http://fortune.com/2014/07/07/taxes-offs...2?p=737062

I don't blame them. Maybe one day Congress will wake up.

Thanks for the reply, but I'm not sure we can ever beat someone else in this arena. Ireland or the Cayman Islands will never have to support a military. These corporations enjoy all of the fruits of the harvest but don't want to toil with the weeding and upkeep. Let's say we go down to 20%. They will go down to 12.5%. Heck a Caribbean Island could go close to zero. 3% is better than no percent. We can't win an asymmetrical tax battle. Both sides should be able to solve this problem bur I'll be damned if I can find a glimmer of hope anywhere. I have absolutely zero confidence in our politicians in coming up with an equitable solution.

Capitalism's take on the socialism, communism direction of the US. If there is any doubt that Obama is a socialist, communist, there shouldn't be now.

Mack, you are blaming the wrong people if you are blaming these companies for doing what companies do. I bet you have Medtronic stock.

"Sorry, but this year, July isn’t going to work for me. That’s because of a new kind of American corporate exceptionalism: companies that have decided to desert our country to avoid paying taxes but expect to keep receiving the full array of benefits that being American confers, and that everyone else is paying for."

IOW the left is killing the Golden Goose... You continue to put taxes and more significantly arduous regulations and then crap on them when they try to get out from under the load.

Quote:A company does this by reincorporating in a place like Ireland, where the corporate tax rate is 12.5%, compared with 35% in the U.S. Inversion also makes it easier to divert what would normally be U.S. earnings to foreign, lower-tax locales.

Do you take every deduction you can? well then ethically you can not be pissed about a person or group of people doing the same thing. When profit margins for most companies run from 4-10% it's not hard to see how them wanting to keep 20% of that amount factors into where they are located.

Quote:All of this threatens to undermine our tax base, with projected losses in the billions. It also threatens to undermine the American public’s already shrinking respect for big corporations.

So rather than thing out or streamline regulations and lower taxes lets just keep pissing on them in the media. Yea that's going to help the tax base. Offer to take only 12% rather than 30% of a corporations profits in exchange for them hiring more Americans and it's the Apocalypse....

Quote:I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone in Washington call public hearings and ask CEOs of inverters and would-be inverters why they think it’s okay for them to remain U.S. citizens while their companies renounce citizenship. Imagine the reaction! And the punitive legislation it could spark.

And I wouldn't be surprised to see such a move accelerate the migration of companies off shore as it would signal our federal overlords view themselves with far more power to confiscate than was intended by the founders. We don't want you to leave so were going to (1) drag your name through the mud (2) threaten to renounce your citizenship (3) find other ways to punish you..

How would I address this whole issue (aside from dumping millions of pages of federal regulation)

1 - Lower the corporate taxes in the US to 20% for any US based business
2 - Lower the corporate taxes in the US to 12.5% for any US business who has more than 75% of their workforce (contractor and employee) who work in the US and make more than 2x the poverty rate.
3 - Any $$ made from sales or services outside of the US can be brought at a 3% tax rate

Lets create an environment where companies want to be doing business over here instead of thinking brow beating and terrible regulations are going to help.

(07-07-2014 08:03 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Let's say we go down to 20%. They will go down to 12.5%. Heck a Caribbean Island could go close to zero. 3% is better than no percent. We can't win an asymmetrical tax battle.

Well, I mean, it should be 0%.

Some of these simple laws would go a long way.

THERE IS AN ANSWER

(07-07-2014 08:03 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Thanks for the reply, but I'm not sure we can ever beat someone else in this arena. ... We can't win an asymmetrical tax battle.

If we can't, then stick a fork in us. And who gets hurt worst are not large corporations, but the middle class who lose their jobs in the process. Just like what has been going on.

Quote:Both sides should be able to solve this problem but I'll be damned if I can find a glimmer of hope anywhere. I have absolutely zero confidence in our politicians in coming up with an equitable solution.

That's because there isn't a solution that meets the left's ideas of fair and equitable. We can make US corporations pay more or less. Short of sending in the Marines, we can't make an Irish corporation pay more or less. And if our US corporation has to compete with that Irish corporation in world markets, it's going to lose, and that spells disaster for our economy.

As far as needing the corporate tax to cover our military, two things: 1) the corporate tax makes up a tiny part of our total tax revenues, look at the numbers yourself and you'll probably be surprised just how small, and 2) most of the governments in Europe actually spend substantially more as a percent of GDP that we do, but they have lower tax rates.

Mach, instead of looking at it solely from the point of view of the government or everyone else, why not take a look at it from the corporation's point of view. To do business in the US, my labor costs are higher and my regulatory and administrative costs are higher. If my tax rate is 39% (which it is with state taxes included) and my competitor's is 20% because he's foreign, how do I compete? Tariffs are not the answer, by the way. Tariffs may or may not help in the US market, but they do absolutely nothing to help with worldwide sales, and in many cases hurt. Countries who invert are not being unpatriotic, if it's the only way they can afford to keep doing business here and hiring US workers. And for many, that's the impact.

What can we do? Consumption tax. That's how everybody else does it. Really no other possible answer.

Let me pose a hypothetical.

I'm a wealthy investor who has acquired a patent to make a product that I plan to market worldwide. I need to build a plant for $100 million that will employ 3,000 people.

Two questions:
1) Why should I build it in the US?
2) If you can't convince me to build it here, how do you get the US economy to grow?

I agree with the majority of what you guys are selling. I just looked through Bevo's Fair Tax link. We just have took many people in powerful places that like it just the way it is. It's crazy and it is hurting us.

Just off the top of my head I can think of a couple of powerful lobbying groups that would make sure this never got out of committee. Our tax code is insane.

there's just too much power in the tax loopholes. Our politicians will never give up the chalk for the chalkboard.

(07-07-2014 09:46 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  there's just too much power in the tax loopholes. Our politicians will never give up the chalk for the chalkboard.

The corruptness of gov. is exactly why liberal big gov. solutions fail. Or big gov. GOP....

(07-07-2014 09:46 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  there's just too much power in the tax loopholes. Our politicians will never give up the chalk for the chalkboard.

But you want to give them more chalkboards.

(07-07-2014 08:03 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Thanks for the reply, but I'm not sure we can ever beat someone else in this arena. Ireland or the Cayman Islands will never have to support a military. These corporations enjoy all of the fruits of the harvest but don't want to toil with the weeding and upkeep. Let's say we go down to 20%. They will go down to 12.5%. Heck a Caribbean Island could go close to zero. 3% is better than no percent. We can't win an asymmetrical tax battle. Both sides should be able to solve this problem bur I'll be damned if I can find a glimmer of hope anywhere. I have absolutely zero confidence in our politicians in coming up with an equitable solution.

We don't need the lowest corporate tax rate, just a competitive corporate tax rate.

Our tax code means whatever you want it to mean.

(07-07-2014 10:24 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  Our tax code means whatever you want it to mean.

Yep, designed that way by the very folks that lambast corporations for following the law - Congress.

(07-07-2014 09:44 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  I agree with the majority of what you guys are selling. I just looked through Bevo's Fair Tax link. We just have took many people in powerful places that like it just the way it is. It's crazy and it is hurting us.

Just off the top of my head I can think of a couple of powerful lobbying groups that would make sure this never got out of committee. Our tax code is insane.

The fairtax is gaining momentum around the country, HR25 will become law

(07-07-2014 07:20 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  http://fortune.com/2014/07/07/taxes-offs...2?p=737062

Another in giant list of reasons we should implement a consumption tax.

It should be bi partisan too Bevo. Unless the Democrats pull the 1% card. Even then if they understand the prebate that should take some sting out of that argument. We all know there is an underground economy. We need to gain some revenue from that.