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Obama Proposes One-Time Tax On $2 Trillion US Companies Hold Overseas
mrspoonsi writes with news about a new proposed tax on overseas profits to help pay for a $478 billion public works program of highway, bridge and transit upgrades. President Barack Obama's fiscal 2016 budget would impose a one-time 14 percent tax on some $2 trillion of untaxed foreign earnings accumulated by U.S. companies abroad and use that to fund infrastructure projects, a White House official said. The money also would be used to fill a projected shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund. "This transition tax would mean that companies have to pay U.S. tax right now on the $2 trillion they already have overseas, rather than being able to delay paying any U.S. tax indefinitely," the official said. "Unlike a voluntary repatriation holiday, which the president opposes and which would lose revenue, the president's proposed transition tax is a one-time, mandatory tax on previously untaxed foreign earnings, regardless of whether the earnings are repatriated." In the future, the budget proposes that U.S. companies pay a 19 percent tax on all of their foreign earnings as they are earned, while a tax credit would be issued for foreign taxes paid, the official said.
Which will be to shit all over this idea. Mind you, I agree that so-called "windfall taxes" are a bad idea, but corporation that profit from shipping jobs overseas, hiding assets overseas, etc., are nothing if not "un-American", a label the hypocrites of the far right are very fond a throwing about. So yeah, another populist idea that is going to go nowhere.
People forget that the United States has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, and we impose it on American companies foreign-earned capital if they should bring the money back to the States. If you are responsible to the shareholders to be stewards of their investments, you have to take whatever measures you can to avoid heavier than necessary taxes. Hence people park their money off American shores.
This seems like a cash grab to me, where the better option is to really reform the tax code to be equitable within and outside the United States; then the responsible steward of their investors money would feel more free to have that capital here. 20% of 10 million is a lot more than 35% of zero.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
I'm not glad to see it at all. It's simply an extension of America's weird world view that they should be owed taxes on money not earned in America.
No other country has this odd view, instead, money earned abroad is taxed abroad.
The US tax system also has weirdnesses like this for anyone who's a dual national or green card holder... Dual US/British citizen and earning money in Britain? Great, you'll be paying both UK and US income tax on that!
I thought it was the corporations stealing by leeching off society and then not paying the membership fees. If they don't want to pay any tax they are free to leave society and stop stealing our free education and training, healthcare, roads, police and judicial services etc.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"to avoid paying their fair share"
That phrase "fair share" is dishonest. It is vague and subjective, while pretending to be objectively normative.
That is exactly right.
Social Security and Medicare costs are only going to get worse as our population ages. And those costs are what is really tanking the federal budget. Not welfare queens or other conservative mythical leaches on society.
And over the past 20 years, our wages have declined and our standard of living has declined also - but worker productivity has gone through the roof.
Big business and the billionaire class has taken the difference and none of that has ended up in the workers hands. We are working longer and harder and our lives are getting worse.
That $2 trillion represents part of that difference.
All it will do is cause US companies to become foreign companies incorporated in other jurisdictions. And then there will be less taxes collected. There are reasons why these things have not been addressed already and contrary to what some may think, they have little to do with politicians being paid off.
This is little more than posturing for the 2016 elections. No one expects anything to be done about it, just a lot of hype to define sides and make up short comings noticed in the last election.
Because hiding your profits overseas is some sort of essential liberty, right?
The profits were earned overseas, mostly from products and services created by non-Americans and sold to non-Americans. There is no rationale reason for America to be taxing these profits. No other country has this kind of extraterritorial tax. Most economists agree that it is counter-productive, and just encourages companies to base their headquarters somewhere other than America. Business taxes should be based on where the economic activity occurs, not where the business is registered.
Anyway, this proposal has ZERO chance of passing a Republican Congress. This is about electoral politics, not tax policy. The loser here is Hillary Clinton. To win in the general election, she has to position herself as a moderate centrist, that can win in the Midwest, and maybe even pick off a Southern state. But by steering the Democratic party into hare-brained anti-business claptrap, Obama is diminishing her ability to do that.
American companies keeping profits in tax-free nations don't benefit from American taxes? Can you provide even a single justification for that?
If they don't want to pay any tax they are free to leave society
Wrong. They are not free to leave. The Obama administration prevented AbbVie from leaving, and is fighting efforts by other companies to leave.
stop stealing our free education and training
So if an Italian buys a car from a factory in Britain, he is "stealing education" if he doesn't pay tax to America?
What is to stop companies registering themselves elsewhere so that they are no longer US companies
Obama's solution is to make the laws even more restrictive by banning companies from leaving. Basically, erect a "Berlin Wall" for business. Of course, this is economic insanity, but it wins him plenty of applause from the Elizabeth Warren wing of the party. Here is an article that explains the issues pretty well.
Stolen, huh? So I assume you would rather the government dissolve, leaving no infrastructure, no property rights, and no justice system? You'll have to staff your own protection, since you don't want police or military defense. I guess the biggest guy wins... hope you like that new dictator.
But then I suppose you wouldn't care for that so much. You might at least want to form an alliance with your family and neighbors. Perhaps you'll agree not to steal from each other, and have the toughest men keep watch over the town and keep the dictator's army out. But they need to eat and can't keep watch all day while also worrying about growing their own crop, so the town decides that everyone should give part of their goods in exchange for the protection.
Then your town and others nearby might decide, we are reasonable folk and aren't each other's enemies. So you form an alliance and pool your resources to focus protection on the outer borders. Oh and since one town has a great market for clothing, and another has a nice oil well, and yet another has fertile land, now you need roads to travel between the towns. You pool your resources to help built those roads.
This is a system of government, funded by taxes. It is the inevitable outcome of humanity, and will continue to grow bigger so long as the people are mostly satisfied with that government.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
That phrase "fair share" is dishonest. It is vague and subjective,
A tax code which permits corporations to hide profits while taxing citizens normally is dishonest.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You haven't thought things through well enough. You imagine that you can pay for "protection from highway bandits" and that this is somehow different from government. Wake up. That is what government is. Protection from highway bandits. If you somehow managed to convince everyone to eliminate the U.S. government, then the question of roads would immediately pop up. Without roads you can't get to work or deliver products to markets. You can't have markets, because thieves and bandits would raid them. So, you would pay for your own private guards. Pretty soon, you would find that there are businesses providing protection. You would hire them, and so would other companies. But they would fight each other. Somehow, the fighting would ultimately get resolved. Either some warlord would emerge from the fighting as victorious leader who would impose order, or people would get together and vote on rules so that private protection companies would not fight. Rules, and a rulemaking process would evolve from your garden of eden of liberty. You can't avoid it. There are other people living on the planet. You have to get along with them. It isn't easy. You can't just say, "hey, this is my stuff, everyone keep their hands off of it" and expect everything to be fine. Again, wake up. Where did you get the stuff? Were you born with it? Did God pre-ordain that you own it? You don't think far enough ahead, and think about what will happen if you get rid of government. It will evolve again. And again. Everywhere. You can either react to it like it is some alien creature, or you can plan ahead, and try to optimize the rules that eventually evolve. Because rules will evolve, by force. It can either be a democratic force, or a dictatorial force. Or some mixture. But try not to be so simplistic in your thinking. It is frustrating to read.
Join the IParty!
Roman, go spend some quality time in the library (at taxpayer's expense, mind you) and read up on some history. Look at how well neo-anarchists have provided for the 'general good'. Look up some actual, functioning examples of libertarian philosophy.
And if you find any, come back here and tell us about it.
Yes, capitalism is pretty screwy. Doesn't work well. Not a stable system, needs lots of inputs to keep from feeding back on itself and destroying everything in sight. No, this 'civilization' will not last forever and has a number of major issues with it at the moment.
But your goofy system won't work beyond a 12 pack of brownies.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Almost all of the design and administration of Apple is done in California. But surprisingly the "Company" is a foreign company where they have no factories, no designers, no corporate officers and just a bank account.
So yes, by using the talent and ingenuity of US workers and then claiming that they're an Irish Company they are stealing the value that US Society has invested into its workforce (and supplied the infrastructure for that workforce to get to the job site etc).
Personally I believe that we should tax not based on where they are located but where most of the value is created. If you are Microsoft and 90% of your workforce is in Washington State but you are incorporate in "Nevada" because you have a PO Box there then you should be taxed at 90% Washington 8% California and 2% Nevada tax rates. Similarly if 80% of your operations are in the US then you are 80% a US company and 80% of your revenue is taxable under US tax law.
Everybody knows that Apple is a California company. To say otherwise is dishonesty. It might legally be correct that Apple is a subsidiary of an Irish shell corporation but they're cheating the system and doing something that doesn't pass any sort of sniff test of truthfulness.
You're completely off-base on the Hillary thing. To help Hillary, Obama need to take the party further left. It relates to the concept of the Overton window , the range of ideas that the public sees as palatable "centrist" positions. If you drag the dialog of the extreme edge further, then it makes less extreme ideas seem more reasonable. The Democrats need to get on this, as the right has been doing this for some time. People like Limbaugh and Hannity push the edges out so their candidates don't have to.
By pushing "anti-business claptrap" Obama gives her room to distance herself from him, room she can use in the election as she sees fit.
Personally, I don't feel that closing tax loopholes exploited by multinationals is "anti-business", more like "pro-fairness", if you allow one business to cheat, you force all to cheat to stay competitive.
Reaganomics is opportunity.
Really? Then why is upward mobility among US citizens the lowest is has ever been in the history of the country?
It's insanity because it's based on the misconception that taxing companies is somehow different from taxing people. What do you think those companies will do if you increase their taxes? Roll over and just fork it over even if it puts them in the red? No. They're going to raise their prices, and/or cut their costs to compensate.
Ultimately, all taxes are paid for by taxpayers. Whether it's directly through income and sales taxes, or indirectly through corporate taxes which get passed on to customers as price increases and employees as pay cuts (or smaller pay raises). The end result is the same - less money for taxpayers, more money for the government.
You can argue that we need more taxation. But never make the mistake of thinking that taxing corporations has zero impact on taxpayers. It has exactly the same economic effect as directly raising taxes on taxpayers. The only thing that gets changed is who gets blamed (people curse the companies for raising their prices, instead of the government for collecting so many taxes).
* Numerical example for people who still don't get it. Say you make $50k/yr and pay $10k/yr in taxes, thus leaving you with $40k/yr to spend on yourself. The country changes law eliminating income tax, and getting all funding from corporate taxes instead. Do you think you'll now get $50k/yr to spend? No. Companies now have to pay an extra $10k/yr per citizen in taxes. So either your pay gets cut to $40k/yr, or prices increase 20% which after adjusting for inflation leaves you with $40k/yr just like before. You see, average real income is purely a function of productivity. And changing how taxes are collected doesn't change average productivity per capita. So where from the economy you extract taxes can't change the amount of real take-home pay. It's all just shell game.
No, because you will always be undercut on the rate by countries which don't have to support such an extensive infrastructure (because they don't actually physically host those companies, other than a tiny office to claim legal presence), but which are interested in driving the rates down because that way they get to be the ones collecting them.
Of course, if you are one of those people who think that taxation is theft, all your points are going to be worthless within the context of this discussion. What does it matter to you whether it's US or Ireland "stealing" the money?
if the profits were made in tax free countries, so be it.
If the profits were made entirely by employees working in that country, selling to people in that country, goods or services produced in that country, then you might have a point. In most cases, they're made from employees working in other countries, selling in other countries, and doing various tricks to book the income somewhere else.
No one objects to companies that are based in the Cayman Islands, working and selling there, paying no tax. People object to companies in the US and EU doing business there and benefitting from the infrastructure yet somehow paying a wholly owned subsidiary in the Cayman Islands a trademark license that happens to be of equal value to their total profits (or one of the various other similar dodges).
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