This is why I believe little will change in DC

[funeralcrasher]

By no fault of the Prez elect, this shit is just too hard to stop.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress' investigative watchdog, has found that "a majority of America's largest publicly traded companies and the U.S. government's largest federal contractors use multiple subsidiaries in offshore tax havens to conduct business and avoid paying U.S. taxes," writes Carol D. Leonnig for The Washington Post.

The culprits include some corporate giants who are receiving countless millions in bailout money

Full story here: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Offshore_tax_havens_of_US_corporate_0116.html

I'm sure the conservatives and libertarians and fair taxers in the crowd will say there is absolutely nothing wrong with this situation, other than the companies being taxed at all.

Fuckin' joke.

Comments

[johnbutler.livejournal.com]

When corporations pay income taxes, those costs are passed on through the prices of those corporations' products and services. When you buy a loaf of bread, you're paying that bread company's income tax in part of the price. You're also paying the grocery store's income tax and the trucking company's income tax and the gas station's income tax.

By contrast, if the corporations themselves pay NO taxes, then those costs don't get passed along to you.

The idea that corporations are "evil" and need to be taxed is a shell game used to convince gullible people to give the government more of their money. Corporate income taxes are not the corporation's money; they're the corporation's customer's money.

It also reverses "progressive" income taxes: when a low-income customer in the 15% tax bracket buys a product from a corporation in the 28% corporate tax bracket, that customer pays that product's piece of the corporation's taxes at 28% with money that the customer has already had 15% income taken out of. There is no sales tax on food, but there's all kinds of income tax built into it.

Some corporations pay no taxes because they take their profits and reinvest, buying new capital or hiring more workers--things that are not taxable. This is an incentive for corporations to get bigger and bigger. Ever miss a time when a certain company was smaller? The smaller ones treat their customers better. They have a disincentive to stay small, though.

Now that you own a growing business, I suspect you may eventually start to think differently about taxation. And that other great joy of business: litigation.

As for individuals not paying their taxes, start with Obama's new proposed Treasury chief. Democrats are all for raising taxes when the taxes don't apply to them. When the taxes do apply, sometimes they feel exempt from paying them.

[aquaknot.livejournal.com]

People in general will choose what they think is their best available option. Corporations are run by people.

After nearly 20 years studying government and laws, and over 10 years as a lobbyist, one of my cardinal commandments of good lawmaking is "Do not make rules you cannot enforce."

If corporations can en masse avoid taxation then it is either a tax law problem or an enforcement problem. The corporations? They are behaving exactly as they should be expected to act. Of course this kinda highlights that they are soulless and unpatriotic, but it is what it is.