Wednesday, March 9, 2011
How much money do you have in your wallet?
No matter how much – or how little - it’s more than General Electric, ExxonMobil, Citibank and the Bank of America pay in taxes, according to Carl Gibson, founder of US Uncut.
Gutting services to vulnerable groups in the name of deficit reduction is both immoral and inefficient. There are other options for solving the budget and economy crises we’re in, and I want to look into one of the big ones – corporate tax avoidance.
The Government Accountability Office, “an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress,” said that nearly two-thirds of U.S. companies pay no federal taxes. They make enormous sums of money within the U.S. and give back nothing to the federal government. This results in hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue.
How do they do this? The answers are complicated. Sometimes corporations will say one individual made a profit but it wasn’t related to the company, or they’ll keep their money offshore, or they will keep an office in another country and declare themselves to be a multinational corporation or they manipulate their numbers in other ways to make it look like there was no profit.
Even if we weren’t facing these difficult economic times, corporate tax avoidances would still be ethically wrong. They have the privilege of selling here, making profits and writing off employee health insurance, and they are able to donate to political campaigns.
The government even bailed out some of these companies.
As Johann Hari of UK Uncut said, they also enjoy the same basic benefits of regular taxpayers: streets, police and garbage collection. Except that for taxpayers, these aren’t really benefits. Taxpayers work and pay for these services.
Corporations don’t pay for any of it.
This is not fair. There are billions of dollars in uncollected taxes, and that has consequences.
The American people deserve to keep our poison control centers and maternal health grants. People deserve arts programs and PBS. People deserve schools that are open. People deserve the security of their food stamps and Medicaid and unemployment insurance, especially in these tough times. We deserve to do what we can for ourselves and know that the government will do what we can’t alone.
Though Congress and Obama want to cut funding for social services, the public doesn’t. This is because the public uses these programs. Indeed, polls such as the one from “60 Minutes” and “Vanity Fair” show that the most popular solution to the economy was to increase taxes on the rich, which can be translated into corporations.
If Congress and the White House really want to save the economy, ensure fairness and give the public what they are owed, they will listen to their constituents and focus on the missing cash from the federal budget that should already be there… Then see how big of a budget shortfall exists.
It’s ludicrous that defunding public health programs is the first solution that occurs to our politicians.
Free is a sophomore from Blue Springs, Mo., in women’s studies.
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Comments
Free: Corporate tax avoidance just one reason for large budget shortfalls
This is a nonsensical article. Corporations pass 100% of their taxation off onto their customers in the form of higher prices, so any tax on a corporation is an indirect tax on the precious "vulnerable groups" the author mentions. The real problem is that when a state starts taxing its companies out of business, they leave...and so do the jobs for the "middle class." Amazing how that only seems to happen in liberal democrat union states like Michigan, California, and New York. Don't worry though...right to work states like Nebraska and Texas will gladly take them.
Also, it is perfectly logical that the most popular solution for fixing the deficit is to raise taxes on the "rich" and on businesses. When you have nearly HALF the population who don't pay any effective income tax, why would they care how high business taxes are or how high of a rate the rich are paying?
The author needs to grow up and develop some informed opinions, or at least take an economics or accounting course. Probably difficult to fit that in though, what with all the women's studies courses in the catalog.
Free: Corporate tax avoidance just one reason for large budget shortfalls
You missed the part where the GAO has also commented on the fact that the reason corporations spend the time and money to find ways around paying corporate taxes (usually by making sure their assets are all held overseas) is because the US has some of the highest corporate taxes in the world. If you want to get corporations to pay taxes, try lowering the corporate tax rate to a reasonable level.
Free: Corporate tax avoidance just one reason for large budget shortfalls
So, Thatcher, what you're saying is we should whore ourselves out for corporations or they won't want us anymore. In order to whore ourselves more efficiently, we need to cut the measly twelve percent of our budget devoted to social services.
If only we could be good little whores like China and allow lead in our children's toys.
Yeah, that makes much more sense than this dumb little article.
Free: Corporate tax avoidance just one reason for large budget shortfalls
A women's studies major??? No wonder you don't understand that Thatcher is absolutely correct; all taxes a corporation pays are passed onto the consumer (that's us). So in the end a company pays no taxes, we do. This been a tool of class warfare practiced by the left in this country. Hate the BIG "fill in the blank" because they have money. Pay no attention to the BIG government behind the curtain. If taxes on corporations were dropped then they could lower their prices for us. I know, you're saying right now that they would never lower their prices but they would. You see, the companies are in competition with each other. Whoever has the lowest price has an advantage and if you bottom line stays the same and you can still drop your prices by say 5 % then you win. There would be a race to the bottom if taxes were lowered and we would be the ultimate winner. That is hard for socialists and leftists to understand I know but there are classes you could take.
Free: Corporate tax avoidance just one reason for large budget shortfalls
5char
Free: Corporate tax avoidance just one reason for large budget shortfalls
There are classes at KU, but I doubt they would be preaching the "invisible hand" nonsense that you're spouting out. What if said company had a necessity, i.e. oil, pharmaceuticals, insurance, you know, the companies that are sending all the lobbyists to Washington and fund the Tea Party. Then, they could actually hike up their prices, knowing people will have to pay. And why lower prices? You have the people by the balls. No tax cut is going to undermine that. Giving tax cuts to those kinds of companies, you know, the ones so frequently involved in these multinational schemes, is basically whoring yourself to somebody who'd sleep with you for no money anyway.
This isn't class warfare. You don't know what class warfare means, Calvin. Maybe you should take a class. The so-called "leftists" you frequently mock just want a responsible government that regulates the economy the same way anything else is regulated. Under your ideas, the boss at a job should have as little authority as possible so he won't screw things up. Then what's the point of even having a boss? Apparently, getting rid of tax loopholes is tantamount to socialism. It was craziness like this that delayed the passing of the 9/11 responders act because it would've been funded by cutting out loopholes. Well we can't starve our political donors like that, can we? We should cut teacher's salaries first.
Class warfare would actually entail skimming off oil profits and actively giving it to everybody in the state the oil drilling takes place in - like what Sarah Palin did in Alaska. But no. Obama's the socialist and we should cut some more basic necessities, cut our eye out to spite our face. I know, it's hard for you libertarians to understand, but there's thinking skills for that.
Free: Corporate tax avoidance just one reason for large budget shortfalls
It doesn't matter what you do to try and tax corporations. Leftists will never be able to "stick it" to corporations in the way that they want. Try and tax them in any way possible and they will pass their taxation costs on to consumers in the form of higher prices. THERE IS NO WAY AROUND IT. This is what these liberals/progressives don't understand. Tax corporations at 100% of their yearly revenues and they will STILL pass the cost of the tax on to consumers. It doesn't matter if their end of the year books show that they paid any taxes or not...their customers paid it all. We arent' "whoring" ourselves out to any corporations. Talk about biting that hand that feeds you. Where do your parents work? If it isn't in the public sector (which is likely), then they work for some private company which most likely treats them pretty well.
Free: Corporate tax avoidance just one reason for large budget shortfalls
Force them to not pass their taxes off on consumers. I win.
Free: Corporate tax avoidance just one reason for large budget shortfalls
Yes, I remember back in the Clinton years when taxes were higher how astronomical prices were for products. I'd dare say inflation has gone exponentially down in the interim.
Free: Corporate tax avoidance just one reason for large budget shortfalls
good one!
Free: Corporate tax avoidance just one reason for large budget shortfalls
Your comments demonstrate your inability to understand business. As for inflation, don't look now but...
Free: Corporate tax avoidance just one reason for large budget shortfalls
Continuously defending the Trickle Down Theory which has been debunked by everybody short of God himself shows your inability to understand business. I'll admit to not having much of a background at all in economics, and even I can pick out the errors in your logic.
In no other sector would you, Calvin, advocate that entropy doesn't exist and that regulation would actually cause more entropy. That's not really how reality works, much less economics. Obviously, complete stranglehold of the economy by the government will curb creativity and also production, but making sure businesses pay the same taxes that everybody else does for services they use is the paltriest of regulations. But at this, you cry socialism.
This is how out of touch you are - You bleat on and on about leftists, supposedly putting me in the same camp with them. I'm not even Democrat. I don't even believe in socialism as a good economic model. Yet I am insanely too left for you. Good rule of thumb here? Practice moderation. If the US Government became the libertarian paradise you so badly want it to be, the first person it would effect would be you. And not for the positive.
Free: Corporate tax avoidance just one reason for large budget shortfalls
xz007 it's too bad kujayhawk got banned cause he would have had a SWEET comment about this.
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