What the Top US Companies Pay In Taxes 658
theodp writes "If you've ever wondered how it's possible that you pay more to the IRS than General Electric, Forbes has an explanation. You, my friend, do not have the tax benefit of overseas operations. Microsoft, for example, has its overseas subsidiaries license software to its US parent company in return for handsome royalties that get taxed at lower overseas rates. Exxon limits its tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands that shelter cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan, and Abu Dhabi. As a result, of the $15B it paid in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas. Likewise, GE has $84B in overseas income parked indefinitely outside the US. Now quit your carping and get back to filling out that 1040!"
So, what now? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you tax them, they move to India. Shareholders don't care.
Maybe the goverment should try spending less for a change.
Close the loop holes (Score:5, Insightful)
These types of tricks should be unacceptable. Close the loops that allow this to happen, and let it be known that if you are going to do business in the US and benefit from our educated labor pool, infrastructure, markets, and resources you are going to pay taxes like everyone else. These shenanigans should demonstrate exactly why a corporation should not be treated as a legal person. They are immortal, and can skirt current law and tax codes by existing simultaneously in multiple places and jurisdictions at the same time.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because Exxon would never benefit from an American war against Iraq.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:3, Insightful)
If you screw the businesses in one country they can move to another.
This is also why I support abolishing the corporate income tax. To me, it makes no sense to tax the artificial economic entity, and then tax every employee and owner of said entity. Let's keep our taxes limited to actual, real people.
Didn't I see this in "Deus Ex"? (Score:5, Insightful)
JC Denton: "Do you have a single fact to back that up?"
Leo Gold: "Number one: In 1945, corporations paid 50 percent of federal taxes. Now they pay about 5 percent. Number two: in 1900, 90 percent of Americans were self-employed; now it’s about two percent."
JC Denton: "So?"
Leo Gold: "It’s called consolidation. Strengthen governments and corporations, weaken individuals. With taxes, this can be done imperceptibly over time."
Fictional conspiracies aside - WTF?
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:5, Insightful)
The more power corporations have, the more they can resist the controlling influence of democracy, the worse off we are. Observe Exxon's use of their power to confuse the debate on global warming for years, assuring that nothing gets done to compromise their profits and that the planet continues to choke on the waste gases their products emit.
As someone who's been an anarchist most of my adult life, I find it bizarre when so-called libertarians cheer the destruction of democratic government and the increasing devolution of power into the hands of the people who have, for the better part of this past century, been largely in control of our society. If you're REALLY in the favor of liberty, why are you such a fan of enabling so much power going into such few hands?
Re:Close the loop holes (Score:1, Insightful)
Or lower tax rates and collect something rather than nothing.
In capitalism, competition lowers prices, and consumers follow the low prices.
Why shouldn't the tax system work under the same set of rules?
Re:So, what now? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you tax them, they move to India. Shareholders don't care.
Maybe the goverment should try spending less for a change.
They should, but lets get back to the tax rates issue. I'd be happy to ban these overseas shenanigans if we would simply lower US corporate rates. Our rates are nearly the highest in the world, second only to Japan [alhambrainvestments.com].
Fine, eliminate the loopholes, but cut the rates. Think about where corporate profits are going; if they're not being sank right back into the company, then they're being payed out in dividends to shareholders.... where they're taxed again as personal income.
While there's no real excuse for these kind of slight of hand tax dodges, neither is there a justification for a tax rate near 40 percent on companies.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:5, Insightful)
This deserves to be modded "insightful". Nations have constitutions, laws, and face insurrection, mutiny, and revolt if/when they trample people's rights to much. Corporations? Damned thieves can tramply anyone, and everyone, with no repercussions.
Go ahead, people, cheer for the corporations. None of them are doing anything for you. Your government supplies your drinking water, builds your roads, responds in the event of disaster, and much, much more. You have a voice in government in most countries - you have zero voice in any corporation, no matter whether you work for it or not.
Support your economy!...right (Score:2, Insightful)
'twas ever thus (Score:5, Insightful)
The rich get richer, the poor, well, stay poor.
Nothing has changed since the times of Pareto...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilfredo_Pareto
(Take a look - the original '80/20' was 80% of the land was owned by 20% of the people)
These days, it's more like 90% of the world's wealth belongs to 10% of its population.
If you've got the money to have to worry about these things, then you can pay smart people to avoid tax.
Note I said avoid, (legal), not evade, which is not.
It is the duty of corporate officers to (legally) minimise tax burden.
It is the duty of governments to ensure equitable distribution of wealth, without discouraging wealth creation.
Guess who's doing a better job...
Re:Close the loop holes (Score:1, Insightful)
But if you tax them here, they'll be forced to stop buying and selling stuff here. All these large multinational corporations will just simply choose to not do business in the US, because they'll only earn 19.5% profit, instead of 20% [or whatever it is].
Re:So, what now? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Transaction Tax would fix this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Close the loop holes (Score:5, Insightful)
Because in capitalism, the government is not a "player", but rather the ultimate "enabler". Who pays for capitalism when there is a crash? Taxpayers via the government.
The tax system has to be kept separate from market rules, because it is used to reboot the system when necessary. That is why, if you live in America and use American capitalist facilities, you should pay your fair share of American taxes (s/America/$COUNTRY/g).
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:5, Insightful)
If the artificial economic entity has rights, it should pay taxes too.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but hat's just idiotic. How about instead we:
(1) limit our granting of civil rights to actual, real people, and
(2) limit lobbying to actual, real people.
Re:YOU pay corporate taxes. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they don't. Companies already price all their products at the highest price the market will bear--- if they could raise their prices, they would have already done so. Corporate taxes generally hurt their profit margins, and to some extent the compensation and bonuses of their top executives.
Which is why they're so against them, incidentally. If corporate taxes mainly hurt the consumer, and had no negative effect on the corporation's executives or shareholders, they wouldn't care, and wouldn't exert all this effort trying to oppose and avoid them.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:1, Insightful)
The corruption that you mention is the corruption of the government not the corruption of the corporations. Corporate CEOs are no friends of the free market nor is that their job. They will do whatever benefits their company, including seeking special protectionist laws, laws that increase the burden on their competitors and the price of entry, and finally as we saw recently free money directly from taxpayers pockets. This is the inevitable result of the large and intrusive government which has the power to decide the winners and losers in business as well as a $3.5 trillion annual budget (in case of the federal government alone) to be spent according to the wishes of the bureaucrats. Is it not inevitable then that the corporation see it as more profitable to spend more money on lobbying and bribing politicians for favorable laws and a cut of the taxpayers money than they spend on innovating and improving their products? In short, the answer is not more government but less.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:5, Insightful)
If an artificial legal construct can have income and profit, there seems to be no reason why it ought not to be taxed, the same way as natural constructs who have income and profits are. If taxation of corporations were more costly than limited liability is valuable, people whouldn't incorporate, they'd operate businesses as themselves. The fact that virtually nobody does so, other than the smallest, most ill or un-advised people, should tell you something about whether or not that is the case.
If you don't want your synthetic entity taxed, you don't have to set one up, you can just do business as you. However, if you fuck up, you are on the hook. Corporate taxes are a small price to pay for being able to cap your liability by assigning responsibility to a legal fiction from which you get to extract the wins but not the losses.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:4, Insightful)
They use the government to ensure they actually own the 1,000 acres in the first place. Is a recognition of the exclusive use of land not a service that should be paid for?
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:5, Insightful)
However, Ireland which is Europe's version of India due to its low 12% corporate income tax (lowest in world)
There are places with lower corporate income tax. Bermuda has no income tax, IIRC.
But if you think it's bad in Ireland now, try raising the corporate tax rate. How many of those companies will stay in Ireland?
All the rights, few of the responsibilities (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So, what now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if you don't tax them, they'll still move to India.
Corporations are not altruistic. They are not working for the good of the world or their fellow humans. They have no patriotic loyalty. The people who run them possibly less so. Corporations are looking for profit. More importantly, profit with the least amount of cost. They will do anything and everything they can to meet this end, including illegal activities if the penalties are small compared to the potential profit.
But the best part comes later. When a corporation becomes as large as Citibank or AIG, there's hardly any measures that can be enacted to punish them without having grievous consequences elsewhere. The people at the top have so much money and so many resources that trying to get their asses in jail is like trying to nail jello to the wall with a nail made out water and a hammer made out of meat.
Companies have all the rights of citizen with none of the penalties. In fact they have more rights than citizens do. They are meta-citizens. This wouldn't be a problem if they had a shred of human decency. The only time good works come into play is when there is profit (monetary or political goodwill).
Point being, it doesn't matter what we do. The corporations are going to go where it is most profitable. It doesn't matter what we tax or what kind of legislation is passed, they'll just go somewhere else. In any case, a company doesn't need to be anywhere near you to rake your ass over the coals these days.
~X~
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:5, Insightful)
I say, tax for what people use. The government should be a service provider. Nothing more. Drive on roads? Pay for the roads. Don't drive? Don't pay. Simple as that.
Corporations as a whole should be taxed based on what they use. If their business required a new road to be put in, have them pay for that road. If the store needs extra police protection have them pay for that.
Corporations need the roads so that their employees, customers, and suppliers can actually reach them. Corporations need the court system to enforce contracts. Corporations need the police and fire systems to keep their workplaces safe and secure. Corporations need electric, garbage collection, and sewage treatment. Corporations need highly trained employees educated by public schools and universities.
Corporations use a lot of services without paying for them. Your proposal would result in corporations paying higher taxes than they are today. To me that sounds good.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:5, Insightful)
I say no individual income taxes, because corporations can afford to hire a staff of full-time accountants.
The big downside to jacking up the corporate taxes is that the corporations can (and do!) flee. People are much more reluctant to emigrate, and it's not clear where they could go anyhow.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason those fine 2000 acres of land you have aren't taken over within weeks is because the whole damn government is there to threaten anyone who would try. It has nothing to do with "civilisation" respecting "a fence". Hell, there are Western countries which operate rather well but have very lax notions of trespass compared to the US. We're not talking about, say, mindless violence, which is pathological in every species, but a sophisticated philosophical notion of property which goes way beyond the "territory" of high order primates.
The law exists as a pragmatic codification of the common good where elements of "common" are weighted according to the magnitude of your influence.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but that's a bad idea. What if companies and business don't get rights, no big deal right?
But what happens when a newspaper or TV show publishes a piece attacking a powerful politician? No right to free speech for that company, so the politician just shuts down the paper or station Venezuela-style.
Or what happens when the local mayor comes by to shake down your family business for campaign contributions and you don't donate? No right to due process, so he fines your business for "health code violations".
Re:Value Added Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not to imply, however that most government services are not useless, if not legal ways to blatantly embezzle funds, and should not exist, just that direct accounting is far too simple to work.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with the other reply-ers who have gotten modded to oblivion. This is obviously a dumb statement. No corporation has done anything for us?? That's an ironic statement coming from someone using a computer to post to Slashdot. I'm glad the ol government made all that happen for you.
Re:Value Added Tax (Score:3, Insightful)
*Yes, walking does create wear-and-tear on the sidewalks, but such wear is minimal and businesses located along the sidewalk would pay to have them built as it would benefit their customers.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:3, Insightful)
But then what do I know, Im just a poor schmuck that got genetic diabetis and thus must suffer alone while people who are lucky enough not to get such lifetime diseases can live with their pockets lined with cash. AMIRITE?
In short, fuck you selfish prick.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't just feel better off. You are better off. Even though it would offend the sensibilities of the Fox/WSJ crowd, public policing is in fact way more efficient than private policing. Public fire fighting is more efficient than private fire fighting. There are things that the government does better than private enterprise, because there are such things as public goods.
This is an unpopular viewpoint. That does not make it false.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:2, Insightful)
Really? If people don't like the actions of a corporation they have the right not to fucking buy that corporations products, and you'll see how quickly the things change.
While I don't disagree with you on a moral/ethical level, pragmatically you're wrong.
Think of how many large corporations out there are, in essence, mega-corporations which have their fingers into everything - usually fairly evenly diversified, at that. Companies like:
* Nestle
* General Mills
* Heinz
* General Electric
* Any petro/fuel company
* Any large pharmaceutical company
Chances are that you're going to have a hard time dealing in the modern world if you're boycotting a corporation on moral grounds. Guess what? They make a lot of shit which you depend on. Nestle does some despicable things in 3rd world countries.
Go to the grocer's some time and look at who makes/packages your food: I'd wager even the 'cheap store brand' stuff is made by a handful of large corporations or their subsidiaries.
"Then I'm only going to buy pre-packaged foods" you think. Guess what? Eggs, chicken, meat, and milk all come from large producers that purchase drugs from pharmaceutical companies to keep their animals alive. Going vegan? Most vegetables are going to be sprayed by petroleum-based fertilizers made by a large corporation with potentially objectionable practices - or might be GE crops, in which case the producers are most certainly of reprehensible character.
Shoes? Short of making your own or buying from a custom boot/shoe shop, you're going to be buying something made from China by a large US corporation, in all likelihood. Same for most of your other clothes. I doubt most Americans would agree with the economic or civil practices of China, yet clothes still get bought.
As for fuels... you're in the same boat. Unless you're living off-grid or drive an EV in an all-hydro power area, you're going to be throwing money towards petroleum producers which have diversified.
It's not so simple to "not fucking buy" a specific corporation's products. First off, if you give enough of a damn to boycott a company for their practices, chances are there are a lot of corporations you would object to, and acknowledging that concern would result in hypocritical inconsistency.
Honestly, unless you're fucked if you want to buy products from corporations with any sort of integrity. Sure, it's possible to find scrupulous companies, but they're usually smaller still, not yet reaching the crest of 'corporation'. They're also difficult to find. Realistically, a person can't spend all their time trying to find which products to buy due to a corporation's behavior (and corporations go through a lot of effort to hide the behavior of one arm from the consumers of another arm to make this more difficult).
The only way to realistically deal with this is to only buy food from local producers, live off grid, and generally consume very little. But even that's impractical.
Re:So, what now? (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure the US is the only country in the world that makes its citizens pay taxes on income earned outside the country even if they aren't residents. That is fucked up.
The US just wants to put its hand in the economy of the world and its stories like this that neglect to mention that the companies did pay taxes on the income they earned in whatever country they operate in. Are their loopholes? Yep, but eventually that money has to go into someones pocket in the US and they will get taxed for it.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:5, Insightful)
(1) limit our granting of civil rights to actual, real people, and
Are you sure you want to do this? There are a lot of important civil rights ruling regarding corporations. Just off the top of my head.
Dartmouth College v. Woodward -- asserting that the College has the right to a binding charter that the government cannot alter at will
New York Times v. United States -- asserting the first amendment right to publish the Pentagon Papers
New York Times v. Sullivan -- asserting that defamation/libel has to be for willful or deliberate falsehood
Near v. Minnesota -- "Morally scandalous" not a good reason to shut down a newspaper
Hustler Magazine v. Falwell -- parodies of public figures which could not reasonably be taken as true are protected by the First Amendment
In all those cases, it would be pretty laughable if the government asserted that because the plaintiff is not an 'actual real person' they don't have constitutional rights.
Re:Transaction Tax would fix this (Score:3, Insightful)
Steve Forbes backs the Fair Tax because it is very fair for him. The people that astonish me are the ones who think they would be getting a tax cut under the Fair Tax, but really, they would pay quite a great deal more (There are a rather uncomfortable number of people who have no idea what the difference is between their maximum marginal tax rate and effective tax rate).
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:4, Insightful)
The same is true of people, though. People can only: hire people, buy stuff, or put money in the bank. What is this "terminal point" you speak of? Everyone pays taxes out of money that has one step previously also had tax money paid on it, because the economy is just a big loop of money flows.
Re:So, what now? (Score:4, Insightful)
Lowering corporate tax rates would take a huge chunk of income away from the US, and do little to encourage companies to move back from... say.. Ireland, with its 12.5% rate.
Lower it to 0% and they'll come running. No reason to tax corporate income at all. For that matter, no reason to tax income at all. Tax something that can't run to another country like real estate. That'll become a lot more valuable with 0% taxes on income.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:3, Insightful)
You've provided not a single link, so your post isn't looking terribly authoritative. However, in at least four of your examples it appears it's actually the individual writers whose first amendment rights were upheld.
Sufficient context was provided. You can google, if you're interested. And the bit about individuals is relevant. When corporations (businesses really) no longer have rights, then you can infringe on the rights of people by attacking their corporation employer. This is commonly ignored in the arguing that corporations shouldn't be given the rights of people. If they can't, then how can the business protect itself and its employees from persecution?
Corps sometimes help more than gov't (Score:3, Insightful)
Go ahead, people, cheer for the corporations. None of them are doing anything for you. Your government supplies your drinking water, builds your roads, responds in the event of disaster, and much, much more.
Not true. Wal-Mart and Home Depot did a better job than the gov't during Katrina. Say what you want about Wal-Mart's product sourcing but you have to admit they know more about delivering goods to remote corners of the country than anyone else. Interestingly, Wal-Mart was also a pioneer (1970s) of computerizing inventory and sales and in data mining. Wal-Mart monitors weather reports and when severe storms are *predicted* moves products that history shows will be in demand under such circumstances from unaffected regions to affected regions. When you see the Red Cross (also non-gov't by the way) handing out bottled water keep in mind that Wal-Mart probably delivered that water. FEMA is also supposedly turning to Walt-Mart for help with disaster logistics.
--
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Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:3, Insightful)
Somalia is inhabited by niggers. They aren't human and therefore don't have human nature.
Nice point troll, I'm glad you raised it. Some people continue to foster attitudes like this and in doing so they perpetuate the fucked, fucked state of the world as it exists today.
I was raised a racist, leaving me little choice as a child as to what I really believed. As an adult I re-evaluated these beliefs and found them sorely lacking. Racism (among others) is not conducive to the civilised society we profess the desire to live in.
Solving the world's problems begins with us, personally. There is no governmental, legal, or commercial alternative to rescue us from ourselves as these entities are simply manifestations of our collective personalities and our culture.
If you want the world to be a better place, take some responsibility for your attitudes towards other humans. Nothing will change until we do.
Re:Meh. (Score:2, Insightful)
That 'double taxation' is the price corporations pay for their legal status as persons. If you don't like it (as a shareholder) then own a company in a partnership. You are only taxed once. But then your liability isnt limited.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:2, Insightful)
Selfish moron.
Re:YOU pay corporate taxes. (Score:3, Insightful)
If a company is forced to pay more tax, it will simply pass those costs along to the consumer ultimately.
Sort of. In the end, everything a corporation pays out has to come from their customers. But since corporate tax rates are based on their profits rather than revenues, the corporation that makes less profit (is poorly managed) pays less tax than the one that makes higher profits (better management).
At first, this would seem to be 'fair' (i.e progressive, in that the 'wealthier' entity pays more tax), corporate profits are very easily manipulated. Corporations can incur expenses that reduce their profits by having foreign subsidiaries in low tax regimes charge high rates for their 'services'. The summary mentions one example of this: Microsoft overseas divisions charging the US corporation licensing fees. Question: When I load $10K into a suitcase or a bunch of diamonds in a little bag and carry it out of the country, Customs damned well wants to know about it. When those s/w licenses magically moved from here to there, there was nothing tangible that was carried. No license sniffing dogs alerted US officials that billions of dolars of property had just crossd the border (yet another arguing point for the reality of IP).
The basic unfairness of the tax laws is that corporations are free to structure their income and expenses in practically any way they want to manage their tax burden. Meanwhile, the individual is afforded no such expense deductions. If I were a corporation, everything I spent during the year to maintain myself (my food, my housing, my transportation) would be an expense and my profit would be the increase in my savings account at the end of the year.
Not true about Exxon (Score:4, Insightful)
Exxon is not stupid. They have made sure that if cap and trade becomes law, their profits will be protected. They have developed carbon sequestration technology which will allow them to continue to sell oil without polluting. Sure, carbon sequestration is expensive (but cheaper than wars or health care). However, with cap and trade everyone will be forced to do carbon sequestration, and Exxon knows how to do it better than most other groups. Also, keep in mind that Exxon has businesses besides oil and that they have the cash to simply purchase any "green" competition.
So why do people accuse Exxon of funding global warming skeptics? Most likely Exxon is backing both sides. Large corporations will back all sides in any political competition, to make sure that whoever wins rewards them afterwards.
Anyway, do not blame corporate profiteering for global warming. Corporations would be just as willing to make their profits off of "green" energy. They will follow the government's guidance. It is congress that is sitting there and doing nothing.
we hear the anti-corporate refrain from the left (Score:5, Insightful)
why don't we hear it from the right?
corporations are:
completely unpatriotic. in fact, as this tax situation shows, they are basically anti-patriotic: their actions actively undermine the country
corporaitons work against individual rights, liberties, privacy, and freedoms
they threaten to hollow out the country into a corporatocracy, they actively turn your representatives into shills for corporate interests, not interests of the citizens
we have been hearing these howls on the left for decades
but how come we don't hear it from the right?
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:2, Insightful)
Flame bate? (Score:1, Insightful)
Alright, not really. April 15 is just around the corner, and we all have to pay. But really, reading this string has been like placing the head of Planned Parent Hood and the Pope in a room. A lot of noise and arguments that someone can predict. But with that being said, if I had to choose a side right now, I would say "tax 'em less so I can have a job".
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a direct correlation between cutting revenue and going bankrupt. If I quit work it has a direct correlation of me going bankrupt.
You can argue complex curves that show a cut in corporate taxes increase economic activity but its not a 1:1 ratio and does not work beyond a certain percentage.
Corporate taxes whether you agree with them or not generate large amounts of revenue.
In the case of the American government which is in debt and spending more than it makes now it will become insolvent when you cut off its biggest source of revenue. This is obvious and the problem Ireland is having as its #2 on the list next to Iceland and Greece.
Re:Close the loop holes (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:5, Insightful)
The important point is they don't care either way because it's not their job to be a public charity. It's not good or evil - it just is.
Re:So, what now? (Score:4, Insightful)
Aside from my reluctance to take financial wisdom seriously from someone who uses "payed" instead of "paid"
I typed i pretty quickly, and I'll just have to beg the court's mercy for the typo.
you seem to be forgetting the huge number of corporations who _aren't_ listed on the stock exchange, and who don't pay dividends.
And why is that different? Instead of shareholders, you have owners. And they're still doubly taxed, as the profits that flow to them are still taxed again as personal income.
Lowering corporate tax rates would take a huge chunk of income away from the US, and do little to encourage companies to move back from... say.. Ireland, with its 12.5% rate.
Apparently it wouldn't, as the subject of the story is tax shelters that help such companies avoid high US taxes. The whole point of my proposal was "take away the tax shelters, and in exchange lower domestic corporate rates". If a company is paying the equivalent of Irelands' rate in the US, isn't that better than a lower sum via tax shelters?
Oh, and the way most companies avoid paying taxes? They expand. Got 10 million in profit you don't want to pay taxes on? Open some new locations. Do R&D. Hire some more people. Basically incur expenses.
Uh, we already tried such foolishness once before. FDR's Undistributed Profits Tax [wikipedia.org] did much of what you're suggesting, with predictably disastrous results. And when you get right down to it, don't people go into business to profit? You're essentially suggesting that they escape higher taxes by never taking home the profit they make, or at least a lot less of it.
That 40% tax rate you disparage so offhandedly is responsible for influencing decisions that generally lead to more jobs.
Where do higher taxation rates equal more jobs, especially in the long run? Higher rates are job killers. Even the Europeans have accepted that. The only thing higher tax rates get you is a bigger government payroll, a sector that grows no wealth in the economy.
Re:Value Added Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the problem- can you tell me, straight up, the value of the governmental services that you use? You've got your simple direct ones ones- roads/public transit, local schools and whatnot. Then you've got the slightly harder to count ones- fire and police, though we can count these as insurance-type costs. Now we get to the ones that are impossible to enumerate. What's the price of having the armed forces protect our country? What's the value of providing student loans to people, thus giving us an educated workforce? What's the cost of having someone tell us what the weather is going to be like, or predicting the next hurricane or earthquake?
You say that governments should follow the same basic economic rules businesses do, but would this really help or hinder private business? By this token Google, Cisco, and just about every major company should be paying the US government obscene royalties for using the internet. DARPA did, after all, invent it, so it's only fair to license it for what it's worth. How about medical research, or the stuff that's come out of NASA? The government has given so much away, whereas any private corporation would have patented and licensed the crap out of it. Let's be honest- how many private companies are financing risky research nowadays?
There are many reasons to be against the taxation proposed here. I think that any money made overseas shouldn't be taxable in the US because, quite honestly, the money wasn't made here. I'd be fine with companies bringing cash back to the US tax-free because that'd be more money that can be spent in our borders. Your argument, however, is silly. You can't tabulate how much government you use because it's everywhere. Hell, I think throwing 30+% of your profits to taxes is a pretty fair deal considering we live in a pretty stable society. There's also an issue of fairness- if you get rich because of a underpaid populous that's denied basic benefits (and the government steps in to provide them), it's only fair that you actually pay for the benefits needed for the workers that are used. As broken as the system is, the gov't does provide a basic safety net that corporations don't, and this is something we indeed need.
Re:Corps sometimes help more than gov't (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, like it or not, it turns out that money is a really amazing motivator for human behavior. Compare Wal-Mart to FEMA. Wal-Mart gets it right. FEMA doesn't. Yes, Wal-Mart is doing it for a profit, but unlike FEMA they're actually succeeding in it.
So, yes, all of your points are completely true, but I also find them rather irrelevant if the end effect is what we're going for.
You have the $$$ to sue Exxon? (Score:3, Insightful)
I am not American so please educate me. You're saying an individual would be able to sue Exxon and win? Won't Exxon (etc) just throw a million dollars on the table and say "we can afford this for lawyers, how about you?" and win by default? A million (or ten million) to them is just small change and they won't even blink.
I understand that several noble people have stood up to major corporations and won but this seems to usually be at the cost of giving up their job, using all their life time savings, ruining their social and personal lives, spending half a dozen years living on the breadline and learning to be a lawyer in the local public library ten hours a day. Technically it is possible but the odds are loaded in favour of the corporation. They have more power than people. For the vast majority of us this just isn't feasible, we have to go to work 9-5 and raise kids etc. We can't afford to sacrifice our lives and just have to put up with the proverbial bulldozer company pouring waste fluids into our yards when it happens..
Re:Corps sometimes help more than gov't (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait a moment, now. I'll remind you that I drove truck for years. I delivered many loads of building materials to the devastated areas in Louisiana and Mississippi after Katrina. I'll give Walmart some credit for doing what you say - but Walmart trucks were NOT moving in the most devastated areas. They simply were not. The materials I moved were moved under various contracts, some of which were government contracts. I think it safe to say that ALL of those infamous mobile homes were moved under government contracts. Probably 80% of the early stage building materials were moved under government contract, and that was reduced over time to near zero percent. Medical and other real emergency supplies, as well as water and food started out near 100% government, and tapered off over time.
Wal-mart didn't deliver ANY of the mountains of bottled water that I saw stockpiled around New Orleans soon after Katrina. The National Guard delivered most of it. I can't say where the NG acquired the water - I can only say for certain that the NG unloaded it from their trucks, and from private OTR trucks. Not Walmart trucks.
Be careful that you don't buy into that Walmart corporate propaganda. A few photo ops, and an unlimited marketing budget don't make Walmart the saviours of any disaster. Walmart people were being rescued during and after Katrina, more than they were rescuing.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:2, Insightful)
So are you saying that Exxon did not benefit from the Iraqi production being reduced to almost nothing for a few years when the market was already tight?
Re:So, what now? (Score:4, Insightful)
Two examples:
In the end, countries are competing with each other for corporations.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:3, Insightful)
My government provides me with a lot of services whether I can pay them or not. Corporations won't do anything for me without payment.
Re:Value Added Tax (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like a recipe for a much larger and more expensive bureaucracy to me. Rather than taking a simple 20% you have to monitor every single use of government services by every individual.
Re:Close the loop holes (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with a sales tax is that it punishes the poor disproportionately because more of their income is spent on necessities than the rich, who can buy lots of frivolous crap. It results in a larger percentage of the taxpayer's income being spent on taxes on necessities. This is why a progressive income tax makes sense. Unfortunately, the system has been perverted by permitting loopholes. Take them away and it will work fine. If the corporations and the richest among us (the top ten of which paid taxes on only 50% of their income in 2000, for example) were actually forced to shoulder their fair share of the load, then the burden on the average American citizen would be quite manageable.
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:3, Insightful)
The actual government taxing authorities are a bit more direct about it, but it's pretty much the same idea.
Re:So, what now? (Score:3, Insightful)
Corporations may not be patriotic, but does "patriotic loyalty" demand that we take no steps to reduce our taxes?
I don't think I implied that. There's nothing wrong with reducing your tax burden. The problem comes when you eliminate your tax burden entirely.
If you live/work in this country then you should contribute your fair share. That's it.
But companies like Exxon aren't playing fair. The average US citizen can't hide their income streams in offshore accounts or shell corporations that just have a PO box. And if they did they'd get locked up.
Companies like Exxon make large uses of OUR infrastructure, and pay nothing for it. If you don't feel like these companies aren't ripping you off then you're not paying attention.
Is the government such an omnibenevolent entity that sending money elsewhere is morally repugnant?
The government nominally has to answer to the people. Companies don't answer to anyone. Even their shareholders (as long as they're not majority shareholders).
Hasn't the Supreme Court maintained that tax avoidance is not tax evasion, and that reduction of taxes within the scope that the law permits is A-OK not-morally-repugnant-at-all?
Tax avoidance is fine. In fact, I would have no problems with you not paying taxes at all. Under one condition though: you cannot use any publicly funded infrastructure/entities/etc. . If you don't want to pay for it, you don't get it.
That's what pisses me off. These big ass corporations, some of which we just bailed out, make huge uses out of our publicly funded entities and infrastructure. And yet most of them pay almost nothing in federal taxes. In fact, some of them also get subsidies.
I don't care if they don't pay taxes. I just don't want them to get all the perks for free.
And where does all that tax savings go, anyway?
Not where you think it does.
Corporations themselves are frequently called "greedy" but they don't really have much need to accumulate tons of money for their own bank accounts;
Bank accounts? Why would a corporation put money in a bank account? That's an extremely lousy asset.
No, corporations have far more creative uses for that income. You won't see a lot of it of course, since the money is offshore and not necessarily subject to the same rules and regulations that we have here in the US. But a chunk of it goes to lobbying/bribing/whatever in order to ensure the sweet deals keep coming their way. Another chunk of it goes to the top of the pyramid. Another chunk goes to Coorporate penthouses, jets, Mercedes, etc. . So on and so forth.
Corporations have LOTS of uses for extra income that doesn't necessarily show itself on the books. Only a foolish business would keep cash lying around.
it's not like General Electric is saving up to buy a really nice condo for itself.
O_o
Corporations are always buying condos/jets/cars/yachts/etc. . It's a nice way to give the big boys toys to play with without it showing up as compensation (while giving the company a way to write off more taxes through depreciating assets).
Doesn't the money either go towards income for shareholders (which is taxed, except for those things like IRAs and ESAs that we've decided are noble and good)
Not really, unless there is a dividend. And even that is paltry compared to the amount saved by not paying taxes.
or investments into business somewhere (which will presumably generate income for shareholders in the future, and generates economic activity in the present?)
Companies only invest when it is profitable to do so. "Safe" investments, like buying out a competitor and dissolving them for example. These days even that is taking a back set to the manufacture and sale of imaginary financial products.
Trickle down eco
Re:If I could do it, I would! (Score:3, Insightful)
If the government weren't there, they'd just pay for security if the land is worthwhile and productive.
Until someone else pays for an armed force that's stronger than that security. Maybe it's just me, but living in a society where day-to-day life is determined by who has the biggest guns doesn't seem much fun.