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thewayne"Barack Obama has squared up for a major battle with big business, announcing a crackdown on offshore tax avoidance and evasion by US multinationals that's designed to raise $210B and make it easier for companies to create 'good jobs here at home'. Obama cited a building in the Cayman Islands where more than 18,000 US companies are housed: 'Either this is the biggest building in the world or it is the biggest tax scam in the world,' he said. 'I think the American people know which it is.' The administration says that more than a third of US foreign profits in 2003 came from Bermuda, the Netherlands and Ireland, and noted US companies paid an effective tax rate of just 2.3% on the $700bn they earned in foreign profits in 2004. Among tech companies affected by the crackdown, Microsoft joined 200 companies who signed a letter complaining that the proposed tax changes would put them at a disadvantage with their rivals, Cisco moaned that the measures 'would adversely impact our ability to invest and grow our business in the US,' and Google declined to comment for the time being."
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/04/2031252&art_pos=9
I find this so funny. Microsoft complaining that paying higher taxes will put them at a disadvantage with their rivals? WHAT RIVALS?!
How many of these companies are wanting Federal stimulus/bailout money? Microsoft opened an office in Ireland that consists of an attorney and his staff, and that's now their European HQ and shitloads of money from European sales get funneled through it because Ireland has a lower tax rate. How about Halliburton moving their HQ to Qatar "so it's closer to their major operations"? (ignoring the obvious aspect of it's a safe-haven if any current or former executives come close to getting indicted for war crimes) And let's throw in another Microsoft story: they couldn't get the H1B Visa cap raised or an exemption so they could hire more foreign workers and bring them here, so they opened a center in Canada, an hour's flight from their Washington HQ.
They not only want to have their cake and eat it too, they want everyone else to buy their cake for them. Sorry! If you want to be an American corporation or citizen, then you need to help fund the American government through taxes at both the Federal and local levels and you need to help create JOBS HERE. I have no problem with helping create jobs in other countries, but when you move most of your operations to countries with less expensive work forces -- I have a problem with that.
And while they're at it, if the company's HQ is not on American soil paying taxes, un-ass their lobbyists from Congress. If you're not an American corporation or concern, then you should get your government to represent you through diplomatic channels. And also skew government procurement to American corporations based on American soil: if you want the American government to give your corp money, then you'd damn well better base your corp here and pay reasonable taxes on it.
Gee, maybe if Microsoft payed more in taxes to the American government, which helps fund universities, we would have higher quality IT graduates and they wouldn't complain that they MUST hire H1B's because the quality of the American work force isn't good enough.
Maybe taxes are high, there's certainly no doubt that the tax code is so labyrinthine that no one can easily answer that question. For some categories of people they certainly are, self-employed get hit pretty hard and some things like that should be re-evaluated and changed. But corporations have been dodging taxes for far too long, they need to start paying. Among the many things that Obama wants to reform is the tax code, and I say hooray for that! But corporations have got to pay their share of taxes, there's no other way around it.
OK, Deb! Flame away! :-)
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/04/2031252&art_pos=9
I find this so funny. Microsoft complaining that paying higher taxes will put them at a disadvantage with their rivals? WHAT RIVALS?!
How many of these companies are wanting Federal stimulus/bailout money? Microsoft opened an office in Ireland that consists of an attorney and his staff, and that's now their European HQ and shitloads of money from European sales get funneled through it because Ireland has a lower tax rate. How about Halliburton moving their HQ to Qatar "so it's closer to their major operations"? (ignoring the obvious aspect of it's a safe-haven if any current or former executives come close to getting indicted for war crimes) And let's throw in another Microsoft story: they couldn't get the H1B Visa cap raised or an exemption so they could hire more foreign workers and bring them here, so they opened a center in Canada, an hour's flight from their Washington HQ.
They not only want to have their cake and eat it too, they want everyone else to buy their cake for them. Sorry! If you want to be an American corporation or citizen, then you need to help fund the American government through taxes at both the Federal and local levels and you need to help create JOBS HERE. I have no problem with helping create jobs in other countries, but when you move most of your operations to countries with less expensive work forces -- I have a problem with that.
And while they're at it, if the company's HQ is not on American soil paying taxes, un-ass their lobbyists from Congress. If you're not an American corporation or concern, then you should get your government to represent you through diplomatic channels. And also skew government procurement to American corporations based on American soil: if you want the American government to give your corp money, then you'd damn well better base your corp here and pay reasonable taxes on it.
Gee, maybe if Microsoft payed more in taxes to the American government, which helps fund universities, we would have higher quality IT graduates and they wouldn't complain that they MUST hire H1B's because the quality of the American work force isn't good enough.
Maybe taxes are high, there's certainly no doubt that the tax code is so labyrinthine that no one can easily answer that question. For some categories of people they certainly are, self-employed get hit pretty hard and some things like that should be re-evaluated and changed. But corporations have been dodging taxes for far too long, they need to start paying. Among the many things that Obama wants to reform is the tax code, and I say hooray for that! But corporations have got to pay their share of taxes, there's no other way around it.
OK, Deb! Flame away! :-)
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-05 12:09 pm (UTC)I can see the other side, that Americans have gotten to expect a really high wage and standard of living...and that needs to get revised, too. We're guaranteed the right to pursue happiness, not necessarily to get it with an H2 or Lexus and a plasma TV. It is cheaper to get people from other countries to do the work, mainly 'cause they don't expect those things. I think maybe that needs to be part of the equation, too.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-05 12:15 pm (UTC)We are a corporation (based on American soil) and you damn well better believe that we and our lawyers and accountants will take every break the code allows. This "paying taxes is patriotic" bullshit is laughable.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-05 05:10 pm (UTC)