidiary that's completely owned by him, you'd tell him to fuck off and go get his own pizza and stop mooching off everyone else.
A good first step would be to make interest paid by corporations non tax deductible.
There are three ways a company can pay for its capital. It can pay out dividends, borrow and pay interest, or buy back its own stock. All should get equivalent tax treatment.
This would make leveraged buyouts and private equity transactions much rarer, because those are basically equity-to-debt conversions. If the tax advantage of debt payments over dividends went away, we'd see less dept-heavy corporate structures and more dividends. This leads to sounder companies more able to weather bad times.
Sure, they can hire lobbyists, run ads on TV, etc. but in the end, they can not vote
Frankly, the effect of corporate lobbying is much more significant than one vote (due to the sheer magnitude of resources they can spend on it), so they still get the better end of the deal there.
But if you think it's bad in Ireland now, try raising the corporate tax rate. How many of those companies will stay in Ireland?
It's a matter of balance. E.g. when you have no income tax, sure, you have plenty corporations - but you don't get a dime from that. Oh, right, their employees pay income & sale taxes? Well, problem is, they only have a headquarters in your country, minimally staffed - all actual R&D happens in some other country which has low personal income tax.
So, ultimately, you don't get anything at all out of the arrangement. It's as if your country (with no corporate income tax), and the other country (with no personal income tax) are helping the corp screw each other. The only one that gets anything out of it is the corp.
There is a direct correlation between cutting revenue and going bankrupt. If I quit work it has a direct correlation of me going bankrupt.
You can argue complex curves that show a cut in corporate taxes increase economic activity but its not a 1:1 ratio and does not work beyond a certain percentage.
Corporate taxes whether you agree with them or not generate large amounts of revenue.
In the case of the American government which is in debt and spending more than it makes now it will become insolvent when you cut off its biggest source of revenue. This is obvious and the problem Ireland is having as its #2 on the list next to Iceland and Greece.
http://saveie6.com/
You've missed the blatantly obvious point "None of them are doing anything for you" means what it says - they are doing it for themselves whether it has a positive or negative impact on you. A single outsider can't change anything either way, which is why a lot of people band together and you get things like governments. You should be seeing a few reports of what uncontrolled local corporations were getting up to in China if you don't want to look back at your own history.
The important point is they don't care either way because it's not their job to be a public charity. It's not good or evil - it just is.
It doesnt have to be hypocritical as long as you recognize the practical limitations on what you're trying to accomplish by not supporting some corporation. I mean at least you tried right?
I am not American so please educate me. You're saying an individual would be able to sue Exxon and win? Won't Exxon (etc) just throw a million dollars on the table and say "we can afford this for lawyers, how about you?" and win by default? A million (or ten million) to them is just small change and they won't even blink.
I understand that several noble people have stood up to major corporations and won but this seems to usually be at the cost of giving up their job, using all their life time savings, ruining their social and personal lives, spending half a dozen years living on the breadline and learning to be a lawyer in the local public library ten hours a day. Technically it is possible but the odds are loaded in favour of the corporation. They have more power than people. For the vast majority of us this just isn't feasible, we have to go to work 9-5 and raise kids etc. We can't afford to sacrifice our lives and just have to put up with the proverbial bulldozer company pouring waste fluids into our yards when it happens..
So are you saying that Exxon did not benefit from the Iraqi production being reduced to almost nothing for a few years when the market was already tight?
My government provides me with a lot of services whether I can pay them or not. Corporations won't do anything for me without payment.
Lower it to 0% and they'll come running. No reason to tax corporate income at all.
Naively optimistic.
For that matter, no reason to tax income at all.
There are alternatives to be sure but ANY tax scheme you come up with will have trade offs. There is no perfect tax system.
Tax something that can't run to another country like real estate. That'll become a lot more valuable with 0% taxes on income.
Your argument is that we should inflate the price of and tax burden on real estate instead of having an income tax? It would solve some problems but create many more.
Some places do most of their taxation based on real estate. Hong Kong for instance which manages to do it because of their somewhat unique circumstances but not without problems. Problem is you are basically tying your nation's ability to tax to a single cyclical industry (real estate) instead of the entire economy. Works great when the real estate market is hot and tax revenues crater massively when the real estate market cools off. Asset price bubbles become a HUGE problem. Our current fiscal crisis would be FAR worse if the US relied solely on tax revenues from real estate. There is a reason you diversify your stock portfolio and the same thing applies to sources of government revenue. Do you really want to eliminate that much diversification in sources of tax revenues? I think you haven't really thought this through.
Another problem is that it is very easy these days to locate facilities elsewhere. There is a reason not a lot of manufacturing takes place in Hong Kong or Manhattan any more. Price of land is too expensive. Admittedly those are extreme examples but companies will make decisions about where to locate because of a single dollar per square foot in cost. Drive up the price of real estate and companies will locate where real estate is cheap. Companies will decentralize massively if there is enough tax savings to do so. Remember that labor in the US isn't especially cheap either.
Because here in the USA we impose taxes on _earning_ money, no wonder why American businesses large and small are moving both blue-collar and white-collar jobs out of the USA, corporate headquarters included! No wonder why we have problems with unemployment.
Maybe it's time to completely rethink our national taxation system and switch to taxing consumption instead. This is the gist of FairTax (H.R. 25/S. 296--yes, it's a real bill in Congress) that would end all forms of income taxation--along with repealing the 16th Amendment--in favor of a singular 23% consumption tax, with a "prepayment" once a month to every legal household in the USA to pay for the consumption tax up to the Federally-defined poverty level. Note that this tax does not apply to business-to-business sales, sales of used goods (including sales of existing homes), and college tuition.
By eliminating the entire current income tax system in favor of FairTax, we get these huge benefits:
1) We save ourselves somewhere between US$350 and US$500 BILLION per year in income tax compliance costs.
2) Congress can no longer use the income tax code to favor or punish financially even the smallest constituency--the most insidious form of corruption in the USA right now.
3) American residents and businesses will no longer need to hide their liquid assets outside the USA to keep them out of the reach of the IRS. That means the US$2 TRILLION now participating in the illegal cash-only underground economy and US$13 TRILLION in liquid assets sitting in offshore financial centers beyond US borders--both done as income tax dodges--return to the USA, providing a US$15 TRILLION liquidity boost to the US financial system that would start a new economic boom and then some--the world's largest "private bailout."
4) American businesses will no longer need to outsource jobs beyond US borders as a tax dodge. That could mean millions upon millions of jobs return to the USA under better tax circumstances, immediately lowering the unemployment rate.
5) Foreign companies will do a land rush to expand US operations, since the USA is now the world's largest legal income tax haven.
6) Shipping companies would quickly register their ships under the US flag, since there is no more taxes on the income earned from shipping for a US-flagged ship. That could mean hundreds of thousands of new and repatriated blue-collar jobs as new ships are now constructed and repaired at US ports free from income taxation.
So what are we waiting for?
The actual government taxing authorities are a bit more direct about it, but it's pretty much the same idea.
If the government weren't there, they'd just pay for security if the land is worthwhile and productive.
Until someone else pays for an armed force that's stronger than that security. Maybe it's just me, but living in a society where day-to-day life is determined by who has the biggest guns doesn't seem much fun.