Corporate tax dodging is draining the lifeblood from our communities - as we face reckless budget cuts.
Imagine the American economy as a human body, with wealth as its lifeblood. When turned upside-down, the blood all collects in our head and a person will eventually suffer a stroke and die. But if the person is standing upright, the blood is able to circulate freely to all parts of the body, and the person is able to survive and thrive.
Because of budget cuts, the Jersey Shore borough of Interlaken is dismissing its entire police force. The city of Washington D.C. has run out of money for new residents' garbage cans and recycling bins. Our nation's wealth is pooling into the pockets of a select few multi-billion dollar corporations at a breakneck pace. All that's needed to get our economy standing upright again and the wealth circulating throughout the economy is for Fortune 500 headliners like Bank of America, GE, Verizon and FedEx to pay their fair share in taxes.
As long as these corporations are free to bankrupt the American people by stashing away their income in overseas accounts, our economy will continue to worsen until the American middle class and working poor have no more purchasing power. This would suffocate small businesses in communities across the continent, stifle any hope of job creation and transform the United States into a 21st-century banana republic. This would be the equivalent of an economic stroke in America.
But there's a simple solution staring us all in the face- make these corporations pay their fair share of taxes We could gain up to $100 billion more in tax revenue if these corporate tax cheats were forced to bring their income back to America and pay an effective 35% rate, like other businesses already do.
Our economy can stand upright again if our leaders simply outlawed offshore corporate tax havens. GE's most recent 10k filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that the company currently has over $90 billion in income in offshore accounts. GE even boldly states they "...do not intend to repatriate these earnings." If that $90 billion was brought back to America and taxed appropriately, that would be enough to hire 800,000 more teachers. If GE paid taxes on their $1.1 billion rebate from the federal government they received despite making more than $10 billion in profit, that alone would hire almost 28,000 teachers. Do our leaders want teachers or tax cheats?
Here in Mississippi, we have a simpler analogy: there's hay in the barn, but we aren't feeding the horses. Farmers seem to be scratching their heads trying to decide which horses they'll starve, instead of simply opening the barn doors and putting out enough hay for their livestock. And just like a farm needs livestock to prosper, the American people need crucial services like firefighters, public schools, 911, libraries and medicaid to thrive.
Will we stand upright and let our nation's lifeblood circulate to all parts of the body, or will we allow our economy to suffer a stroke? Will we feed or starve the horses? Will we let corporate tax cheats continue to plunder the American people, or will the American people stand and demand our leaders take action?
As the BBQ University Professor says, "Here's The Rub"; Big businesses are not paying tax, they are not paying stockholders. They are sitting on huge piles of cash and are not paying dividends to the stockholders, only CEO's and top management. Our money is being concentrated in the hands of people who are not circulating it. We are experiencing the inverse of the multiplier effect.
This op-ed does not fail to disappoint, even with rural Mississipian philosophy thrown in.
What do you think you have in your pockets & bank account?
According to the National Tax Payers Union, for 2008 the top 25% of income earners in this country paid 86.34% of federal taxes. That includes those with taxable incomes of $67,280 and up - hardly the "rich".
That means the bottom 75% paid
Absolutely. They are worse enemies to America than any of those we're currently fightling in the middle east or elsewhere. They are taking down the economic towers of the US everyday. It makes the World Trade Center look like small potatoes.
BTW, here are a few stats that suggest a different story than than the one you are choosing to write about.
1980
Total fed revenue was 517.1. Of that 11.8 was collected as business tax. That makes the percentage of corporate tax to be .0228.
1990
Total revenue was 1,032.0. Of that 24.3 b was collected as a business tax. That makes the percentage of corporate tax to be .0235.
2010
Revenue was 2162.7. Corporate tax was 75.8. Percentage was .0350. So more business tax was collected in 2010 as a percent of all the fed revenue.
IMO, the duty of a business is to make a profit for their investors, and to provide a wage allowable for that industry in order to keep the door open and provide jobs.
So it is easy to say that a dishwasher should make 15/hr but that is not in line with margins in the restaurant sector. Wages reflect margins. This is why I am opposed to unions because they only look at the near-term issue which is their wage and benefits. So if the sector is seeing decreased margins and thus the profits are eroding, unions could care less. They will then point to cutting management jobs or salaries, which is fine, but if the sector is experiencing margin shrinkage long-term, eventually the doors will close.
Everybody in the US should for at least 1 year be a part of a small business enterprise as a owner. America would function so much better if everybody had walked the walk.
"Small business enterprises" aren't the ones dodging taxes; it's huge multinationals such as GE, Bank of America, AT&T, etc.
As for your being "opposed to unions"... either you're a millionaire, or a very ignorant person who votes against your own interests.
Perhaps the most infuriating thing is that the numbers Carl uses here, and many of the numbers I use in my link below, come from the government itself. From GAO reports REQUESTED by the Senate. Corporations will seek to expand their power, and thus their money making ability, until they meet resistance that would make their further expansion counterproductive. Carl and US Uncut are trying to make that resistance real in the face of the obvious failure of our government to act on our behalf.
We need "leaders" willing to take them on. Unfortunately, the only people we get to vote for are funded by thees corporations, so.....
The REVOLUTION will be tweeted, liked, and shared. We, The People, Win.
www.usuncut.org
www.moveon.org
www.coffeepartyusa.com
Some research reveals that the number is much higher than the $100 billion that the GAO attributes ONLY to offshore tax haven abuse. The costs of this rampant corporate disregard for America is also a lot higher than garbage cans. This really is the tip of the iceberg in what is possibly the greatest issue of the last century.
There is another great post about this here, which I encourage everyone to read.
http://the-tarpeian-rock.blogspot.com/2011/03/work-harder-hundreds-of-corporations-on.html