How Google reduces its tax bill by US$3.1Billion

[TarJak]

http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...-terminal.html

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/tec...022-16wf8.html

[Bilge_Rat]

Not surprising, every multinational from every country switches part of its profits to low tax or no tax jurisdictions.

Canada and the USA, to name the two jurisdictions I am most familiar with, have increasingly complex provisions in their tax codes to limit or prevent this type of planning, but there is only so much you can do.

With the increasing mobility and internationalisation of capital and the financial markets, it is impossible to prevent this kind of profit shift as long as tax havens continue to exist around the world.

It also has the unfortunate effect of putting pressure on all governments to lower tax rates on corporate income to stay competitive and to increasingly shift the tax burden to working-class and middle-class taxpayers who are not mobile.

[tater]

The US needs a far lower corporate tax rate that has virtually no dodges. instead of what we have (high rate, many dodges).

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

It also has the unfortunate effect of putting pressure on all governments to lower tax rates on corporate income to stay competitive and to increasingly shift the tax burden to working-class and middle-class taxpayers who are not mobile.

You're absolutely right.



You're witnessing a multigenerational theft and transfer of wealth on a massive scale. While people argue about the puppet show called politics, and thinking that one side is going to offer anything different than the other, the real forces at work are laughing all the way to the bank about how they've played people for such stooges.

An excerpt from Matt Taibbi's new book Griftopia:

Here’s yet another diabolic cycle for ordinary Americans, engineered by the grifter class. A Pennsylvanian like Robert Lukens sees his business decline thanks to soaring oil prices that have been jacked up by a handful of banks that paid off a few politicians to hand them the right to manipulate the market. Lukens has no say in this; he pays what he has to pay. Some of that money of his goes into the pockets of the banks that disenfranchise him politically, and the rest of it goes increasingly into the pockets of Middle Eastern oil companies. And since he’s making less money now, Lukens is paying less in taxes to the state of Pennsylvania, leaving the state in a budget shortfall. Next thing you know, Governor Ed Rendell is traveling to the Middle East, trying to sell the Pennsylvania Turnpike to the same oil states who’ve been pocketing Bob Lukens’s gas dollars. It’s an almost frictionless machine for stripping wealth out of the heart of the country, one that perfectly encapsulates where we are as a nation.

[SteamWake]

I heard a story the other day that if the Iphone was manufactured, produced, shipped and packed in the US it would cost $3,000.00 US

Instead all that labor is done overseas which is why they can be sold for $300.00 US.

The biggest difference? Unions are cut out of the picture.

[tater]

Tax has not been shifted to the "working class" or "middle class." The middle class is the middle quintile of taxpayers, and they pay squat. I suppose if you count union "working class" people who make absurdly high salaries, then yeah (like the toll booth worker in NJ who pulls down over 300 grand a year http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/traffic/t...s-20101019-apx ). Otherwise, those groups effectively pay no income taxes, and certainly no where near a "fair share" (a "fair share" is the per capita cost of government, so a worker in a family of 4 needs to pay 4 shares to be even pulling his weight (roughly 50 grand per year these days for a family of 4)).

Right now the US corporate rate is very high. As a result, they do everything possible to avoid paying it. A lower rate, with no loopholes would be far better, and collect more revenue. It's more fair, too (unlike the current system where certain businesses get breaks that others don't enjoy). This is true of personal income tax as well.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by tater

Tax has not been shifted to the "working class" or "middle class." The middle class is the middle quintile of taxpayers, and they pay squat. I suppose if you count union "working class" people who make absurdly high salaries, then yeah (like the toll booth worker in NJ who pulls down over 300 grand a year http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/traffic/t...s-20101019-apx ). Otherwise, those groups effectively pay no income taxes, and certainly no where near a "fair share" (a "fair share" is the per capita cost of government, so a worker in a family of 4 needs to pay 4 shares to be even pulling his weight (roughly 50 grand per year these days for a family of 4)).

The upper class pays the more and more in taxes not because of any sort of "soak the rich" policy - top marginal tax rates have decreased over the years - but because of the simple fact that their earnings have increased exponentially over the years which everyone else's have languished. To say that the middle class needs to pay more, while the rich get richer and then get tax breaks on top of that - well I give a big middle finger to that policy.