AP reports that 83 of America's biggest 100 corporations evade taxes with offshore tax havens. Some of those companies, like Citigroup, have gotten federal bailout money.
Funny: I doubt 83% of the working people I know have similar opportunities to avoid paying their fair share of the price of society.
The GAO report looked at "countries that maintain low or no taxes." I wonder if, in Citigroup's case, they included South Dakota in that group....
"Funny: I doubt 83% of the working people I know have similar opportunities to avoid paying their fair share of the price of society."
ReplyDeleteLet's not open that can of worms, unless you want to discuss that Treasury nominee...
We should discus the treasury nominee.
ReplyDeleteLet's put a tax dodger in charge of our country's money.
I expected better from our new administration than this.
If you lie and cheat on the small things, how are we to treat you on the big things?
Half of US corporations pay no taxes. That is a crime.
ReplyDeleteLet's discuss the Treasury nominee, among others. I could care less about his late tax payment - he paid and there are lots of IRS justified reasons for tardiness (and interest and fines).
We should be far more concerned about his role in the credit bubble, mortgage crisis, SEC under oversight, etc. Ike was really admired because he insisted on advisors who were smarter than he. Several of Obama's nominees are uninspiring because of involvement fostering the economic debacle, supporting the Iraq debacle, etc.
Let's not get tax evasion confused with tax avoidance. Tax evasion is a crime. Tax avoidance is not. Didn't the Honorable Judge Learned Hand say as much?
ReplyDeleteA corporation or rich individual can avoid some taxes legally using offshore havens (for now). Evading taxes, in contrast, is patently fraudulent.
If we don't like the law, we change the law. But then, we should not be surprised if the corporations adjust their behavior to take best advantage of the new law, whatever it might be.
The consequences of a stiff new anti-offshore law could hurt our economy. A large corporation could dissolve itself and then re-create itself under another name in another country -- and we couldn't do a thing to stop them without resorting to tyrannical extremes.