Massive CEO rewards for tax dodging

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by August

The thing is Sky these corporations are not dodging taxes like this very biased article implies. They are taking the deductions and exemptions allowed to them by law just like any of us would do, so to imply some wrongdoing on their part is, well, just wrong. I admit that I didn't read the link you're talking about but for a US Senator to badmouth people for just following the tax law that he and his fellow Congress critters wrote is pure hypocrisy..

It doesn't appear that you've read this link either, as it addresses your point.

Tax-dodging corporations argue they are breaking no laws. They are just, the argument goes, operating "under the rules that Congress has established." They are indeed. But massive corporate outlays for lobbying and campaign contributions shape those rules. The 25 firms highlighted in this study spent a combined total of more than $150 million on lobbying and campaign contributions last year.

All the companies highlighted in this report benefit enormously from their institutional presence in the United States. They utilize our taxpayer-funded infrastructure for transportation. They tap into government-sponsored research and subsidies for technological innovation. They expect the U.S. law enforcement and judicial systems to protect their intellectual and physical property. And they rely on the U.S. military to defend their assets abroad.

U.S. corporations also benefit from the public education of their workforces. In fact, 16 of the 25 CEOs included in this study received at least a portion of their post-secondary education in taxpayer-supported public universities. Yet these same corporations remain content to let others pay the bills.

That's what the argument is. The fact that corporations benefit from a taxpayer supported system without paying into it themselves is not fair. A corporation can be expected to use whatever profit-maximizing mechanisms they can. But the fact that they spend millions of dollars lobbying to keep their sweetheart deal going is indeed worthy of criticism.

The argument that CEOs can be paid whatever the shareholders want to pay them is fine and true, and it's also tired. What people are upset about is that these CEOs are taking advantage of worker productivity to enrich themselves and giving nothing back into the system in taxes that benefits everyone. I think it's a fair argument.