A Third Of Cash Is Held By 5 US Tech Companies (siliconbeat.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Moody's Investors Service released an analysis Friday that shows Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Cisco Systems, and Oracle are sitting on $504 billion, which is roughly 30% of the $1.7 trillion in cash and cash equivalents held by U.S. non-financial companies in 2015. Almost all of their earnings ($1.2 trillion) are stashed overseas in an effort to avoid paying taxes on moving profits back to the U.S. under the country's complex tax code. Apple has more than 90 percent of its money located outside of the U.S., according to its most recent filings. Moody's said in its report that "we expect that overseas cash balances will continue to grow unless tax laws are changed to encourage companies to repatriate money." Some of the other tech and Silicon Valley companies in the top 50 include Intel, Gilead Sciences, Facebook, Amazon, Qualcomm, eBay, Hewlett-Packard and Yahoo.

Comments

Remember where the responsibility is

[PrimeWaveZ]

The responsibility it to the shareholder, no the government.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[Carewolf]

The responsibility it to the shareholder, no the government.

Here I thought the responsibility of the tax code was to the voters.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[Sarten-X]

No, the responsibility is to the corporation's charter, which may or may not indicate any responsibility to shareholders.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[Opportunist]

Trump being the lesser evil, now here's something I thought I'd never see written.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[ScentCone]

Yes, and the responsibility of the government should be to its citizens, not corporations.

Because, of course, the people who form a business and incorporate it ... they're couldn't possibly be citizens. And the teachers, welders, farmers, retirees and everyone else who decide to invest some money in a publicly traded company, no chance those are citizens. Nope. The companies are all owned and run by non-human invisible evil ghost people, or AI machines in the basement.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[Opportunist]

So, essentially, government AND businesses should only be concerned with those that can invest money. Anyone else simply doesn't count.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[ScentCone]

What's with the false dichotomy? Are you really unable to imagine a government that isn't hostile to people who start businesses, and isn't hostile to the investments your mom makes for her retirement? Can you only imagine that it's either that, or a confiscatory socialist utopia that finally doles enough stuff out to the little people ... and nobody will worry about where that money is supposed to come from?

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[beelsebob]

Trump absolutely has a proven track record of evil. I mean, the guy has documented connections to Fat Tony. He's quite literally a mobster.

If you want to watch him acting like the evil dick he is for a while, try this https://www.youtube.com/watch?....

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[superwiz]

Well, given that US was created as a refuge for those running away from the insanity of Europe, as a (naturalized) US citizen, I would take European derision as a very high form of compliment.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[ScentCone]

The government has a duty to those people as well as to the ones who do own companies.

And what is that duty? To tear down the people who found and run companies so they can, one time, dole out the carcasses? Or is it to foster a much more entrepreneurial environment that isn't so hostile to people running (and working for!) businesses so that we can see more people get out of the low end of the spectrum? It's not the government's job to "balance" incomes by taking it from one person and giving it to another. It's the government's job to stay out of the way of the things that produce competitive businesses in a global economy.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[William Robinson]

And that is why corporations need to be made illegal.

You are forgetting citizens these corporations recruit, who get salary and pay taxes and spend money in American markets.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[Sarten-X]

My point is that the actual laws dictating an executive's responsibilities rarely care at all about the shareholders. Rather, they usually only require that the company follow its charter, and it's that charter that defines the goals, and that's usually done vaguely.

In Apple's case, I don't see any definition of what the shareholders' interests are. It has been upheld in court that such a term can be construed to mean many things beside the often-assumed short-term profit goal. If Tim Cook thinks (and convinces the Board) that it's in shareholders' best interests to pay taxes to bring cash into the United States, then he can do so.

In essence, my point is to question the point of the original comment. Corporations are beholden to the laws of their jurisdictions, and those laws (in the US) make them subject to their charters. Blaming shareholders and invoking the profit myth implies that somehow the executives are being forced to do something distasteful, whether it's outsourcing or polluting or keeping foreign cash. The reality is that the executives have a wide range of options, and usually they only have to make a passable justification like "our polled shareholders said they care about the environment, so we're spending billions of dollars to have recycling in all facilities".

The myth essentially shifts the blame from the corporate executives to "the system". It's the same as the hippies' stereotypical disgust with The Man, the modern rebels' jealousy of the 1%, the historic persecution of Jews, and the vilifying of banks. Rather than a specific mechanism to effect change, such as participating in a shareholder poll or vote, the myth provides a vague target for outrage that the masses can rally against, feeling good about their impotent rebellion. It satisfies a craving to be a noble warrior in a community of fellow underdogs, fighting against a powerful oppressor... but it doesn't require the drudgery of actually changing anything.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[hey!]

The responsibility it to the shareholder, no the government.

Corporations are artificial entities defined and governed by laws and regulations which are in turn created by the government. A corporation's responsibility is whatever the government says it is. If government insists the corporation pay taxes it is the responsibility of the corporation is to pay taxes. The corporations can't just say "we'd rather pay the stockholders, so sod off."

In other words the problem isn't that the government can't compel the corporations to pay taxes. It's that it doesn't want to.

Oh sure, corporations have lots of clever people finding ways to avoid paying taxes, but for what it's costing the government could easily afford to hire its own armies of clever people to close the loopholes. So clearly government doesn't want to.

Which raises the question of who government is working for.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[plopez]

Capitalism is great if you have capital. If you don't it rapidly begins to resemble slavery.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[ultranova]

Because, of course, the people who form a business and incorporate it ... they're couldn't possibly be citizens.

Given that this very article discusses the lengths they go to to avoid their duties as citizens... no. They're parasites who demand things yet use every loophole to avoid giving anything in return.

Don't put on the airs of a citizen if the only loyalty you have is to your wallet.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[FooAtWFU]

Well, the voters approved a Constitution under which they have subsequently elected Congresspeople who have made laws (the tax code) that Apple follows. That's why Apple is being reported on for tax avoidaince and not being investigated for tax evasion. The voters also elected Presidents who appointed a Supreme Court who in turn have assured us that tax avoidance is perfectly legal and that no one has any patriotic duty to pay more tax than they are required to by law (see Gregory v. Helvering).

But if we'd like to talk about how the tax code itself is letting down the voters, we need to be sure to talk about how US corporate taxes have gone from "some of the world's friendliest" to "some of the world's worst" and encourage investment overseas instead of at home... in light of the fact that businesses should be investing money where they can get a better return (often in a region which has very little investment to begin with, like some places overseas - diminishing marginal returns and all that) and that, on top of that, chastising them for wanting to hold on to more money instead of surrender it for the good of the US state is a position worthy of ridicule. They're big businesses: figure out how to align some incentives at them, instead of making it about the one single part of Patriotism that the American left still seems to respect and celebrates. We don't need to celebrate their work creating jobs and paying taxes or whatever - the profit, the money is its own reward - but we do need to make sure that they're making money for doing the right thing because the money is its own reward.

Then we can talk about how the government does a crappy job of spending the money it already has, perhaps by celebrating the Stimulus or the Iraq War.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[dbIII]

And what is that duty? To tear down the people who found and run companies so they can, one time, dole out the carcasses?

You can read books by people other than Rand you know :)

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[RabidReindeer]

Well, the choices are definitely awe-inspiring. Kind of like a tsunami headed our way is awe-inspiring.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[sumdumass]

I've seen this posted several places and have to ask why you think it is a problem. Modern government in the US is often no different than the mob. They seem to be more worried about their personal wealth. They seem to ignore laws (in some cases the same laws they made). They crush people who stand against them.

But when the choice is between Trump and Hillary, you say mobster like it means something. But it ignores the long list of mob like things associated with the Clintons. There are all the laws supposedly broken. The list of 50 or so people who supposedly died mysteriously who had association with them. Then there are two people who supposedly had dirt on them who died mysteriously -one in a plane crash and the other suicide. But it goes further with Hillary making millions in the futures market while Bill was president. Somehow spending all that so they were broke when leaving the white house to being millionaires again a few years after with 5 mansions across the country.

Its almost like your saying trump is less qualified as Hillary because he only knows mobsters and isn't one himself.

Re:Remember where the responsibility is

[ScentCone]

The problem is that once you get in the business of allowing the government to soothe envious people by making a spectacle of chopping their boss's pay in half, you've jumped off a cliff. Because why should a person who just sits in front of a computer in an air-conditioned room doing some "coding" make five times as much as a guy who stands in ditches in the sun digging around water pipes? Why should somebody who just sits all day and plays with numbers at a car insurance company be allowed to make ten times as much money as someone who repairs cars? It's an outrage! We need to reduce THOSE people's salaries too, because NOBODY needs to make $120,000 a year while someone else is still only making $25,000, right?

And what about the guy who starts a one-man business - say, providing consulting services to the agriculture industry, based on his decades of experience. He scores some big contracts doing specialized soil studies, and is making $300,000 a year. But he's 60 years old, and could use some help driving around collecting little bags of dirt all day from the region where he's working. So he hires a guy who puts little handfuls of dirt in bags for him all day, and has his pick of ten people all of whom are happy to do that for less than a tenth of what he's making. This must stop! The best thing for society would be for the government to step in an make sure that consultant makes less money, so everything is more fair. Of course he'll have to fire the assistant, but it's all in the name of fairness, so that's OK.

I love financial news...

[RyanFenton]

Ah, financial news - a place where you can open make statements like: "Unless the US changes its laws to give me lots of money, I can't help but foresee DIRE, DIRE things happening. Financial catastrophe would be putting it lightly." ... and not only is it counted as somehow news, but the richer or more openly lying the person saying it, the more respect it is given.

Well, WELL past the point of poe's law.

Ryan Fenton

Re:And trump wants to legalize tax evasion

[Anonymous Coward]

vs. the alternative, to continue letting them keep it out of the USA while occasionally moaning during a press conference about how unfair it all is. That's the Obama doctrine Hillary has vowed to uphold.

Do we need more corporate power?

[dbreeze]

I hope enough of us flesh and bone humans realize soon enough that corporations just aren't like us. Their interests and motivations are not ours. Either they will rule or we will rule. We had better get to work before it's too late.... http://www.movetoamend.org/

Re:And trump wants to legalize tax evasion

[Sarten-X]

And why, exactly, is that bad?

What's wrong with "letting" foreign money stay foreign? If the companies want to use it for US endeavors, they'll have to pay taxes on it.

Re:And trump wants to legalize tax evasion

[manu0601]

Trump wants to legalize companies to bring in that money into the USA without having to pay taxes. Basically a big present he'll give them.

Well, once money is back in US, it is still time to change our mind and tax it as capital instead of income.

Lies

[don_combatant]

This story is misleading and irresponsible. There are many different measures of the US money supply including M0, M1, M2, M3, M4, adjusted monetary base, et al. The $1.7T number represents only the physically printed bills plus minted coins in circulation. M4 represents the total money supply including physical cash, bank balances, certificates of deposit, etc. Current US M3 money supply is approaching $20T, and the Treasury Department doesn't even divulge the M4 numbers anymore as per Federal Reserve Directive because they claim it's too difficult to calculate the total amount of US currency in circulation. READ: they don't want the proles knowing how much money is being pumped into the system post 2008 crash. The Fed alone has nearly $4T on their balance sheet and they don't even have legal authority to print money -- that's the Treasury Departments arena.

This story would only be accurate if those companies were holding the $500 billion in actual physical $100 bills in a vault. They are not. This $500 billion is merely entries in a database on a bank server and thus should be compared to the total M4 money supply, not M0. While $500B is a tremendous amount of money, the story would be much less shocking if the correct comparison was made.

Re: Lies

[Dastardly]

The article is even more wrong. The money is booked to subsidiaries incorporated overseas, but most of it is probably held in US financial institutions. That does limit what the money can be used for, but not where it is actually held.

So not "a third of cash" at all, then

[wonkey_monkey]

A Third Of Cash Is Held By 5 US Tech Companies

roughly 30% of the $1.7 trillion in cash and cash equivalents held by U.S. non-financial companies in 2015

So actually it should be:

A third of all cash held by US non-financial companies in 2015 is held by 5 US tech companies

Re:And trump wants to legalize tax evasion

[Junta]

The money is not in the USA, it wasn't made in the USA

That's not true. For some of the money, yes, but we are talking about these companies managing to get 90% of their cash over there.

First, a lot of these companies change their headquarters overseas in name only, so they aren't technically US companies anymore. Then the US business concerns become some subsidiary of what is nominally a foreign company.

Then they'll take however much profit that would be declared in the US, and offset it with some accounting tricks like saying they needed to license their own brand name from their foreign parent company, which coincidentally totaled just about as much as would have been US profit.

The tax rate is not competitive

[tom229]

The U.S. Corporate tax rate is something ridiculous like 35%. They can claim profits are in a country as close as Canada and it would only cost them 15%. You can't be this wildly out of balance in a global market and expect to function well. This is a fundamental aspect of free market capitalism. Actually, if the U.S. lowered the rate to even something like 17% I'm sure they'd generate more revenue, instead of less. A company the size of Google likely spends a great deal of money on clever accounting to avoid taxes. They wouldn't need to do it if there was little or no benefit.

Re:hurray... Slasdot, the new corporate apologists

[iamwahoo2]

The money is overseas because the sold products overseas and had revenue overseas. On top of that, the products were probably built oversees. So now that they want to bring money back to invest in the U.S., we tell them that they need to give us 30% of the money? They shouldn't take that deal and we shouldn't be crazy enough to ask them to take that deal.

Re:Encourage companies

[tom229]

How about simply lowering rates? Why pay 35% in the U.S. when you can pay 12.5% in Ireland, or 15% in Canada? Because some law tells you to? Who enforces it? And how expensive is that going to be to constantly maintain? Right now you're getting 0% from these companies. While 15 is lower than 35 it's certainly better than 0.

Re:And trump wants to legalize tax evasion

[Sarten-X]

Just to clear up a few things...

They just need to use that money where it is instead of keeping it in cash

They already do. These accounts are usually the sources for rotating expenses, and their value can change dramatically on a day-to-day basis as investments cycle in and out. Pretty much, the goal of foreign accounts is to hold cash until it's needed, and to then make it available quickly at low cost.

which can be inflated away by the governments

Governments don't cause inflation. Governments can control the inflation rate with their policies, but one of the things that makes tax havens appealing is that their governments have a history of policies that keep inflation low. Remember, high inflation is pretty much always a bad thing, because it means that the value of money keeps dropping.

What they should do is buy inflation hedges with it,

Typically, "inflation hedge" is a commodity future. I'd expect a chunk of reserve capital is already invested as such, but again, tax havens typically have a low risk of inflation. It's also worth noting that buying local inflation hedges (primarily real estate) in the tax haven can then drive up local prices for that commodity, actually causing higher inflation. Hedging is a risky business, so the investment advisers I've worked with tend to avoid the issue altogether and just stay in easily-liquidated bonds.

gold

Gold hasn't been a safe investment since 1971. Despite the love of enthusiasts, it's really just a shiny metal, offering the same risk as any other commodity investment. Again, since the whole point of these accounts is to keep money available, having it tied up in a gold bubble is not a good option.

income producing assets

...Like what, exactly? If you can actually answer that question, I expect that you are a CEO for a top-5 tech company, since identifying potential income-producing assets is a notable part of their job. It's not so simple as to build another factory or buy more parts... if the market is saturated, money would be better off as cash. Also note that if these "assets" are located in a country that is not the tax haven, there will likely be a taxable event in such an investment.

maybe other companies

Again, this is a matter of strategy. Buying a company is a risky investment. If the company is already profitable, the purchase price will reflect that. If it isn't profitable, then the expected return is even riskier, and it will tie up money for a long time.

I would use some of that money to take down governments, but that's me.

That's a good way to lose favor with other allied governments, and eventually get a reputation as a destabilizing influence, which eliminates a lot of opportunities around the world.

Re:And they're doing nothing with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is the point.

1) Overseas cash is profit from sales overseas, not domestic. Apple, Microsoft, Google, and such aren't sending US profits overseas, they are just not repatriating money made overseas. Which to some extent you don't want to do since it increases FOREX costs exchanging money back and forth.
2) US taxes are far out of line with international ones. Unless there are tax treaties made with Ireland, Panama, and the Virgin Islands, all companies will continue to use low or no-tax countries to effectively "store" the wealth. Every country literately has to agree to have the same tax rate, which is at least 15%
3) US double-taxes. This is harder to explain, and many Liberals will characterize it one way while Conservatives will characterize it the opposite way.

So in short, When you make one dollar in Europe, the company is registered, usually to an Ireland subsidiary as the legal entity, but the customer service is likely based in Germany, because of the labor laws are favorable in Germany (and least-favorable in France.) Only businesses that deal with domestic customers are actually located in their respective countries and pay taxes in their countries, but from a legal perspective the Irish company is the taxable entity. Remember that EU countries are like US states. Each state can have their own domestic tax rate, but if you live in Florida, you don't pay California's tax rate even if Apple is based in California, you pay Florida's tax rate. But of course if you ship an item, there might not be any taxes involved due to the VAT complexity in the EU.

So ultimately sales inside North America are part of the US market, while sales in Europe are usually registered to the Irish entity.

Microsoft was more sneaky about it, having all their software sales registered to an entity in a lower tax state. I'm not sure if Apple or Google did that with iTunes/App Store and Google Play, but it's a reasonable thing to consider.

Apple's hand was kinda forced by one investor to start handing out Dividends because the stock-manipulators at Wall Street were literately robbing the investors blind in the value of the stock price by driving up the price until earnings and then shorting the stock to make it drop. Anytime Apple did far better than expected, everyone won, but if they fell even a penny short of estimates there was a major drop. The value of the company on paper is worth far more than the stock price. That has much to do with the overseas cash. If Apple wasn't doing anything with it, it was literately losing value at negative interest rates while inflation is closer to 2%.

"moving back"?

[superwiz]

That money was never taken out of the country, so why is it "moving it back"? If Apple sells an iPhone in Japan and it manufactured the phone in China, why should it deposit the profits on that money in a US bank?

Re:"moving back"?

[Anonymous Coward]

You really think Apple is selling a ton of iPhones in Ireland? When news stories report on taxes and Apple, they aren't talking about iPhones sold outside of USA. iPhones are more than just silicon and metal and glass. iPhones contain a shit ton of patented technology, technology that was invented in USA by Apple.

Apple shifts its profits by selling those patents, for _pennies_, to a shell company outside of the USA. Apple then pays the required taxes on that "profit" (35% of pennies, oh noes!). Meanwhile, the shell company has a collection of valuable patents it then licenses to Apple (for a lot of money) for use in iPhones. That shell company then pays the required taxes in Ireland.

Apple is using complex loopholes to save money, don't try to simplify this by saying 'iPhones sold outside the USA, get taxed outside USA'

Re:"moving back"?

[phizi0n]

Even if it is manufactured and sold outside the country, lots of work inside the US helped to produce it (designing it, programing it, testing it) so shouldn't some portion of the profits still come back?

The bigger issue is that their offshore money is not only from offshore business but it does get "exported" as well. They set up a bunch of shell corporations and then one of their shell companies pays another for whatever reason they make up in order to move money from one country to another. For instance, Google US could take all their profits and pay it to Google Ireland for [insert any reason] and then Google US's taxable income would be $0 so they'd pay no taxes in the US. This is how literally every multinational corporation avoids paying taxes or at least significantly reducing them.

Re:"moving back"?

[superwiz]

You really think Apple is selling a ton of iPhones in Ireland?

No, but that's between Ireland and China or Ireland and Japan. Why should US be the place where that money gets spent?

Re:And trump wants to legalize tax evasion

[LynnwoodRooster]

They actually do pay their fucking taxes like everyone else. They are completely legal with regards to taxes paid in the US - which are paid on gross profits made in the US. However, current US tax law does not tax foreign profits that are left overseas.

Re:And trump wants to legalize tax evasion

[LynnwoodRooster]

What jurisdiction around the world has a zero percent corporate income tax? The reality is every dollar held overseas has already had corporate income taxes paid. It just happens those rates are considerably lower than the US (the US is at 39.6%; the OECD average is around 25%).

Re:Let's not forget...

[__aaclcg7560]

Obviously you run your own company. Did you specifically choose to set up that company in a state with the high taxes? No? Why not?

Apple incorporated in California in 1977 and had no problems paying the state corporate tax until 2006, when they opened their subsidiary to shield multi-billion-dollar profits from being taxed in California. Apple should simply move their headquarters to Nevada and stop playing tax games. I guess they don't want to give up their $496M in R&D tax credits that California taxpayers gave them since 1996.

Corporations use taxpayer funded services

[MrKaos]

Revoke their charter if they are not prepared to contribute to the societies that grant them a license to exist. After all they are users of infrastructure and they expect the community to absorb all manner of negative externalities. It's only right that they contribute their share of tax if the rest of us do.

Re:Corporations use taxpayer funded services

[OrangeTide]

Corporations use our courts to sue individuals for copyright infringement.

Re:And trump wants to legalize tax evasion

[Sarten-X]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you think you know simething?

Please enlighten me with what you know. This should prove most entertaining.

Gold is not an investment, never was, it is money

To my knowledge, there is no country that actually uses gold as legal money. You personally might value it as a currency, but that is not a majority opinion.

its function is to keep purchasing power and be an inflation hedge

It fails to keep its purchasing power due to fluctuations in its exchange rate with real currencies. Even accounting for the recent recession, real estate has actually done a better job of keeping its "purchasing power". I'll also note that the very definition of an "inflation hedge" is an investment.

Governments produce inflation, unless you are under a mistaken belief that central banks are not really controlled by governments and don't really act for the short term benefit of the current organization. Governments produce inflation and sometimes hyper inflation that take down economies.

You're going to have to explain this conspiracy theory of yours a little more. Governments (through central banks) can encourage inflation by raising their interest rates, or they can allow deflation by cutting interest rates, but they're not the driving force behind inflation, and would have no reason to initiate heavy inflation or hyperinflation.

Inflation happens when consumers have to pay more for the same goods and services. A little inflation has a positive effect on the economy, because it encourages people to spend money, adding more inertia to the economic machine, thereby providing confidence that producers will continue to have income in the near future, allowing them (as consumers) to purchase luxury goods and raise their quality of life. Conversely, if consumer prices are dropping under deflation, consumers are less likely to spend money, because they'll get a better deal later. That, in turn, reduces the viability of industry, lowers confidence, and further discourages spending.

These basic market principles are independent of any government. The government's only involvement is that by issuing loans from a central bank and controlling the interest rates of those loans, the government has a very highly-desired product whose price it can control. That lets the central bank effectively put its thumb on the scales, promoting inflation or deflation as it sees fit, but it can't actually control the whims of the rest of the market.

As to taking down governments, that's a worth while life goal, call it a hobby for the sake of freedom.

Using corporate money to fund a personal hobby, especially one that will harm the company, is a good way to get fired, even for an executive.

Re: If you takers want to see it

[ScentCone]

Because the only pressure they had was their own sense of greed.

Which is exactly why the Bush administration made an appearance before the Democrat-controlled congress and warned them of the consequences of congress's pushing Fannie Mae to continue to underwrite (and to essentially REQUIRE underwritten banks to provide) things like no-income-proof, no-down-payment mortgages to people who couldn't possibly afford them once their rates ballooned. That Clinton-era policy, of putting more people into home ownership no matter what, started that bubble growing, and the congress under Pelosi and Reid kept pouring gas on that smoldering fire. The Bush administration spent six years trying to push through Fannie/Freddie control measures, and repeatedly warned congress about the problems and the dire consequences.

People selling derivatives around that mountain of unsecured, bloated housing debt didn't cause people to lose houses and banks to put the brakes on dishing out more credit. People lost houses because their income couldn't keep up with foolishly chosen mortgages, and because they had speculated on the prospect of a get-rich-quick turn around on the house in the near future, they owed more on those houses than they were really worth. It's not exactly mysterious. The banks got stuck with enormous piles of worthless debt, and houses it cost more to foreclose on than were often worth the trouble.

Re:No More

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The Google fiber rollout preceded the elimination of corporate taxes. Insurance doesn't really get sold across state lines.

Um, wtf?

[rsilvergun]

Unless you are very, very wealthy (part of that 1% you mentioned) then you don't own enough shares to prevent your vote from being drowned out by the major stockholders. And if you're part of 45% (at least, depends on how you run the numbers) you don't own any stock. Hell, 66% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, so I'm guessing there's not a lot of stock buying going on there unless you're one of those twats that counts a 401k as 'owning' stock.

Here's the thing: Yes, we should work to enact change. No, stock ownership isn't going to make a damn bit of difference. Vote, make your friends and family vote. Favor mandatory voting and finally vote left.

Information and "The Public"

[golodh]

I disagree with the idea that "people in power" keep information from "The Public" that would enable them to discern their own best interest/

Unfortunately "The Public" has been conditioned to ignore such information.

As in: "everybody knows that the most affluent companies are successfully using tax loopholes to avoid paying large amounts of tax", but "The public" has been trained to respond with gems like: "It's 'legal' so it's Ok.", "You'll always lose out aagainst 'The Market'" and "Better the money stays with industry than 'Da Gubbamint', and "We don't want Big Government" and "It's da pooh - lie - tishuns what dunnit".

And other gems of coherent well-informed thinking.

The only thing "people in power" need to hide is repeated ("The Public has a short memory") authenticated videos ("The Public doesn't read") of themselves conspiring in the clearest, bluntest terms imaginable (or The Public won't catch on), to intentionally ("to The Public mere self-serving greed is Ok), illegally and maliciously deprive "The Public" of their rights.

Now that's a pretty low bar to pass, don't you think?

We'[ve had half a century of investigative journalism to tell us about ethical standards in commerce, the way industry can purchase influence, the way in which (i.m.h.o. especially Conservatives) have paved the way for the fullest expression of industry interests in politics and uncounted economic, legal, sociological, and political studies to underpin this and its effects.

What The Public need (in order to catch on) is politics in the form of a reality show. Like errm ... a Trump interview?

Re: Tax laws will never be changed

[sumdumass]

Why is the solutions always the opposite extreme of the problem with people like you? Why isn't there ever a middle ground where there are rich people and poor or poorer people who actually benefit from the economic activity in our own country created by the investments the rich people participate instead of doing the equivalent of stuffing their money in a mattress overseas somewhere?

It seems to me that some would prefer the poor to be poorer as long as the rich are not as rich. A foreign politician made a similar observation years ago when the world was a lot more economically stable and a lot of Americans were in better financial situations. But she was a woman and no one listened to her in the US.

That's not true at all.

[tlambert]

I bet their accountants are killing themselves over how much inflation costs them each year alone.

That's not true at all.

Apple just put $1B of that into Didi Chuxing, the Chinese "Uber" equivalent.

They do plenty with the money. The problem is that, if they wanted to spend it in the U.S., for example, building a factory, the government would tax it again as U.S. income, even though it's already been taxed outside the U.S..

The government is literally paying them to make foreign investments instead of U.S. investments by attempting to engage in dual taxation.

Re:That's not true at all.

[Rob Y.]

You make it sound like the solution is to go along with the fiction that these are Irish companies. Perhaps the US should lower its rates some - and if double-taxation is really an issue, sure (though i think they can deduct foreign tax paid). But the ultimate solution is to disallow legal fictions like 'our Irish subsidiary owns all our intellectual property and the profits generated from it'. If that IP was developed in the US, and is ultimately owned by a company that is run out of the US (i.e. CEO and other top officials are US citizens), it's a US company, and the profits are US profits. End of story. Once you get your realities straight, then you can fight for an effective and fair tax structure - and you might find support in unlikely places.

Re:And trump wants to legalize tax evasion

[BarbaraHudson]

Bullshit. There's no double taxation. The companies have already taken deductions for the expenses, and tax treaties mean that they're only liable for the difference between the foreign and domestic taxes.

Re: Tax laws will never be changed

[Rob Y.]

There was such a middle ground - it was the America of the 50's and 60's. Ever since high-priced think tanks started giving Reagan (and other lesser actors in the Republican party) homey-sounding reasons to cut taxes on passive income to the bone, the trend has been straight to the 'new aristocracy' scenario. So unless you want to deny the trend line, you might want to try proposing a solution that reverses it. And 'cut taxes to grow the economy' doesn't count. That's been a bald-faced lie wrapped around a tiny kernel of truth from the beginning. We've long since exhausted that kernel of truth and have been living squarely in the lie for decades now.

Re: Tax laws will never be changed

[pnutjam]

What deliberate transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich?

Let me educate you...
* mortgage deductions enrich the wealthy at the expense of the poor
* Stock inflation by quantitative easing and stock buybacks
* Policies that favor 401k's over defined benefit pensions

There a many other policies that essentially inflate the value of assets at the expense of those with labor to sell.

Re: Tax laws will never be changed

[Rob Y.]

Reagan raised taxes on the rich after dropping them precipitously. To his credit, he realized trickle-down wasn't working as advertised and did what he needed to. If only the rest of his party were as sensible. And, by the way, he raised taxes (in the form of a large social security tax increase) on the middle class - putting the trust fund into a surplus that lasted (and was used to mask large deficits elsewhere) for 2 decades.

Meanwhile, you may be right about the 50's and 60's, but that doesn't mean that a large shift of the tax burden from those with largely investment income to those with wage income was the correct solution to a change in economic conditions. We essentially had a brief burst of high inflation - caused mostly by an oil embargo - that was used to accomplish political goals, convincing many Americans - you included, apparently - that the only way to avoid economic collapse was the very shift in priorities.

Re: Tax laws will never be changed

[pnutjam]

The wealthy and get way more out of mortgage deductions then your average homeowner, not to mention the unwashed hordes of renters.
No matter what quantitative easing was designed to do, it benefits the wealthy and should have been ended, low interest rates help the stock market and wealthy investors, but hurt the rest of us.
401k's are a way to move retirement funds into a place they can be tapped for fees and other financial shenanigans. They move risk from companies to individuals.

Ask me how I know your bad at math.