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260 Comments
- inactive, on 05/12/2009, -24/+57Time to take away US "citizenship" for multinational companies that are not acting like US citizens. If they pay a smaller percentage in taxes than people citizens, they aren't really American.
Any corporation that does things in other countries that would be illegal in the US should be disqualified from US personhood status. They don't deserve citizenship status if they don't pay federal minimum wages to ALL their employees (even those overseas), if they violate US environmental and US human rights laws in any country, if they commit treason or murder in pursuit of profits, or if they do anything that would be illegal if a person did it in the United States.
We need to hold USA companies to the same standard no matter where they are doing business -- or they can't be a USA company anymore. Once person-hood and citizenship status is stripped away, they won't be able to poison our political system with lobbyists or multi-million dollar handouts to politicians. Then maybe Congress will do what the voters want instead of what multinational corporations want. And maybe the rest of the world will respect us for keeping our corporations from doing harm in their countries. - Protonz, on 05/12/2009, -13/+45Why is it that people want these corporations to pay more taxes? To me it seems more logical that everyone else should pay fewer taxes.
Unless of course you enjoy funding the TSA, Homeland Security, CIA, multiple overseas wars, the war on drugs, and the prison system. - nickymouse, on 05/12/2009, -8/+40Why is it that the US is the only country that taxes the corporation for profits that are made in the country and out of the country? Why can't a US corporation make a profit in Germany and keep it in Germany for reinvestment?
- govsucks, on 05/12/2009, -11/+35some people just won't be happy til they chase every company out of American, then, with a straight face, they will ask their politicians "What happened to our jobs" and promptly blame the rich. Look people, if thieves came to my house everyday, I WOULD ***** MOVE AS WELL!
- brenisa, on 05/12/2009, -2/+26Doing that wouldn't have the effect you desire. For example, if you required federal minimum wages to be paid overseas, then companies would simply outsource that phase of a project to an overseas contract, ensuring that costs were controlled. And they would have less control over labor and technology than before. Not convinced? Most cruise liners are registered to foreign countries to avoid having to deal with US safety and legal regulations, or rather - when companies find it cheaper to become a foreign company, they will become foreign companies. What about tech companies? Well taxing them higher might seem to make sense, but tech is competitive and if you have higher tax rates than your fellow foreign competitors, it means less money for your own products, people and investments than your competitor does for the same work. US companies wouldn't be able to compete overseas in this environment and would have to cede 50% of their sales to foreign companies.
Companies are not people. They don't care about citizenship and don't have feelings. They care about making money in the most efficient way possible. That is their whole purpose for being. - TINZUSA, on 05/12/2009, -4/+24Tax "dodging" is no myth. I used to work in offshore wealth management in the British Channel Island of Guernsey. Part of my training was learning to carefully distinguish between tax "avoidance" and tax "evasion". Wealthy people and companies do take advantage of complex laws to lessen or negate their tax burdens. It is all legal, but there remains the argument on whether it is ethical and whether it is fair.
- inactive, on 05/12/2009, -16/+35"Loyalty matters."
Loyalty to what? A rapacious, degenerate government that confiscates 50% of what we earn, and still has to borrow another 50% to make ends meet, then brow beats us for more? I prefer treason. - ModernScholar, on 05/11/2009, -5/+24I think we should have significant corporate tax reform because the author is right when they say the current situation is a "cesspool", but this proposal does nothing to reduce that problem. All it does is raise taxes on corporations' foreign income, while still solidifying the patchwork system of taxation we currently have. How about instead of this we just tax our corporations like our European friends? That would be better from both a liberal and conservative perspective......
- inactive, on 05/12/2009, -4/+23"Fair share"? If I do 50% of my business in Panama, I have to pay tax on 100% of the profit to the US government.
Seriously, pinch the people that create wealth. Hate them. Demonize them. Punish them.
Watch what happens. - thenoxx, on 05/12/2009, -5/+24No, but I do enjoy funding the FDA, health inspectors for restaurants, the fire department, libraries, public shools, highways, and veterans' benefits.
- TimtheTaxMan, on 05/12/2009, -4/+16As someone who does this for a living, I think we should eliminate the corporate income tax and eliminate the special rate for dividends.
However, if we must tax corporate income, it should be simple. I propose a progressive system like the one we have now based simply on GAAP net income. No special depreciation rules or credits for anything, just straight GAAP net income multiplied by whatever rate brackets are decided on. Since management is under pressure to increase net income, there will be no incentive to gerrymander with the numbers to avoid tax because lower tax will mean lower net income. - tao52nyc, on 05/12/2009, -1/+13The US is the only country in the western world that taxes its citizens no matter where they live in the world or the source of income. Canadians, by contrast, despite their higher taxes, only pay tax on earnings IN CANADA.
Sadly, there are far too many people who deeply resent the superior earning ability of others. - MindStalker, on 05/12/2009, -1/+13Agreed. In fact we should treat all international companies as if they are foreign governments. Because in reality they are, some of them even own enough land to be considered a nation if they wanted to. None of them have made themselves into a nation because that would have negative PR and other issue, but I think we should treat them as a foreign nation, and any products they bring in should be taxed as if they came from a foreign nation.
- blast_flame, on 05/12/2009, -4/+16I wouldn't say that. Allowing people to live their lives as they see fit is very fair.
- inactive, on 05/12/2009, -8/+19Multinational corporations are the product of increasing globalization that started post-world war two.
Globalization is the product of a world wide capitalist system which favors no countries. It favors profits and corporate owners.
MNC's strive for the highest profit, seek the cheapest labour and avoid taxes where ever possible. - mothrabc, on 05/12/2009, -4/+15The problem with this tax policy is that US companies are forced to compete against countries with a far small corporate tax rate. In the end, that puts US business at a competitive disadvantage, which is totally counterproductive.
- dygel, on 05/12/2009, -4/+13The way our tax code works, no business pays its "fair share" of taxes. Corporations don't pay taxes like individuals do. Whereas individual citizens pay tax on their gross earnings, corporations pay tax on their net revenues. That means that whatever we do to them, they cook the books and pass the taxes onto ourselves.
I'm all for sticking it to people who are slouching off tax burden, but going after multinationals just isn't going to help us. It just makes it harder for US-based multinationals (i.e. General Electric) to compete with foreign based multinationals (i.e. Siemens). In this economy, do we really want that?
The problem is that the existing tax code is a really crappy tool for doing anything at all "fair". In addition, the US tax code is one of the most Cyclopean works of legislation in the history of man; we spend hundreds of billions of dollars every years just in paying our taxes. The notion of making the tax code MORE complex just brings bile to the mouth.
I'm all for wanting to talk about tax reform, but this is just spinning in circles. There's a number of alternate proposals out there - go take a look at them. Think outside the box. - tdclark23, on 05/12/2009, -2/+11Freedom isn't free, it is paid for with taxes. That said, as you point out, we spend a lot of our tax dollars on those things which make us less free.
- AbsurdParadox, on 05/12/2009, -2/+11Businesses use to move to the United States for the reasons they are now leaving. Seems to me if we want to be a "powerhouse" again, we need to recreate the same environment -- low taxes, low regulation, easy immigration. I do not understand why people are against these things... personally, I like freedom.
- gattan007, on 05/12/2009, -8/+17I think you probably see "fair" and "just" as synonyms, most people seem to. But they really aren't. Justice is everyone getting what they deserve, that is very much in line with freedom and liberty. Fairness is everyone getting the same thing, that is very much the opposite of freedom and liberty.
- marksism, on 05/12/2009, -0/+9Unfortunately, you can't pay the garbageman with a bucket of Soldier Blood, so eventually yeah taxes have to come into play.
Learned that one the hard way. - inactive, on 05/12/2009, -7/+16"We like to think that "our companies" serve the broad national interest rather than just scouring the world for the cheapest labor"
Scouring the globe for cheap labor is exactly what they do. They also use "tax free zones" and shell games. I don't know how anyone can read this article and actually believe it. Probably because they have been watching television and are ready to drink any glass of kool aid handed them.
The usual corporate complaints about how paying their taxes and paying fair wages keeps them from being competitive do not arouse my sympathy.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-al ... - Narcism, on 05/12/2009, -2/+10And I suppose schools and roads will magically appear and be maintained?
- lead2thehead, on 05/12/2009, -4/+12You people think that HIGHER taxes on businesses is the answer? The reason they're all moving overseas in the first place is because the taxes are too high here. The U.S. leads the world in corporate taxes right now and as a result, American businesses cannot compete in the global market. We need to make it attractive for businesses to stay, not give them another reason to leave.
- inactive, on 05/12/2009, -1/+8I am not making a judgment on if it is good or bad, I am just illuminating the fact that globalization is the exact opposite of nationalism.
Nationalism/Patriotism is what the founding fathers of America strove for. An independently strong United States which which would act in the greatest interests of the U.S. citizens.
Globalizations acts for the interests of the stakeholders of MNC's.
It's quite simple, but people cant just see it.
Globalization = uber capitalism. Capitalism and nationalism can't co-exist. - mrmod, on 05/12/2009, -1/+8don't be a naive worker bee. when you can shift your profit centers to more tax favorable business locations on paper but not necessarily in reality, i'm pretty sure that's called 'cheating' not 'competing'
but to argue your point, German autoworkers make $35/hr (UAW $28/h4) before benefits are added. strangely, they are expanding and into the US since our labor is cheaper. additionally, they pay US and EU taxes (as local businesses). - rhoonah, on 05/12/2009, -4/+11shredluc, you keep your money. I am sure that you would be the first one looking to sue if you caught Swine Flu and there was no CDC to protect you.
- connieLingus, on 05/12/2009, -5/+12corporations don't pay taxes, their customers do...all a corporation is is a P&L statement based on sales and expenses, and taxes are just an expense. the only way to offset that expense is to raise prices, making you and I pay more.
- JHW539, on 05/12/2009, -0/+7Are you including the mandatory minimum of 5 weeks paid vacation required by most of our European friends as a tax? In some countries, it's 8 weeks fully paid. That's a tax I could get behind, but it is a bit less business friendly than our current profits tax - you MUST provide your employees those weeks/months of paid vacation even if you have zero profit versus our current system that only pulls money out when a company is healthy enough to turn a profit.
- bombula, on 05/12/2009, -5/+11"Myths" my ass.
The article is just cherry-picked *****. The author cites Wal-Mart as an example of why it's a 'myth' transnational corporations don't send jobs overseas. The 'reason' why, it explains, is that Wal-Mart has opened stores in other countries. What a crock. It doesn't mention that Wal-Mart has put tens of thousands of small local business under in the US. It doesn't mention that over 90% of manufactured goods sold at Wal-Mart are made outside the US (mostly in China).
And as a retailer, Wal-Mart is a biased example in itself. What about Nike, Apple, HP, Levis, GM, GE, Alpo, and a thousand other companies who are primarily _manufacturers_? No one claims that _retail_ jobs have been offshored to India and China. That's idiotic. It's manufacturing jobs that have been displaced.
The article also repeats that old and busted conservative whine that "America's top corporate tax rate exceeds 39 percent; among wealthy nations, only Japan's is higher (slightly)". But the debate is not about what the tax rate _should_ be. That's not the issue. The issue is whether or not corporations are _paying_ that rate, whether on income earned at home or abroad. If they are, great. If they're not, they're BREAKING THE LAW. According to the government's own survey, many corporations don't pay any taxes at all:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN124946 ...
The tax rate is 39% but the rate that corporations actually pay on their total earnings is closer to 3.9%.
The only 'myth' here is that this article is something other than standard right-wing boilerplate for the trickle-down economics that make ***** corporate CEOs and shareholders rich while destroying the American middle class. - foucaultsvac, on 05/12/2009, -2/+8The U.S. government needs to compete other nations for businesses. Raising taxes and imposing more resource-sucking regulations to follow will only make businesses pass the cost onto customers or find a better environment in order to actually stay in business. Why are we blaming these businesses for wanting to survive?
It's fairly simple. No government official can change the laws of mathematics no matter how smart they think they are. - jezsik, on 05/12/2009, -2/+8Government supports big business only because they're the ones paying the politicians and writing the laws. I recall reading that it's the small and medium sized businesses that employ the most people in the US. Going after the big business can only help in the long run (if only by leveling the playing field).
- snogye, on 05/12/2009, -1/+7taxes are destroying America. No end in sight.
- inactive, on 05/12/2009, -2/+8"Unless taxes are voluntary (at which point they become donations), taxes are stealing the products of my labor"
No, taxes are not theft. You live in something called a "society." In a society, you have to have trade-offs, and taxes are part of that. If you don't like the rules of this society, you're welcome to find a desert island somewhere and setup your own or convince the rest of us that your idea is indeed the utopia you make it out to be. - ByteMeAHole, on 05/12/2009, -2/+8When every Congressman/Senator/Governor is audited every year - I'll start to believe they are serious about people paying what they should (look at how many picks for Cabinet positions this year haven't been paying taxes). At the moment, they just ignore the laws they pass for everyone else, and this non-sense about Corporations is them trying to deflect the scrutiny onto others...
The problem isn't that companies, or the American people aren't paying their fair share (only 10% of the tax payers pay 70% of the taxes), but that the government can't control its out-of-control spending. A flat-tax (so everyone pays something) would make it so that more people would scream about government waste, but when 50% pay nothing, there is no incentive for them to vote these people out of office. - inactive, on 05/12/2009, -1/+7Canada highest bracket corporate tax rate is below America's. Also the conservative government has set the corporate tax rate to be the lowest in the G8 in the next 5 years I think.
I want to explain the philosophy inside and outside the United States. Basically, American's have been spoiled. You guys have had the lowest tax rates and the free markets in the world and it makes you the most prosperous.
We're finding more people that call themselves "social democrats" (left wing) that are starting to recognize that you have to let business make money. Some of the more high taxed countries are starting to realize that you can't redistribute wealth, if there's none being created.
I don't know how anyone could deny that lower tax rates are a bad thing. Even if you're a *****' socialist, you should see the value in lower tax rates. All the social ills that people talk about are all the result of money and people not having it.
If you want money, there needs to be production. We need businesses that want to create jobs because they'll make more money.
The fact of the matter is that no one is going to work harder, if they're just going to be punished for it.If we want to see prosperity, if we want to see people pulled out of poverty, we need to let people make money. And I'm not talking about under $200,000. We need people that can go out, work hard and make billions. - SwiftKick34, on 05/12/2009, -6/+12I am so sick of this arbitrary "fair" share garbage. Who assigns what is fair? "Fairness" is nothing but a tool of class-warfare.
And Madoff is hardly the image to invoke of any multi-national; they are on two completely separate levels. - JQP123, on 05/12/2009, -0/+6"I agree that you have a point, but what you are essentially saying is that we must just ignore that corporate spike up our collective asses."
No, the point is that the "corporate spike up our collective asses" that you speak of is not real --- it's a psychosomatic symptom brought on by your lack of economic insight. Politicans like to manipulate and exacerbate your condition because it benefits them.
Think about this: Why are corporate taxes lower in almost very country outside the US? Is it because the rest of the world is stupid? Or perhaps they understand something that you don't? - mithrasinvictus, on 05/12/2009, -2/+7If they want to participate in foreign economies that's fine.
If they want to import the products manufactured by taking advantage of third-world labour laws, tax those products as they come in. If they want to offshore profits to avoid taxation, tax the money as it crosses the border.
"for every 10 percent increase in U.S. multinationals' overseas payrolls, their American payrolls increase almost 4 percent."
But it's not the people that just lost their jobs that get the extra income, is it? - freedomcereal, on 05/12/2009, -1/+6I'm surprised the article doesn't address the use of subsidiaries abroad: if Exxon wants to set up shop in Kazakhstan, the first thing they do is set up a subsidiary for that country. But I'd like to know how such foreign income is taxed, both abroad and here, when it is earned this way.
- shark72, on 05/12/2009, -1/+6Many US-based multinationals do just that. You can defer bringing the profit into the US indefinitely; when you do bring it over; you get a credit for the taxes paid in the other country. But if it behooves you to keep your profits in, say, Germany and reinvest them there, you'll pay taxes at the German rate until you repatriate your earnings.
I've worked for a couple of multinationals in the computer peripheral space which were formed in other countries with very lax tax laws compared to the USA. Even though these companies do significant business in the USA, they keep their profits in their home country by having the USA regional office "buy" the products from the home office at an inflated price. When the US office in turn sells the products at retail, they make less profit (which is taxed at the US rate) but the profit made by the home office at the inflated transfer cost is recognized as profit at the home office in the country with the lower tax rate.
Fun, fun stuff. - TINZUSA, on 05/12/2009, -3/+8I feel that the mistake we have all made with capitalism is to allow companies to become so large. Their power exceeds that of governments these days and they have the wealth to ignore or bend laws, either by lobbying, corruption or by arguing semantics with expensive lawyers. We should break up the large corporations into smaller competitive units. After all, you would not invest all your money in one or two stocks as an investor, because you need diversity to reduce risk. By allowing corporations to have such wide control, we risk corruption bringing our economy to a halt, like the bank bailouts, car bailouts etc.
- SpinningHead, on 05/12/2009, -0/+5"Fairness is everyone getting the same thing, that is very much the opposite of freedom and liberty."
Um...so if you play a sport and the game is fair, nobody wins? Fairness is holding everyone to consistent standards. - tsotha, on 05/12/2009, -1/+6Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as "bad luck."
- R.A. Heinlein - blipblopblip, on 05/12/2009, -3/+8See - this is a big trap. Problem, reaction, solution:
Problem: Multinationals not paying tax
Reaction: Global problem, Global Solution (TM)
Solution: More world government. - YZBot, on 05/12/2009, -0/+5Then no one would miss it if we got rid of it?
- trevor98, on 05/12/2009, -1/+6This is asinine and assumes that all other aspects of a Transnational Corporation's (TNC) business will remain steady regardless of this one "little" change. Unfortunately that isn't even close to reality. At best, these schemes would raise the price of "US" goods world wide (as TNCs pass the "tax" onto buyers) and many of their customers would follow the low prices elsewhere (possibly putting the business under)- a net decrease in tax revenue. At worst, remaining "US" TNCs would move to some place with lower tax rates and dry up this entire revenue stream. Either way implementing the corporate tax reform in this spirit will result in lower revenues not more.
- nickem, on 05/12/2009, -2/+7There is income tax and there is profit tax. If there was no profit (Corporate) tax:
- price of goods would be lower for the consumer
- the cost of exported goods would be lower for the importer of US goods
- The political lobby would be dead. Fewer Corporate dollars would be spent toward obtaining tax breaks and the cost of goods would be reduced.
- The lost tax dollars could be picked up with a simple "point of final sale" product tax.
- Corporate taxes are a hidden tax on the people no matter how it's sliced - and it can not be deducted at the end of the year!
- Let the free market forces of competition and product satisfaction be the driving force. - mrmod, on 05/12/2009, -0/+4this is a discussion about justness not fairness.
- TimtheTaxMan, on 05/12/2009, -0/+4Foreign income is taxed by the local jurisdiction and that tax can be deducted from any US taxes owed. For example, if China taxes income at 10% and the US charges 35% you pay China your 10% and than deduct that from your US taxes giving you an effective US rate of 25%.
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