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US Competitiveness Chief Immelt's GE Tax Bill: $0
theodp writes "'He understands what it takes for America to compete in the global economy,' President Obama said of GE CEO Jeff Immelt, as he announced Immelt would chair the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. On Friday, the NY Times reported that one trick Immelt employs to keep GE competitive is paying no American tax bill. In fact, GE claimed a 2010 tax benefit of $3.2B on worldwide profits of $14.2B, $5.1B of which came from US operations. According to the NYT, GE's extraordinary tax-avoidance success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. GE's giant tax department is led by a former Treasury official whose 975-member team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the IRS and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress. GE's return to rock-bottom tax rates marks a dramatic reversal from the mid-80's when President Reagan reacted to corporate accounting gamesmanship and supported a change that closed loopholes and required GE to pay a far higher effective rate, up to 32.5%. 'That GE can almost set its own tax rate shows how very much we need reform,' said Rep. Lloyd Doggett. 'Our tax system should encourage job creation and investment in America and end these tax incentives for exporting jobs and dodging responsibility for the cost of securing our country.'"
They've got almost 1000 people reasonably employed. Surely that's worth something.
Ok, so a good number of them are probably lawyers, others are soulless accountants, but hey, they'd be doing that regardless.
I'd like to point out that GE used to (and still does) fund MSNBC which continually loves to deride corporations and the so called "Fat Cats" on Wallstreet. Oh the irony... Apparently it's okay to not pay taxes as long as you're friends of the current Administration. May I also be the first to ask why is this story on Slashdot, and why is it a weeks late?
As a member of poor America, thanks for confirming my beliefs.
Just like people hire hackers and crackers to improve their security, maybe higher tax evaders to reform tax laws is a good thing.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You can't hand out massive subsidies and tax credits for green energies and then complain when the largest recipient of those credits and subsidies ends up not owning the government money. Here's a hint, when you offer the rich/smart corporations money and ways to reduce their tax burden, they take it. So which is it that you want? Do you want them to pay taxes or do you want them to develop highly cost ineffective green technologies that they wouldn't otherwise develop because they couldn't make the right profit on it. You can't have it both ways.
Yeah, thank god this administration finally put a stop to all those Corporate==> Government and Government ==> Corporate revolving doors! And The next administration will, too! It was just that one guy for those few years that did that. It's a totally new form of shadiness and corruption that we'll almost never see again now that that jackass is out of office!
New boss; same as the old boss. Even when they do say they won't allow revolving doors like this (that allow things like this to be taken advantage of and initiated) . . . which this current president DID say.
Would you be deriding this article if it had a left-leaning slant as opposed to its obvious right-wing spin? I must ask this because someone with a 5 digit UID must have surely seen the dozens of other non-tech political articles that have made their way past our ever-diligent editors and the mighty Firehose.
Slightly O/T, but in a related vein, is there a good political blog for intelligent people where stuff like this should be posted? At least something with some kind of good moderation system and user base, ideally that isn't too slanted?
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
The reason wealth concentrates more and more is because of the Federal Reserve system, where the banks (NOT the government) create the money supply by making loans.
And now "Deficit Terrorists" are campaigning to slash federal spending. The real reason the federal debt is skyrocketing is because the banking system can't make loans like it used to, so the Federal Government has to be the "borrower of last resort", taking out loans from the "lender of last resort" (the Fed) and everyone else.
I don't remember the exact figure, but 40-50% of the Federal Government's debt is either held by the Federal Government (in the Social Security "trust fund"), or by the Federal Reserve (which is held to "back" the money supply). 100% of the interest paid to the ss trust fund is returned to the government, as are most of the Federal Reserve's profits (after operating expenses and a fat dividend to its owners, the private banking system).
If the debt were to be instantaneously paid off, all money would instantly vanish from the economy.
If the federal reserve system was nationalized, and the Department of the Treasury could issue debt-free "greenbacks" (like Abraham Lincoln used to pay for the Civil War), wealth would be much less concentrated that the current status quo.
Required reading:
Money and the Crisis of Civilization
A Bailout for the People (pdf).
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
It's not fraud when rich people do it.
Because GE is doing it. If you or I were doing it, it would be fraud.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's only fraud if you're doing it illegally.
GE are operating completely within the letter of the law (laws I'm sure they helped to draft in the first place) and any other entity in their situation would be crazy to behave any differently.
The problem is not GE, it's the US Government.
Imagine this scenario: You earn $50k and through various pre-existing tax rules you are eligible to pay $10k in tax. If tomorrow a law was drafted that allowed you to, say, receive a tax rebate for every post here on /. and say for instance, you were eligible for $10k of rebates, would you turn this rebate down?
No, of course not. GE are playing it smart. The US Government needs to take a good look at it's own laws and tighten things up to prevent this happening again.
For what it's also worth, this $0 tax burden is most likely a one-off with rebates and other concessions that they're taking advantage of this year and they most likely won't be able to do it again next year. Look at how much tax they paid last year for instance...
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
Not really, if you worked in multiple countries you could do the same thing. Why does GE have any motivation to pay the US tax rate when it's the highest in the world? If you had the option of paying $5 billion in taxes instead of $10 billion in taxes, wouldn't you? It's impractical policies that don't understand how business works and it ends up hurting all the smaller businesses who can't afford to do the same practices as GE. It's a barrier created by government policy that prevents further competition in the market by allowing the larger corporations to prosper.
Would you be deriding this article if it had a left-leaning slant as opposed to its obvious right-wing spin?
I don't think he's deriding the article, just the presence on Slashdot.
I fully agree with the article, but I too question why this is on Slashdot... juste because sometimes there are other purely political stories, does not make it OK this time.
On the other hand the political world is so intertwined with all fields now perhaps it's time to abandon the illusion that all technical stories are not really political stories to some degree, and allow even totally non-technical stories like this one as well by way of showing how technology truly gets funded these days.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A pit of anti-corporatism.
And grammar Nazism.
A pit of anti-corporatism and grammar Nazism, spouted from a comfy chair.
Slashdot.
Amongst the three weapons of slashdot readers are anti-corporatism, ...
Each political side needs power to enact its agenda. That's why even the side that talks a good game about being anti- big money interests, nevertheless partners with them. Gaining and maintaining power requires money and swaying the people. The natural places to look for these, respectively, are Wall St. fatcats and big media conglomerates.
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
(Financial) Imagination at Work
It's only an 'obvious' right-wing spin if you completely discount the part about the guy being hired by the current DEMOCRATIC President. You DO remember he's a Democrat, right? Both parties are to blame for this mess; the Democrats just put a better spin on their corruption. You'll notice fuck-all was done about Wall Street during the two years the Democrats had control of the White House _and_ both houses of Congress.
I know the definitions of "News for Nerds" is very broad, but does this really belong on Slashdot? It's a straightforward article on corporate taxes without a sci/tech or otherwise nerdy slant. Wouldn't this be better discussed on a real political blog?
The reason this is on Slashdot is simply that the article was posted via the NYTimes twitter feed. This has to be News for Nerds! Sides, we have to do due diligence, and make sure whoever is choosing to re-tweet the NYTimes feed doesn't get sued.
Right?
(bird chirps)
---jstlook ---For that is the way of Elves, for they say both yes AND no, and mean every word of it. --- J.R.R.T.
No, you are expected to pay U.S. income tax even while working overseas. There's an exemption for middle class levels of income and below, but everything above that dollar limit is taxed. Only corporations can get away with paying no tax on arbitrarily large profits made overseas.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Slightly O/T, but in a related vein, is there a good political blog for intelligent people where stuff like this should be posted? At least something with some kind of good moderation system and user base, ideally that isn't too slanted?
Yeah, it's standing over there behind unicorn.org.
That is truly disheartening.
http://www.gereports.com/setting-the-record-straight-ge-and-taxes/
- GE paid almost $2.7 billion in cash taxes in 2010 on a consolidated basis (almost 19% of pretax income from continuing operations).
No-one outside of America (and, I suspect, a whole lot of people inside America) would consider the Democrats to be Left-wing. They're Right-wing, just not so crazy Right-wing as the alternatives.
There's a difference between playing it smart and investing a lot of money in getting the laws changed to keep your tax bill down.
One is an obligation of a business to keep tax down and profits up. The other is immoral and (IMHO) should be illegal.
They paid $0 last year. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Tax/ge-exxon-paid-us-income-taxes-09/story?id=10300167
Absolutely. I have to be careful to make sure I'm not drinking anything whenever someone calls Obama a 'Progressive'.
3.2 Billion - 320 million people in the U.S. Roughly half pay taxes (unemployed, children and so on of course don't). That works out nicely to: $100 refund for 20% of the U.S. population who pays taxes.
From one company working the system. ONE. Out of several hundred such companies that are manipulating things to their benefit.
You want a tax cut for the working people? How about making the corporations pay their fair share. There's more than enough money in their coffers to make taxes a thing of the past for the poor and middle class, as well as for small business owners and the self-employed. How does "if you make less than $50K a year, you don't have to file taxes at all" sound? You want to spur growth at the lower levels and create a solid foundation? Get rid of this burden. Doubly so on small businesses. You should get a tax *rebate* for starting a new business at this point. Instead it costs hundreds in taxes and fees. And that's if you aren't in California or some other state that really sticks it to you.
In fact, this is one thing I cannot fathom. How the RNC and big business (which are essentially one now - with the other party quickly being subverted as well) have managed to still get support from the very people that they shaft over and over again. Big business won't trickle-down. They won't save us. They won't create jobs here at home. What's good for big business is not good for the rest of us. It never has been. We need to wake up and stop letting them get away with this. Because all we're doing is strangling the very people and small businesses that we need to create the next generation of jobs and innovation.
In case you weren't paying attention, big business and small business are diametrically opposed at this point. So when they say "we're all for business" - you have to ask the greaseball politician who's mouth is flapping which "business" they are talking about. You probably won't like the answer, though.
Just push the global community of governments for higher corporate taxes all around. It'd be like price fixing, except with tax rates. That increases the income in these emerging economies and ensures that companies pay taxes SOMEWHERE. If a country refuses, impose trade restrictions. That gives gov't control of how taxes are collected, even if not within their borders.
America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed. -Eleanor Roosevelt, 1936
There are two exceptions: Stay overseas for longer then x years (I think it's three) and owe no tax. Also military in a war zone pay no tax. There is no exception for 'middle class income and below'.
Also you get to deduct your overseas tax payments from you final tax (not your income), which for individuals is usually more then you would pay at home. You cannot deduct bribes you pay even though they are the same thing as taxes.
Finally, if you are not ever planning on coming back you can pretty safely tell them to fuck off.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Both parties are to blame for this mess; the Democrats just put a better spin on their corruption. You'll notice fuck-all was done about Wall Street during the two years the Democrats had control of the White House _and_ both houses of Congress.
The financial regulatory bill exists, and was in fact passed into law. Like the health care bill, however, it was fillabustered into near-ineffectiveness; most of the big reforms were bargained out of the bill in order to get a single Republican to agree to not fillabuster.
The essential problem in American politics is that most of the money comes from large donors, eg. corporations and the very wealthy. Small donations from individuals are so rare that it's actually historically relevant that Barak Obama received fully half his 2008 campaign money from small donors, making him one of the first presidents in recent memory actually bought and paid for, at least halfway, by the people. This explains why he has to date kept more than three times the number of campaign promises than he's broken (though he would have been able to keep more of them if Congress didn't, for example, block funding for the closing of Guantanimo) which for an American politician is shockingly true to his word.
reddit.com/r/politics
The simplified explanation is that corporate tax is paid on whatever is left over in the bank account after paying out all those other things. Fringe benefits tax catches the situations such as your CEO car example to stop companies buying things for employees with pre-tax dollars instead of paying out a taxable wage.
Many corporations reinvest their profits or pay dividends which reduce their tax burden (or in reality push the profit and thus tax burden onto another entity or person). However, it is not always expedient for them to blow 100% of their cash reserve just to avoid paying a 30% tax on the same amount. And it is sometimes wiser to purchase fixed assets that may not be 100% depreciable in the first year instead of wasting money leasing them just to avoid paying tax.
Companies are also lucky in that generally all of their operational costs are tax deductible, whereas you and I are only able to deduct costs directly related to that earning. ie. We can't deduct the cost of food, rent, or transport to/from work, even though we still need those things to survive. Whereas, pretty much anything a company does is directly related to generation of revenue, and thus deductible to some degree.
So when you hear about a company paying tax (or not paying tax), it is basically talking about tax on income that was surplus to its operational requirements. It is indeed possible for a company to reduce its tax burden to zero by simply paying out the remaining profits and pushing the tax burden onto the recipient(s). But, if they keep it, it gets taxed.
Implying the firehose has always existed when in fact it's a fairly new feature.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
What is sad is the GOP on the candidate and national level is still so inept and scared of being called racist they don't look good to beat the most blatantly corrupt president of post-WW2 America.
Barak Obama got more than half his 2008 campaign money from small donors, and, probably as a result, has kept more than three times the number of campaign promises as he's broken (and could have kept many more if, for example, Congress hadn't gone out of its way to defund the closing of Guantanimo.) Compare to .
No, it's clear that, when it comes to Democrats and Republicans, the Republicans are far more corrupt, and are more apt to sell out to corporate influence; at least Democrats take money from--and listen to--worker groups, environmentalists and scientists on occasion. Of course, that's sort of like saying that a black hole is denser than a neutron star; sure, it's technically an accurate statement, but I sure wouldn't want to try to live on either one.
Gee, it's almost as if a reduction in government power would make it even harder for the government to track the thousands upon thousands of giant corporations using innumerable loopholes to avoid taxes. It's almost as if the Republicans' attempt to decrease funding for the IRS would actually cost the taxpayers *more* money by preventing the IRS from going after tax dodgers. It's almost as if you're an idiot.
If a corporation is a person for legal purposes, it should be a person for taxation purposes. Why is this not the case already?
Maybe scale up the personal exemption based on the number of full-time employees (or number equivalent to full-time employees, if part-timers). Then pay on the same sliding scale as the millions of actual persons in the USA. Effectively, the corporation would be treated like a person with a number of dependents/spouses/whatever equivalent to its number of full-time employees.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
There's a difference between playing it smart and investing a lot of money in getting the laws changed to keep your tax bill down.
One is an obligation of a business to keep tax down and profits up. The other is immoral and (IMHO) should be illegal.
Over the past 30 years, greed has become the highest civic virtue in the USA.
Paying taxes is unpatriotic (if not outright treasonous!) because it is in contradiction with that higher virtue.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
With even the "do no evil" Google doing major tax evasion, is anyone surprised an old boy's club like GM is doing even fancier tricks? I'm at the point now where I don't even consider companies that are net tax neutral to be that bad. You have to actively be siphoning money away from the taxpayers via bailouts and unprosecuted financial fraud to register on my radar nowadays.
Corporate "profit" goes towards either creating jobs
...in China.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
My understanding is that I am responsible to the IRS for taxes for the rest of my life, unless I renounce my citizenship (and even then, if I ever set foot on US soil again, the IRS can arrest me and hold me in jail, if they feel I renounced my citizenship for a tax break). If you can document something that lists x years (even if that x is 10 or longer) I'd love to know. I'm filing my taxes from abroad. http://www.irs.gov/publications/p54/ch01.html#en_US_2010_publink100047318 I don't see anything in the IRS rules where someone gets to stop filing if they've been overseas for some set period.
Learn to love Alaska
You still want the second, you want to tax consumption, or sales. Money people don't spend goes into a bank or stocks as is also invested or creates jobs. That's why a national sales tax and 0 income and 0 capital gains is the best environment for economic growth. This also promotes freedom, since now the government doesn't have to have detailed information about your job.
Yeah, you can claim that as an AC. But just so you know, your statement is a felony in the US. You are giving incorrect advice that would lead to illegal tax evasion.
Learn to love Alaska
Anyway, corporations don't realize profits - people do. And corporations are not people, not even legally.
Corporations are legally persons. And as such, I agree with you. They shouldn't be taxed on "net" income, but just do what they do with persons. Abolish corporate income tax, and just treat them as persons. That would be much easier and more fair than what we have now.
Learn to love Alaska
Not really, if you worked in multiple countries you could do the same thing.
I used to work for a smaller payroll company, and I can tell you that the average person who works in multiple countries pays multiple taxes. There's no simple LOL THAILAND trick that everybody uses, they just pay through the nose.
This isn't a "you can do it too" scenario.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
It is also sad that some people think that the theory of Economics they read in textbooks works as advertised in an international environment.
Unfortunately I don't see how the "tax breaks" to GM and others have improved the unemployment situation in the US or the US economy. What I see (and I could be wrong) is that the money that they save is invested elsewhere, where it is more profitable. They do invest in lobbying, but I doubt that trickles down to the rest of us.
You still want the second, you want to tax consumption, or sales. Money people don't spend goes into a bank or stocks as is also invested or creates jobs. That's why a national sales tax and 0 income and 0 capital gains is the best environment for economic growth. This also promotes freedom, since now the government doesn't have to have detailed information about your job.
No:
"You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are." — Adolphus Busch.
Which means that you end up paying as much tax as Bill Gates on those beers. Seems fair to you ?
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Last year the US government paid me back my tax witholding, plus $4000. I have a problem with that. I'm an American. I don't expect the government to pay me for the privilege of living here, enjoying the benefits of being in the land of the free. I figure that money, and some more, could have gone to buying down our debt and, difficult as it was, I'd have paid it. Now, because I took this money I have complicity. I am complicit in the downfall of the republic. I'd rather they kept me out of it and paid our bills with ready cash.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I don't buy yachts, which would be taxed. I don't buy nearly as much as Gates'. But any any event, all the money Gates isn't spending on beer is going into the banks or stocks, where the money is invested into new businesses. He's not burying gold in his backyard, he's making available his profits for investment, would you rather the government take his money? Are the government's social programs as effective as Gates' charities? Are the tax breaks they give as good as the investments Gates would make?
Any time you have a 975-member team to do your taxes - I don't care how big a company you have - something is broken. That's an immense waste, mirrored by similar wastes on the IRS's side.
That waste runs all the way down to the smallest scale. I shouldn't need to hire a professional to handle my individual tax return.
Thankyou!
Guns don't kill people, "with glowing hearts" kills people.
If companies don't have to pay taxes in the US, then it's a HUGE incentive for them to move as much as possible to the US. Even if they don't move ALL production to the US, merely moving corporate headquarters to the US creates more jobs (which also results in more income taxes). Also, if there are no corporate taxes, then they have no NEED to waste money on lobbying (or the billions of dollars they waste every year on complying with tax codes). But hey, why think about that when we can demonize the people providing us with jobs and writing our paychecks....
I guess in your ideal world we'd still be living in the 1700's because companies are bad.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
He didn't say that any of his three countries was the US, and there is no indication that he is evading tax (rather than merely avoiding it) in any of the countries in which he works or lives.
In Europe it's possible to pay very little income tax perfectly legally. Just because the US has obnoxious laws on out-of-country earnings doesn't mean everyone does.
I never understood the self righteousness that some possess when discussing taxing success. I understand taxing lack of success, which isn't done (you don't rack up debt when you are on social programs). I also understand the victimization of employees that was rampant decades past, which is really the sole reason for taxing rich people, and the sole reason for a progressive tax system. The internet combined with globalization is destroying the 'company town' mentality and ability to operate, although there is still a long, long way to go. As the democratizing effect of the internet takes hold, and since small business is the largest block of employers in the country, will the intellectual position of Austrian economists finally flourish? Will true capitalistic markets emerge?
As geographic location erodes monopolies, and the internet erodes conspiracies, successful companies should be embraced. The protectionist government that was required to keep companies from taking advantage of employees has grown out of control and is countering progress. A flat tax is becoming more and more rational, I can only hope that in the future, there is a taxable limit on your income, like how social security taxes currently work. Many other regulations regarding minimum wage, breaks, work hours, overtime, and especcially ease of firing, are completely anti capitalistic, and destroy millions of jobs.
I live and work in several countries. I have to pay tax in all of them.
Did I say that companies are bad and that we need to go pre-industrial? I only said that lowering taxes doesn't always work the way you think.
Based on what I have read, I understand that GM hasn't been paying taxes and has downsized its personnel. Moving corporate headquarters or hiring more people wouldn't have increased their taxes anyway since that wouldn't have affected their profits (at least upwards). Moving part of their production to the US wouldn't be a problem either because their creative accounting would make sure that any profits would show up in some other country. The reason they are not investing in the US is because both manpower and materials are cheaper elsewhere. Eliminating taxes for them is not an incentive to do anything since they are not bothered by taxes anyway. Granted that such a thing would help smaller corporations that are not that "flexible". Of course lowering income tax would also help most of these corporations as well, since they are targeted to the domestic market.
This is a trade-off: economic efficiency vs. what you call fairness.
Surely the opposite is true. If you want companies to reinvest as much money in the business as possible then you want capital gains tax to be very high. This would work fine if it were not for the way these global companies operate, moving the money around the world. If you could say "we're going to tax all your profit made in America, as worked out by us after doing a global audit", then there'd be more incentive to have less profit, and instead create more wealth by reinvestment for a time when taxes might be lower.
And of course all countries should do this, but for most governments they might be worried if they tried that game the businesses in question would just leave (can't see it happening here in NZ). But I don't think America has the same worry. If those companies did up and leave one of their biggest markets someone local would step in and all would be sweet.
Should you change your sig to read "Fun with shell corporation games"?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Since the question is about US taxes, then he is either lying in a manner that creates a felony, or he answered with a non-sequitur, unrelated to the discussion. Either way, he is wrong (one factually wrong in a criminal way, the other rhetorically where he may as well have answered "the sky is blue" both true and completely irrelevant to the question of US taxes) and no one, anywhere, should listen to him.
Learn to love Alaska
10 years may be a "rule" of the IRS as a gauge of whether they think you renounced to evade taxes, but I don't believe it's coded into law.
And I'm not only not a hiding AC, but I'm a US citizen living outside the US (and not military).
Learn to love Alaska
Every cent of profit that a company makes will either,
1) Be reinvested
2) or show up as come sort of income on some individual's tax return.
It has long been known that corporations use all sorts of foreign tax shelters and other creative tricks to reduce their tax bill. The tax code is too complicated to try to close all the loopholes and do it faster then they lobby for new ones. All the current system does is drive money overseas. They don't and won't pay taxes anyway.
Don't tax the company, tax the dividend recipient. An individual's taxes, while sometimes quite complicated, are far simpler and allow for fewer loopholes. Disclaimer: I am employed by GE (as a bottom-of-the-food-chain factory throng with no connection to this).
Pay their fair share, oh my. However am I going to survive the kharma hit for this one.
YOU IDIOT, CORPORATIONS DO NOT PAY TAXES EVER!
Now for the nice side. Tell me, where does a corporation get its money to operate?
From consumers of its products.
Now, where does a corporation get the money it pays in taxes?
From consumers of its products.
What we have here and the class warfare ideologues always miss whether on purpose for redirecting ire from their favorite politicians or because of self ignorance which was beaten into them by the same politicians is one simple fact.
A tax on a corporation is an indirect tax on the consumer of that corporations product. This tax can be buried many levels deep as obviously not everyone makes use of every corporations services but someone does somewhere and eventually we all hit each other.
You an I pay taxes. We do it on every purchase we make whether or not there is direct sales tax on the purchase. We pay indirectly every tax bill of every corporation we do business with. This is how it has always has been.
The real crime in this story about GE is that they NEED 975 tax accountants just to pay or not pay taxes. Think about that, nearly a thousand people who produce nothing but instead are there to make a system work. Now while not all companies are as large as GE think of how many tax accountants are required to operate businesses in the US. Now think how much more production we could have if just half the people involved in taxation were instead producing goods and services.
THINK ABOUT THE FACT THAT THE IRS'S BUDGET IS NEARLY AS LARGE AS NASA'S!
So why not stop this taxation of corporations. Because politicians know the holy hell they would be in for if people saw just how much they really paid. See we can kid ourselves and believe that 20 to 30% is OK for taxes. We can guilt ourselves into it. We cannot however guilt ourselves into accepting that plus nearly 20% more indirect taxes we pay. A progressive tax system with a "corporate tax" layer is all about deflecting attention from the tax load the people actually pay. There is nothing fair about it and never can their be fairness because it is purposefully obfuscated.
Still there is an answer, a consumption tax. Drop income taxes, drop fake corporate taxes, and tax consumption. Determine the proper costs to feed, shelter, and cloth a person or family and refund that the first of each month to all heads of households. A consumption tax will get the people who spend money. It will get those who have millions and want to spend it. They won't have their offshore accounts to hide their profits because there is no tax benefit to do so.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Ok, then someone with a BBA that has read a many Econ books and attended so many classes, passed so many exams, and actually knows something about Econ should be able to respond.
First, theoretical economics and real-world economics are different things. In fact, most macro and micro Econ classes for new business students focus on the theoretical part, but upper level and post graduate focus on the real world economics. The basics are always the same: people respond to incentives. So, let's put some real world incentives in front of you.
You pay a yearly tax on your net profit produced on your income statement, and usually property tax, depending on your incorporation state, on your non-liquid assets on your balance sheet. Here's the kicker, none of this affects your cash flow until it's time to pay out the following year. So, you're given two options: 1.) pay zero tax and provide a better return to your shareholders (or cash if you're retaining earnings) at the end of the year and borrow money at a high interest to pay for the higher cost of doing business in America throughout the year or 2.) outsource my work overseas and receive a lower cash outflow while lowering my liabilities and long-term debt, since my cost of doing business is a lot lower in places where I can dump my toxic waste in the river and tell the uneducated locals it's not harmful, instead of complying with pesky laws. Considering that cash flow is more important than the bottom line for the survival of a business, I think I'll take door number two.
This is where economic theory and practice diverge. Most intro Econ books assume the market will behave rationally, and this is NEVER the case.
Another example, you mentioned corporate headquarters being moved to the US and increasing payroll tax. You've never been offered stock options in your employment contract, I'm guessing. Here's the thing, I can take a lower paycheck and receive stock options that I can exercise at a later date and AVOID paying payroll taxes. Instead, any gain from exercising my options are CAPITAL GAINS, which are taxed at a LOWER tax rate than payroll taxes. This is how corporate headquarters think. The incentive is that I get a better performance out of my managers since a huge chunk of their pay is based on the stock's performance, and they get higher income that's taxed at a lower rate. Guess who's not getting these great options. Hint: all the engineers and workers underneath us that have so many limitations on their options (if they even get them) that it's not worth it to exercise them until retirement.
You see, the only real way to increase jobs and improve the economy, is by making the markets as competitive as possible. Remove barriers to entry, empower consumers, empower suppliers by building infrastructure alternatives. Lowering the tax rate to zero isn't going to help much. If you want to increase your tax revenues, keep the loopholes and add the option to pay a tax LOWER than the cost to reach a zero tax liability. It's not the best solution, but it's better than not collecting anything and applying the tax burden to the rest of working America.
So, if you want to have a business debate, let's have at it. If you want to debate particle physics, then I can't help you beyond a wikipedia search and my knowledge retained from EngineeringPhysics in college. And since you're quoting that these rational scientist and nerds that peruse /. pickup an Econ book, maybe you should pick one up about managerial economics and management in general. The Five Forces Model is a great place to start if you want to see what really puts pressure on a business.
Why would they move their production to the US, when they can just keep it in 'insert 3rd world country here' - reducing their labor costs to just about 0, while reporting their profit in the US. That way they don't have to take the trouble of creating a profitable subsidiary in Cayman islands or a place like that.
The US tax rate is NOT the highest in the world. Japan's is.
And I would argue that our effective tax rate is zero, since the multinationals are not paying it.
Sooooooo ... become your own corporation. If that is legally possible.
Funnel whatever profits/payment you can in to that.
And speak to a good accountant. Make sure you are actually paying the least amount possible.
Q:I was listening to a CD in Grip and it sounded horrible! What's up? A:Perhaps you are listening to country music
Those channels are now owned by your friendly neighborhood Comcast.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
News for nerds? I don't think so.
There have been a lot of these politically left-leaning, vitriolic article summaries posted lately. It's tarnishing Slashdot's image as a relatively unbiased and non-political web resource for nerds who just want to read about the latest tech stuff.
"(though he would have been able to keep more of them if Congress didn't, for example, block funding for the closing of Guantanimo) which for an American politician is shockingly true to his word."
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2007-06-01/
If I could pay a lobbyist $5,000 to get a law that would have my taxes reduced by $10,000, you can bet I would do it.
If the tax system is complex, it can be gamed. We should just replace all taxes with a simple tax on energy use.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
If companies don't have to pay taxes in the US, then it's a HUGE incentive for them to move as much as possible to the US.
This applies to people too. Which leads to the race to the bottom, where all countries slash the taxes to zero except for those too poor to be able to easily escape taxation.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
"Taxation without representation" was a shared creed during the American Revolution and the converse is true as well.
"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains." Thomas Jefferson
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
Bullshit again. There will always be need for highly skilled workers, that much is obvious. Those highly skilled workers are being paid big bucks to increase efficiency and production with fewer and fewer resources, I.E., employees and payroll.
Increasing the education levels of the West's population will not solve the jobs crisis. Protectionism is the only defense we have against being obliterated by cheap labor pools. We're fine with blowing human flesh to bits in the middle east, but it is unthinkable to engage in trade war to protect one's own economic interests. Unless you are a highly successful multinational.. then game the system and its players to your heart's malcontent.
Globalization is dying. Why can't you Friedmanites realize this?
Corporations are slimy entities. Just because they rely upon the US market doesn't mean they don't take every opportunity to screw it over for their own benefit. They will gladly provide a skeleton staff of local people to facilitate initial sale/installation/whatever needed to extract revenue from wealthier/more willing to spend local people. At the same time, all their support/development/manufacturing/etc investment goes wherever in the globe gives them the lowest cost. And they'll spend a lot of resources figuring out new ways of moving jobs from the skeleton crew to remote workers. They do not want to pay their workers an amount that would make them viable consumers of their product, they want to leech until the host is dried up. I would have great respect for a company doing offshore work in order to actually service the market in that country and not much else, but that never happens.
After that, when the execs and shareholders come to reap the harvest, the hypothetical place where they actually invest somewhat in the US economy through taxation, they dodge the burden at ludicrous scale.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I think the Seventeenth Amendment is a bigger problem. When Senators were actually beholden to people that were really engaged with state level politics (the state legislatures), they didn't default to thinking it was a good idea to do everything at the federal level.
A smaller federal government where Senators were functionary representatives of their states instead of politicians? Sounds pretty good to me.
(I don't think that the process of appointing senators would be free of politics or anything, I just think it would be better than the current Senate)
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Not really, if you worked in multiple countries you could do the same thing. Why does GE have any motivation to pay the US tax rate when it's the highest in the world?
US tax rate is the highest in the world? You are kidding, right? Pretty much all developed countries have higher tax rates than the US
If you earn $150.000 and think that paying $10.000 in taxes is too much for you, then you are a greedy bastard. We are in this situation because of people like you. Congratulations, enjoy the future you deserve.
The problem is that corporate tax is the last tax relatively close to the wealthy.
Estate tax, capital gains tax, property tax, import tariffs on products high on the value added scale, export tariffs on products low on the value scale ... of course there are better taxes, but those have already been dismantled (apart from property tax, but because that is local in the US it doesn't serve any redistributive purpose).
They'd still prefer employees living in on site dorms and only getting enough money to pay for the upkeep of their shanty town living relatives though ... which they can get in addition to the tax break elsewhere.
Shipping costs, automation and a university system still producing the cream of the crop of IP producers are about the only thing keeping productive work local in the US. Doesn't help keep working stiffs gainfully employed though.
However, we frequently give corporations the same rights as individual citizens. It would only be fair to give them the same responsibilities as well (in other words, paying taxes on income.)
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Just because you reform doesn't mean you can't do it by reducing the number of tax codes. Look at what the Lib Dems are trying to do in the UK.
The low income individuals are exempt because they are the principal consumers driving demand, and there is a demand gap (which is never going to go away any more). If you see redistribution as a necessity for a healthy economy rather than something to be ashamed of there is really no reason to fear a parallel between GE and low income earners.
We are speaking in terms of corporate tax rate. at 35% US is the highest (tied with several others). Japan used to be higher, but they just lowered it to 35%
They just recently cut it to the same 35% the US is at. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/business/global/14yen.html
Small donations from individuals are so rare that it's actually historically relevant that Barak Obama received fully half his 2008 campaign money from small donors, making him one of the first presidents in recent memory actually bought and paid for, at least halfway, by the people. This explains why he has to date kept more than three times the number of campaign promises than he's broken (though he would have been able to keep more of them if Congress didn't, for example, block funding for the closing of Guantanimo) which for an American politician is shockingly true to his word.
Amazing how all that isn't enough to make any sort of significant difference. Obama campaigned on hope and change, but he just ended up proving how broken American politics are.
And, concerning Guantanamo, it doesn't cost anything to just unlock the doors and shut off the lights.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
This is straight out of a dystopian sci-fi novel, but it's happening in real life. I'd say that counts as nerd-relevant.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It's not like they don't pay any taxes anywhere. They paid plenty to foreign countries, but they paid it there because the rates are lower. If you had the choice to paying switzerland 25% instead of paying the US 35%, wouldn't you want to pay switzerland? It doesn't make any sense as a businessman to pay the higher rate. They are funneling their profits into these countries with the lower tax rates.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
It's wrong to hold an unthinking concept such as a corporation to be a person. When people talk about corporations that way it is a fallacy meant to distract from what is really happening. We've gone way too far down that path.
Let us see, Obama has taken over GM, is working hand in glove with Goldman Sachs and GE. That sounds just like the Progressives of the early 1900s. Obama has repeatedly expressed the idea that our economy would run better if the government hired experts to "manage" various aspects of it, another idea of the Progressives of the late 1800s and early 1900s. So, yes, Obama is a Progressive. The original Progressives favored central planning of all aspects of the economy. I think it is very easy to make the case that Obama favors central planning of all aspects of the economy.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Two wrongs don't make a right.
True, but they often do make a good stopgap measure.
Someone had to do it.
Except that it doesn't matter how much money you give the IRS to go after tax dodgers, since legally, GE is not a tax dodger (that would be Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, or Senator Claire McCaskill). GE just used all of the exemptions to which they are entitled.
I am confused as to why the government should spend money tracking corporations using loopholes to avoid taxes. That is why those loopholes are there, so that corporations who take certain actions can avoid taxes (or to word it the way the proponents of those loopholes would, they are there to encourge corporations to take certain actions). There is nothing illegal about what GE has done, so any money to the IRS to track them (or any other company) doing it serves no useful purpose.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Why should anybody be taxed by the US for working outside the US?!? This is ludicrous! Can't the US compete WRT to taxes?!? And if it takes 24,000 pages of tax return for GE to file then the system is horribly broken. Why pay income taxes at all? You do realize that for most of the countries life we didn't have such a free market killing system? The income tax came about only last century.
You know, there are many here that object to the concept of legislating morality. I'm speaking of the American/Euro liberal variety of course. Fascinating, no?
Life is not for the lazy.
2 Years? Hah!
He's got a 6 digit ID. Firehose IS relatively new.
Oh, wait. I forgot. This is the NEW slashdot. How does that go?
Oh, yeah.
GTFO AC newfag.
Yes. Actually, I couldn't tell what the real slant was -- the summary praises Reagan (that great tax-raiser?), then quotes a Democrat. The article was five pages long and quoted a bunch of people; I didn't bother trying to figure out who all they're aiming at.
I've seen lots of political stories here, but usually only the really significant ones -- elections, revolutions, disasters, etc. This one stood out as being particularly mundane. I filter out YRO and most of the copyright stories, so maybe this is common elsewhere on the site and I've just missed it. I'm not a fan of politics here because the discussions are usually terrible -- it's like all the other stories except you don't get the two or three people who actually know what they're talking about.
Guess I got outvoted since I've been modded off-topic. :-(
Visit the
What's sad is the amount of racism in the republican party. I mean, this is the group that tried to tell Muslims that they should not build Mosques within five blocks of ground zero, and that is becoming more convinced by the day that Obama is Kenyan, despite the fact that his birth certificate is on the internet. This is the group that is openly anti-atheist and anti-gay. So, why shouldn't we call them out for being bigots, or at least being a party where open bigotry is tolerated?
Whenever Slashdot updates itself I do everything possible to go back to the old layout, so probably I'm missing a lot of new features. I am at least vaguely familiar with the Firehose, though. Doesn't change my question.
Visit the
I wish people would realize that even if a corporation pays a 35% tax rate, they don't really pay it. Their customers do; in the form of higher prices.
Business operates by generating a profit. When another cost comes in, prices are raised to maintain the same level of profit. Tax is a cost. So every time one of you geniuses screams about a business not paying their fair share, you are really saying that YOU are not paying your fair share.
Taxing more is not the answer. Taxing fairly is.
Except for the money the corporation is paying taxes on is the money left over from what the employees paid taxes on. It's true that there is double taxation for a C corp paying dividends, but for GE to pay no tax on billions in profit is criminal.
> Many other regulations regarding minimum wage, breaks, work hours, overtime, and especcially ease of firing, are completely anti capitalistic, and destroy millions of jobs.
What strange FUD you are spewing today?
Amazing how all that isn't enough to make any sort of significant difference. Obama campaigned on hope and change, but he just ended up proving how broken American politics are.
And, concerning Guantanamo, it doesn't cost anything to just unlock the doors and shut off the lights.
As I've linked above, Obama has kept far more promises than he's broken, and of the ones he's broken the majority of those are because either the Legislature or the Supreme Court has intervened on behalf of the special interests.
And it does in fact cost money to unlock the doors and shut off the lights at Guantanimo. First off you have to do something with the prisoners: either you have to move them to another prison (which only perpetuates the problem) or you have to release them. Congress has forbidden Obama from releasing Guantanimo detainees in the US, and they have largely prevented him from releasing them to other countries. Even worse, Congress has even forbidden Obama from relocating Guantanimo detainees to other prisons; in other words, Congress has basically forbidden Obama from doing anything with the detainees other than keep them at Guantanimo forever.
Translation : I want a (larger) cut of your campaign contribution. If I don't get it, I'll nail you.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
You set the sales tax rate flatly, and then settle the disproportional tax levy on the annual filing where you can have a simple, clean, discount rate based on reported income.
This is clean, simple, and inevitably fair. It is NOT perfect, but a hell of a lot better than the mess we've got right now.
Poorer folks will pay more in real terms over the course of the year, but they'll get a check back each year from the government to reimburse them. That check could include an inflation calculation, etc... to offset the initial outlay.
You can toy with the idea of setting up sales tax exempt items (such as food), but then you start to make the whole thing more complicated, and prone to manipulation.
I conduct my personal and professional life by the KISS model. I think our government can learn from it.
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
To be left-wing means to support widespread theft of private property, and leaders of the Democrats support that whole-heartedly. Republican leaders are mixed.
So it's crazy to oppose theft?
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
The cost is in lives, as prisoners return to the armies of those determined to kill us.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
But, corporations don't pay taxes. They *can't*.
Taxes are paid by their customers.
The only money corporations have to pay taxes is their customer's money.
When you buy your washing machine for $399 the reason it's $399 is because of no taxes.
If corporations were made to pay taxes the washing machine would cost you $450 or maybe $500.
So you would be paying those taxes at some level.
What do you expect GE to do?
Should Immelt get a job at night to make extra money to pay GE's taxes? Ridiculous.
No, taxes are paid by you and I. Not by corporations.
This is pretty heavy economic theory, huh? But when you think about it, it makes perfect sense.
I'd prefer the washing machine cost $399.
.
The tax system is a mess, but I think the key issue here is innovative accounting. I'm sorry, but accounting is supposed to be, by definition, crystal clear and straightforward. Innovation is this field is more properly described as "accounting in such a way as to hide money we've made while still (maybe) following the rules". Which says to me that the rules are not complete enough.
Unless GE gave every dime of profit they made to charity, they should be paying taxes. A lot of taxes. THIS is why we have a budget deficit.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
TFA states that GE has 950 employees dedicated to navigating the tax laws. Think how much productive good those 950 could do if laws were not such that GE is better off employing them in that manner. OUR tax money is being used by people in government to make and enforce laws so that GE employs unproductive people to avoid those laws.
These games are played with humans whose efforts come to no good and make everyone else's lives worse. Wasted lives making waste.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
As I've linked above, Obama has kept far more promises than he's broken
That's the most depressing part of all. Obama can keep most of his campaign promises and STILL have a negligible effect on the course of the country. The take home message from this is: It doesn't matter who you vote for. It doesn't matter what they promise. The rich will keep getting richer, and the poor will keep getting poorer. The justice system will continue to favor the rich and powerful, and your representatives will continue to advance interests other than your own.
Congress has forbidden Obama from releasing Guantanimo detainees in the US
Good thing Guantanamo isn't in the US. Nothing stopping us from saying "Fuck it, they're Castro's problem now."
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
See also IRS form 2555-EZ: Foreign Earned Income Exclusion.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
This is exactly what the government wants. By having a complicated tax code, they get direct political donations, they get high level jobs in the private sector after they leave office hiding the quid pro quo, etc. Corporations love it since it is a way to grant themselves exemptions and credits.
For the people that want the government to encourage or discourage certain types of behaviors through tax incentives, YOU TOO are part of the problem. Want a tax credit for green energy? Want a tax credit for child care? Want a tax credit for charitable donations? You're writing more loopholes into the tax code and complicating it, which allows people to play games to reduce their tax burden and if you're rich enough to afford the best tax specialists, you can really reduce your taxation.
How about a standard deduction, say $30k for everyone, adjusted for inflation in the future, and then apply a tax rate on anything over that amount (I prefer a flat tax, but a progressive tax would work if that's what others favor)? Further, I know it's crazy talk around here, but maybe we should get government out of the business of trying to be everything to everyone and reduce its scope so that there is no incentive to buy it in the first place...
Stop Koolaid Politics
As I've linked above, Obama has kept far more promises than he's broken
That's the most depressing part of all. Obama can keep most of his campaign promises and STILL have a negligible effect on the course of the country. The take home message from this is: It doesn't matter who you vote for. It doesn't matter what they promise. The rich will keep getting richer, and the poor will keep getting poorer. The justice system will continue to favor the rich and powerful, and your representatives will continue to advance interests other than your own.
The take home message is this:
1) The first thing we need to do to allow any possibility of reform in this country is to remove all the Republicans from office.
2) The second thing we need to do to allow any meaningful reform to be passed is to remove many, maybe even most, of the Democrats from office.
3) The third thing we need to do to allow meaningful reform laws to remain in force is to keep 1) and 2) up until Samuel Alito and the rest of the five-member conservative activist bloc of the Supreme Court to die of old age and be replaced by judges who actually plan on following the Constitution and making the world a better place.
Congress has forbidden Obama from releasing Guantanimo detainees in the US
Good thing Guantanamo isn't in the US. Nothing stopping us from saying "Fuck it, they're Castro's problem now."
Oh, yes, really smart move: release some of the most dangerous, radically anti-American masters of asymmetric warfare into an anti-American country a few miles off our Gulf coast. Brilliant idea.
You make it sound as if re-election is a foregone conclusion....
Reelection rates are in the high nineties percentage-wise:
http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Equating wealth redistribution with welfare is a straw man. You do know you are arguing against Milton Friedman here right? Even he saw the limits of flat tax ... he was in favour of negative income tax for the low income brackets.
Greece and Portugal didn't get into trouble because of their work ethic, they got into trouble because they can't manage money well. At both the local and global levels we have rewarded short term mismanagement of money on a huge scale, that is the source of the problem. Greece and Portugal should have been paying higher interests long ago. When they still had their own currency this wouldn't have happened, they would have been forced to devalue long before they got to this point, because they could not have been black mailed into privatizing their natural monopolies. This is the real background of the crisis, the world bankers are treating the natural resources of countries (land/power/water) as collateral for the debt ... the WTO and the Euro have took the most effective tools these governments had to right their economy away, so selling their country out from under them is that is left ... well that or default.
I think the PIGS should just default, one big default would stop this kind of economic manipulation dead ... without a default the games will continue and sovereign debt will continue to rise ...
No-one outside of America (and, I suspect, a whole lot of people inside America) would consider the Democrats to be Left-wing. They're Right-wing, just not so crazy Right-wing as the alternatives.
Not exactly. Since WW2, most nations have consistently slid to the left side of the political spectrum, embracing various degrees of socialism. So here, in Canada, even our "Conservatives" wouldn't dream of challenging socialised healthcare, social security, government funding for the arts, environment, etc. By the standards of past generations, that would make every party in Canada left-wing. Most first world nations are in a similar situation. So yeah, if you look at the US through the lens of your current society, both of their main parties are "right wing", but if you look at them in a historical context, they're the only ones who actually have a decent balance. And even the Republicans don't generally oppose some forms of socialism (eg. Social Security). If you combined the Libertarians fiscal policies with the Republicans social policies, only then would you have a "real" right-wing party.
Actually, Shari law supersedes any and all law that comes before it. It is precisely why Islamic fundamentalists are against the concept of democracy. Democracy based on the idea that Man creates laws for himself whereas Shari law was already created by God. That's the difference. In there eyes, one set of laws are holy, while the other is hubris and thus punishable by death.
The people of Libya and Egypt are not fighting for democracy, they're fighting against dictatorships created and enforced by man. They want Shari law.
Life is not for the lazy.
I *am* a greedy bastard, though. I'll do everything in my power to keep my tax payments as low as possible, thank you very much.
Learn about Photography Basics.
YOU IDIOT, CORPORATIONS DO NOT PAY TAXES EVER!
That's nonsense. Do you know why a corporation needs "975 tax accountants?" Think about it for just one minute (hint: they are tax accountants, so maybe it's to help avoid paying taxes). Do you know why corporations register in business friendly countries (used to be Ireland and Cayman Islands, I don't know the hot ones now)? (Hint: it's to avoid paying taxes.) Do you know why corporations place funds in off-shore tax havens? (Hint: tax havens help avoid taxes.) Do you know why corporations and CEOs and board members hire, or send in their own, government officials to change federal and state tax rules? (Hint: it's to avoid paying taxes.) Do you know why corporations and their indoctrinated supporters want to do away with corporate taxes? (Hint: if you need a hint here, you're indoctrinated.)
Corporations are having some of their best years ever, profits are at record highs (this is generalizing, so exceptions apply). Those profits should be taxed and the money returned to public programs and benefits. Corporate executive's salaries are at all time highs, those salaries should be taxed at a high percentage and the money used to benefit workers and people. Shareholder profits are high, those profits should be taxed and the money returned to the public. All of these profits are being taken from the many and given to a few. That's a system that cannot be sustained.
You underestimate the power of government.
The most effective way is to actually enforce the law, and be able to go internationally. Start proving that there is nowhere to hide or run, and establish that it's easier to comply and pay the taxes in the US. If said entities want lower tax rates, they can have them if they pay at the existing rate first. Then agree, in writing, without weasel wording, to not go back on any promises related to any tax cuts.
Tariff the foreign "competitors" until they're at a serious disadvantge, and include every form of business relationship possible to count a company as foreign.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
When they've paid the higher ones first.
Otherwise, the IRS needs to start talking with the various military/intelligence agencies and doing everything to get these companies to do the above. Pay the higher ones first.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
In my estimation it would be better to go the other way around.
Corporations should have few rights, lobbying government participating in elections in any way should definitely not be one of them.
emt 377 emt 4
Just last night, 60 minutes had a report about companies' use of workers in other countries, and even simply 'moving' the headquarters to another country -- in actuality essentially a mailbox, to avoid taxes.
(BTW, you can get it as an audio podcast, and I think watch it streamed anytime.. but for something like 60 minutes, the audio, esp at 2x on my phone, wins out.. I usually Tivo it as a backup in case the podcast isn't posted, which it has been already.)
And even the Republicans don't generally oppose some forms of socialism (eg. Social Security).
I was generally with you until this point. Last time I recall hearing a lot of noise about social security, it was George W. pushing to have it privatized (plundered). That's pretty much the opposite of socialism. I don't recall the Republican party coming out very strongly against W's proposal.
The hits to 401(k)s and mutual funds alone are bad enough, but imagine if they had indeed privatized the social security system -- just in time for the whole party to tank.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
All money that a corporation collects will eventually go somewhere. Either it will be spent on operating expenses or it will be paid out to investors. There is no need to tax it while a corporation is sitting on it.
Only people can act morally, so it wouldn't make sense to use the term "criminal" to describe GE (I don't know if that was your intent or not). GE is only a legal construct, and as such it is technically in compliance with all laws it is required to follow. I'm not saying that someone hasn't acted immorally here, but what I am saying is you need to be careful not hold an unthinking legal construct accountable for the actions that were actually perpetrated by thinking individuals.
There should be no income tax. Only a sales tax on everything bought.
Since the first amount spent is the hardest, consuming all (or more) of the poorest people's income just to survive, necessities should not be taxed. Raw food, used clothing or materials to make it, rent or cost of the cheapest 20% of housing in each zipcode (excluded for everyone in that zipcode), the cost of power and telecom utilities on that 20%, public education, public transit, a national "minimum healthcare standard" - all excluded. Everything else is taxed.
In our $15T GDP, that means probably $12T taxed. Our Federal government should spend something like $3T max, so that's 25%. That would mean no new borrowing. We could cut big, wasteful expenses to pay down our debt. Meanwhile the taxes would decrease our most wasteful consumption.
In the financial economy that has completely taken over our real economy (and crashed it, over and over again), any equity sale that doesn't transfer ownership (50%+1) is taxed at 0.01%. But any sale that finally does transfer ownership is taxed at the full cumulative rate (25%) deferred on all previous transactions. The inhibition on speculation, the stability advantages from coalition control of property among minority owners, and the requirement that finance, so expensive to govern, finally pay its costs to the public, would decrease our most wasteful and risky business activities.
Then there's the advantage to the government collecting taxes from only a much smaller group: sellers. Who already keep more detailed records as part of their business. Who are easier to audit, catch and shut down or fine. Reducing the parasitic accounting industry and the IRS at the top to a tiny fraction. Leaving the effort of "doing your taxes" minimized, saving probably $BILLIONS in simplification alone. Taking back that money from the government withholding that only encourages it to spend money it doesn't have, while preventing us from spending it. And of course the vast privacy invasion run for a century by the IRS would finally end.
National sales tax. It's gotten a bad name from the quacks who make it a totally "flat tax" that cuts deepest to the poorest. But with a few simple tweaks it could be written into law on a single page. And actually fund the country's public activities on a basis that actually makes sense: those getting the most out of the country in undeniable material terms pay the most to keep the country running. And actually fund it enough that we can get out from under the unbearable debt we accumulated under the blatantly failed income tax we experimented with so badly for a century.
--
make install -not war
I'm just wondering. If "everything in your power" included destroying families, or getting people killed, would you still do it?
What makes you think I make $150,000? I make less than half of that for my family of four. And I live in the US state with the highest tax rates, in the county with the highest property tax rates in the country.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
I don't think you do. That's why my post begins with "if", like yours did.
All money that a corporation collects will eventually go somewhere
That part I agree with.
Either it will be spent on operating expenses or it will be paid out to investors
This sounds like something you hear in Accounting 101 (or 504 if you're in an MBA program). On the surface seems plausible enough, but in practice there are other options which prevent that money from being recirculated in the local or even national economy. More than likely it is simply bled out (with off shore bank accounts in tax haven countries).
There is no need to tax it while a corporation is sitting on it
Two thoughts: I would tend to agree if the previous point were somehow fixed. And, why should a corporation (given corporate personhood) be allowed to live tax free when I (given corporal personhood) can not?
Er, that would put them in the centre. A little bit of left-wing "socialism" and a little bit of right-wing "free market economy" puts you in the middle, not on one side.
Wow, who would have thought all those Wall Street bankers were lefties !
Krugman's predictions (many others said the same thing) about the insufficient amount of spending in the Recovery Act have proven true, for example. Roubini and Taleb are also worth following, particularly Roubini in my opinion. Robert Reich is sensible. But you seem to be talking about, well obviously actual "headline" writers, but I'm inferring you also mean the CNN etc purveyors of common "wisdom" and announcers of recently released facts such as unemployment, stock market or housing starts data. Absolutely, those airheads are worthless. Expecting useful, accurate information from the corporate media is reasonable in the sense that that is what they owe us, but they're just not competent to deliver a quality news product. And I can't resist saying, the facts of economics are not conservative.
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And the total for every year is in the ballpark of a billion dollars. I can't find where I've seen it totalled up before, so it's a lot of digging to find all the individual pieces for you and I don't care to spend the time to do it.
No. Being taken on faith is not one of your options.
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