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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.'"
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?
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.
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.
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 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...
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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.
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
To what good would it be to be the president of Jobs and Competitiveness if one still has to pay taxes? Everybody knows that paying taxes make one less competitive.
(grin)
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
(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.
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
In our representative republican form of government we deserve what we get because we demanded it. It's an inside joke that took 200 years to hear the punchline.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Didn't RTFA I take it? This isn't some "green subsidy" as you put it, this is the classic sleazy offshoring bullshit like the "double dutch" that lets so many fortune 500 companies enjoy our markets while not paying shit.
Frankly I say if you want to see the future of America, look at Egypt and the middle east right now. The top 1% will keep their "let them eat cake" attitude right up to the point when they get to re-enact the fall of Saigon thanks to the rioters in the streets. looking out my window all I see is abandoned stores and empty homes. Hell go to the business districts in any southern town, the places look like "Escape from New York" thanks to all the abandoned factories.
If it wasn't for accounting trickery by the fed the actual unemployment rate would be close to 30%, students are going straight from graduation to welfare or McJobs (what is it, Bachelors the new HS diploma?) while being crushed by debt they can't even get rid of with bankruptcy while being expected by these same pigs to compete with some guy brought off the boat from India that paid maybe 1/20th the amount for his education. Meanwhile every man, woman, and child owes something like $76k and climbing thanks in part to the USA playing the world's policeman and having to print money like it is going out of style simply to keep the poor from turning into a rioting mob.
But the presses can't run forever, sooner or later the world will stop accepting the funny paper and the bottom WILL fall out. Not in any way attempting to Godwin but I'd point out the crazy Austrian got elected by a landslide on a "bread and jobs" platform and frankly I know huge amounts of people that would happily elect our very own crazy Austrian if it meant a guaranteed good job and food on the table.
Shit is getting pretty bad for the working poor folks, and they outnumber the 1%ers by about a half a million to one and growing. What happens when uncle fed can't print them anymore checks? look to Egypt and see the future of America, and these greedy pigs will NEVER see it coming. Lenin had it right all those years ago when he said "a capitalist will gladly sell you the rope you hang him with" and by offshoring everything and handing the working poor and middle class the bill they are tying the noose as we speak. Don't think it can't happen here, because it can and it will. Just you watch.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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
Oh sure, but Mr Schwarzenegger isn't all that bad surely?
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.
Everybody knows that paying taxes make one less competitive.
You jest, but the trouble is that it's true. US corporations pretty much have three options:
1) Send their operations off shore where labor is cheaper and taxes are lower.
2) Keep operations in the US but hire a bunch of bean counters to avoid the higher US taxes.
3) Go out of business, because your foreign competitors have lower costs (in the form of taxes) which means you can't win in the competition for customers, investors, etc.
You can't "close tax loopholes" and not expect corporations to just replace (2) with (1).
The most effective way to reduce tax avoidance is to lower the tax rate. Become the country companies shift their profits to instead of from and you get a smaller slice of a much bigger pie. 4% of a billion dollars is a lot more than 35% of nothing. Plus, the way things are discriminates against small businesses: GE can afford to hire accountants to eliminate its corporate tax burden, smaller companies can't.
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
Oh bullshit. They do business in the USA because it's worth it to business here. Business taxes are paid on profit and wealth(in the form of inflation). So as long as their absolute profits are above the inflation rate, they will continue to do business in the USA.
Go out of business, because your foreign competitors have lower costs (in the form of taxes) which means you can't win in the competition for customers, investors, etc.
So basically, countries compete with each other to sell themselves the cheapest to the corporations. I think our nations need to unionize.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Corporate "profit" goes towards either creating jobs
...in China.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This is very true. In the US I very often find that people give the rich a get out of jail card because they "think" they will be rich one day. I am for low taxes, live a country that has very low taxes. But even here there are rumblings that there are a limit to low taxes and that everybody has to pay taxes, including corporations.
Here is how I would solve the corporate tax issue. If you don't pay taxes in the country since you decided to move away, cool so be it. However, since you are still doing a billion dollars worth of business we will consider that profit and you will have to pay taxes on it. Oh you don't like that? Too bad, then don't sell your products here.
The moment you wave that in front of the corporation their tune will change pronto! The shareholder of corporations demand profit, and revenue. If you decide to not sell in a particular country then that means they are missing revenue. That will hurt their bottom line! And it will put them on level footing with the local corporations that can't afford to outsource or hire fancy tax lawyers.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
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.
"Shit is getting pretty bad for the working poor folks, and they outnumber the 1%ers by about a half a million to one and growing. What happens when uncle fed can't print them anymore checks?"
This is what you need the drones, robots, surveillance, cameras, etc. for. One thing Marx/Lenin never foresaw was automated security apparatus.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
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?
Americans have no clue what "poor" means. They own cars, computers, an XBox, and a smartphone, but go one week with Ramen and they're crying famine. Give me a break.
Aren't I supposed to know that Tariffs are evil and the cause of the great depression? Even though international trade was a tiny sliver of the economy.
Hell, yes.
Except that... optimizing the prices/competitiveness of the economy and optimizing the overall good for the society are two different objectives, isn't it? Chasing one with means for the other is what brought US in the current situation.
Your comment is actually very profound. People treat economics and business as some sort of mathematical equation to optimize. "Pay the least amount to workers, make the most profit from the poor saps that must buy our products. Collect profits." The economy is a fake man-made framework we arrange ourselves on and hope to get as nice of a life, as free from want, as we can. I think almost everyone can't see that anymore. Money is just paper, we are really just trying to make a nice pleasant society with its distribution. If that is not being accomplished, those working saps (us) are fools for continuing in the current mode.
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.
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
Well from just making Energy Star compliant devices (Which is cake to do) GE earned itself about $200 million. . http://eyeonfreedom.com/index.php/whirlpool-parlays-obama-green-tax-credits-into-zero-tax-liability/
Here's another $25.5 Million for batteries.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2010/01/taxcred-20100109.html
This is from 2007, where they got a net profit of $250 million for BUILDING wind turbines. Just building them, not to mention the money they'll make when they're actually in use. They get a tax break on the energy output ast well.
http://www.progressivefuture.org/media-center/news-we-can-use/ge-says-tax-incentive-for-wind-power-pays-for-itself
Here's an article where GE tells congress that if they don't extend green credits they'll take jobs elsewhere
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/09/15/ge-extend-clean-energy-tax-credits-or-well-go-to-germany-china/
All in all, GE receives quite a lot in tax credit in the US for green subsidies every year. Now, is it the only thing they do to avoid tax burden? Absolutely not, but it is a significant part of the equation. I can't find the total, but I believe it's in the hemisphere of about a billion dollars a year in tax credits that GE gets off of tax credits. Considering they profited $5.1B in the US, you've already knocked out over half their tax liability.
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.
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.
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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 ...