Okay, so you and I pay our taxes as is expected. Our tax dollars are used to bailout some of the largest companies and federal contractors in the country, and what do those CEO's do? Move the money into
offshore tax havens. Does that sound fair?
A majority of America's largest publicly traded companies and the U.S. government's largest federal contractors -- including some receiving millions in federal bailout money -- use multiple subsidiaries in offshore tax havens to conduct business and avoid paying U.S. taxes, a new report finds.
The new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, released today by Sens. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), lists Citigroup and Morgan Stanley as having set up hundreds of tax haven subsidiaries, along with American International Group and Bank of America. Also in the tax-haven list are well-known companies and such federal contractors as American Express, Pepsi and Caterpillar.
GAO, searching publicly available data filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, determined that 83 of the 100 largest publicly traded corporations and 63 of the 100 largest federal contractors maintain subsidiaries in countries generally considered havens for avoiding taxes. Dorgan and Levin said they requested the updated report from one several years ago because they are focused on combating offshore tax abuses, which they estimated cause $100 billion in lost U.S. tax revenue each year. [...]
The practice is legal, but Dorgan and Levin are hoping to gain the support of President-elect Barack Obama for legislation that would outlaw it.
"This report shows that some of our country's largest companies and federal contractors, many of which are household names, continue to use offshore tax havens to avoid paying their fair share of taxes to the U.S. And, some of those companies have even received emergency economic funds from the government," Dorgan said. "I think we should take action to shut down these tax dodgers, and we will be introducing legislation to do just that."
And in the Coke-Pepsi wars it seems Pepsi has 70 tax haven subsidiaries, while Coca Cola has eight. As one of their slogans says: things go better with Coke!
Okay, so you and I pay our taxes as is expected. Our tax dollars are used to bailout some of the largest companies and federal contractors in the country, and what do those CEO's do? Move the money into offshore tax havens. Does that sound fair?
6 comments:
The Bail Out Game
There is is new web based game called the "Bail Out Game." It has you driving a truck load of money around a Monopoly like board while you make decisions about what companies to bail out. Economic events like stock market drops often occur. This would be hilarious if it didn't so closely resemble reality. You can play it here. Have fun while the money lasts
The rules are only for the little people, right? That would explain it.
TIR - thanks for stopping by, I'll check it out.
Lisa - so true!
BAC
I knew there was a reason I liked Coke better than Pepsi!
Liberality - me, too!
BAC
BAC -
One of the things that makes me crazy (in addition to the offshore tax havens) are all the GOPers who perpetually say that next the the Japanese, we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world.
While that might be true on paper, the effective tax rate is near zero, and in the case of some very large companies it is a negative number.
What does that mean? It means that these companies not only do not pay any taxes, many gets rebates in the neighborhood of tens of millions yearly. Because of loopholes, incentives, tax holidays, deductions, you name it.
So why do the GOPers want lower corporate tax rates? Because then their Corporate Pay masters will get even more money.
Regards,
Tengrain
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