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Geithner Vows Tax Haven Crackdown
We've known for a while now that 83 of the 100 biggest companies in the U.S. have subsidiaries in tax havens, a practice that lets those corporations skirt an estimated $100 billion in yearly tax liabilities.
On the list of 83 tax-dodgers, you'll find the quasi-nationalized Citigroup (which takes the top prize, with 427 subsidiaries in tax shelters), AIG, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America...
You get the idea: We've thrown hundreds of billions of dollars at these institutions that actively search for ways to avoid paying their full tax bill. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner addressed the problem Wednesday during his testimony before the Senate Finance Committee:
[I]t's not fair to people who pay their taxes for people to continue to have the ability to evade U.S. taxes by taking advantage of offshore tax havens and a range of other provisions in current law which makes it—makes it possible to evade U.S. taxes.
That's why in the budget there is a clear commitment by the president to come to the Congress with a comprehensive set of proposals for reducing international tax avoidance. As part of that,we're going to have to bring a much more ambitious effort to deal with offshore tax havens.
That's not going to be enough, though. There's a range of other things that are—that are in the tax code now which create incentives to shift investment—jobs overseas, create other opportunities to evade U.S. taxes.
Aside from the irony of Geithner railing against tax delinquents, I think he's correct in singling out one cause of the problem—a tax code that provides companies an incentive to shift jobs abroad. Geithner also said he would get back to the committee with a "set of proposals" to fight the tax haven problem. And in Congress, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) have introduced their own legislation earlier this week to deal with the problem.
Let's Do It Right!
Why don't we just do away with any incentive 83 of the 100 biggest companies in the U.S. have to keep any part of their operations here?
Why not just tax 'em out of the country entirely?
That'll teach 'em to act like tax-dodging, Democratic, Barack Obama appointees!!
Who needs 'em, when the federal government can just print and pass out as much money as we want?
Our leaders are...
Why don't these people understand that businesses do not pay taxes, they just pass them along to us?!?!
It's one thing to target certain wealthy individuals or luxury items, but when you just do a general tax increase on business or energy it's the working families that end up hurting the most.
Go ahead and raise the business taxes x%.
The result? Now WE pay x% much more for child care, gas, pencils, etc...
They will just take their jobs and profits somewhere that charge them less to do business.
Anytime a state wants to attract a big factory or business, what do they do? That's right, offer tax breaks. Why are we doing the opposite in a bad economy?
They are not in business to lose money, they WILL find a way to pass the costs on to the consumers (us).
Geithner
tagged as:- solution
The facts are a bit different than stated.
In the old days before NAFTA a company would not dare leave because of the backlash against them in the American Market. If a company were to leave, Americans would stop buying their products.
In the older days companies had to invest in infrastructure, new factories, new equipment to lessen or avoid paying tons of taxes. Those investments of course were made in America.
Corporations used to open other markets. Now they just leave and keep the profits from being taxed.
As a lifelong Republican I saw our leaders in the last eight years come to represent the lobbyist and corporations above and beyond the American people. There is no job a Republican cannot outsource.
Now it’s funny to watch as they cannot figure out why they are so despised in America. All they can say is tax breaks and more tax breaks. They now have become fiscally conservative after doubling the deficit.
Microsoft moved to Ireland and India. They don’t want to pay for American workers. Ireland corporation taxes are lower.
They still would like us to buy their junk though. Bill Gates wants more H-1 vistas so he can fire Americans and get cheaper labor here.
The truth is NAFTA is not a trade agreement. Read it. It’s a protection agreement for corporations. It allows corporations to use labor and avoid taxes and environmental restrictions.
They hate the high wages they have to pay for Americans. They hate Americans but can’t say it out loud because we still buy their products.
It’s time to dump these fake trade agreements. You want to sell our government computers. You make them here with American labor and American support. No outsourcing. Or don’t. Your choice.
I bet Sony would love to get a 10 billion dollar contract to sell the U.S. government computers. They would build the plant and hire the workers in a heartbeat.
Screw hp they are a Chinese company now.
NAFTA simply circumvented tax laws. It allowed corporations to hold profits overseas forever.
By dumping all trade agreements and forcing companies to produce here not only would we save 750 billion in trade deficits we would end the recession.
When Americans stopped buying the world went into recession. We were the only ones buying. It’s their turn.
Dr. C
Dr. C, you're a lifelong
Dr. C, you're a lifelong republican like i'm the pope. Are your ideas so bankrupt that you feel the need to pose as a Republican?
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Sorry. Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves.
I am from Somalia and now study English, give true I wrote the following sentence: "Daily on you for increasing improvement."
With love :P, Pepin.