Multinational corporations are again swarming the Hill, trying to give Democrats and Republicans a reason to give tax amnesty in the form of a highly discounted tax rate of just over 5 percent to bring money back from offshore locations. They allege that this special tax holiday would enable them to do good-sounding things like creating jobs and investing in the U.S. Perhaps they think lawmakers and taxpayers have amnesia, because history told a much different story back in 2004, as reported by the New York Times:
A Republican-controlled Congress ... allowed companies to repatriate some $300 billion in 2005 and pay only 5.25 percent in taxes. As for all of those promised factories and jobs, they did not materialize. Research by three prominent economists, including Kristin Forbes, a former top economic adviser to President George W. Bush, found that between 60 cents and 92 cents of every dollar brought home found its way into shareholders' pockets.
But the most disingenuous part is that the very industries arguing that they need this repatriation holiday in order to invest in the U.S. have been able to do so for years without a tax holiday. It's apparent from recent activities of multinationals that it's possible to invest in one's company and expand one's business without special tax treatment.
One must surmise that there are other reasons hi-tech and pharmaceutical industries are again taking up this battle -- perhaps reasons less popular with taxpaying citizens and businesses. It's a naked attempt to skirt their tax obligation, pure and simple, while shifting the burden onto the rest of us.
As the New York Times reported:
Large multinationals are not refraining from investing in the United States because their money is locked up abroad. Many have large piles of cash in the United States, too. Interest rates are near historic lows, and banks will trip over themselves to lend to big multinationals sitting on mountains of cash. If they are not investing, it is because of the uncertain economic outlook.
Even in times of economic uncertainty, some of the biggest names in these industries have managed to invest in and expand U.S. operations without special tax amnesty.
According to Blooomberg, drugmakers Merck and Pfizer have been quite successful at this practice:
Merck & Co Inc., the second-largest drugmaker in the U.S., last year brought more than $9 billion from abroad without paying any U.S. tax to help finance its acquisition of Schering-Plough Corp., securities filings show. Merck is also appealing a federal judge's 2009 finding that Schering-Plough owed taxes on $690 million it had earlier brought home from overseas tax-free.The largest drugmaker, Pfizer Inc., imported more than $30 billion from offshore in connection with its acquisition of Wyeth last year, while taking steps to minimize the tax hit on its publicly reported profit.
Disclosures in Switzerland and Delaware by Eli Lilly & Co. show the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical company carried out many of the steps for a tax-free importation of foreign cash after its roughly $6 billion purchase of ImClone Systems Inc. in 2008.
Another example: the Qualcomm-Atheros deal. The Wall Street Journal reported in January that, "Qualcomm seems to have found a way to bring home the bacon without losing a slice."
This just makes the repatriation argument more hollow.
If the money already exists, is offshore and can be used to do said tasks, why get an additional tax break to reduce their obligation?
If you paid a tax rate higher than 5.25 percent this year, you paid a greater percentage of your money in taxes than these large corporations would pay if this tax break is passed by Congress.
Multinationals will continue trying to lull lawmakers and taxpayers into complacency with phrases like "job creation" and "deficit reduction" -- things that most Americans agree need to be addressed. While the phony way they are trying to carve a tax break for themselves under the umbrella of these concepts may fool some in Congress, as was demonstrated at the recent Third Way event, they shouldn't fool American taxpayers.
What should make taxpayers even more incredulous and lawmakers skeptical is that the current system already gives multinational companies huge advantages over domestic ones, including small businesses, which are often real job creators.
Bloomberg continues:
"The current U.S. international tax system is the best of all worlds for U.S. multinationals," said David S. Miller, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP in New York. That's because the companies can defer federal income taxes by shifting profits into low-tax jurisdictions abroad, and then use foreign tax credits to shelter those earnings from U.S. tax when they repatriate them, he said.
If they really want to bring jobs and money back to the country that has helped them build their empires, they wouldn't support a tax "holiday." If they want to contribute to the institutions that provide the infrastructure, national security, financial stability and public safety that make America a desirable place to do business, they wouldn't support a tax "holiday."
They'd support paying all of their taxes all the time.
Follow Nicole Tichon on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TaxJusticeUSA
Brent Budowsky: March on Washington for Jobs
our Congress facilitate the transformation of US national corporations into multinationals and transnationals by outsourcing, FDI' etc.. This additional tax holiday demand is another heist on wage earning Americans profit money laundering! These corporate giants continue to hold our economy hostage! Now that they our economy in shackels they are demanding ransom payments! Shame on them! When our President speaks ( regardless of Party) about American interests and security abroad they are speaking exclusively for corporate interest and security. When it come to profit, working Americans are just expendable chattel in the eyes of corporate CEOs! American shareholders bear a huge responsibility for the dismantling of the American economy. Tax breaks and holidays will just finish this economy off for good as well as implode our government. With tax revenue flow at a historic low, our government is rife for corporate takeover! The threat of a massive sell off of all government services and facilities to the private sector is what the Republican officials are pushing for. This will be followed by a precipitous drop in jobs and wages.
IF a company paid a 10% Tax to a foreign country, they then should pay on a tax rate here in the US totaling the foreign payment and US tax up to the USA's rate... In other wods if the rate abroad is 10% and our rate here is 35%..and they had paid the 10%, they now owe 25% to the US. Totalling 35%...
Where do you get this rubbish from MSNBC?
What you seem to miss, much of the rest of thw world is in a BOOM economy, the US has been largley written off for new frontiers...wake up, just because the USA is lagging, doesn;t mean China, India, South America is....
This is a lie of course. Because the multinational corporations already paid income taxes in the country the profits were generated. The tax on repatriation is another form of double-taxation. If the earnings were held in dollars there was triple-taxation (inflation). And any repatriated earnings are paid as dividends that makes quadruple-taxation.
The IRS audits the transactions you are fictitiously making up. Intracompany transactions are benchmarked to comps of intercompany transactions.
Let's also demand that the bar associations of America allow residents of India and Russia to take the bar exams AND outsource law work to where it belongs.
the advantage of 'citizenship', what's with that? We 'breathing citizens' have a whole host of duties
to perform to be considered 'patriotic citizens' and we are constantly reminded of our obligations
and the pain that will be doled out in the event we transgress. Our 'Representatives' in DC never
seem to mention their benefactors obligations to our country, it's as if they get a 'free ride', Oh that's right, they do. We need to cancel corporate 'Free Ride Passes', they wanta play, they gotta pay, after all, they are playing on our field, with our equipment and a lot of our money too. We need a 'level playing field' or preferably, one slanted in our favor. Semper Fi
Tax the hell out of business but when it comes to Charlie Rangel,Tim Geithner, and Anthony Weiner's bulging tax deductions, see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil: just set back and - don't tax him, don't tax me, just tax that man behind the tree.
"The disgraced former congressman's 2010 tax return shows he took $40,521 in unspecified itemized deductions on an income of $156,117. "It's definitely a very large deduction," said Manhattan CPA Jonathan Medows. He said the deductions appeared to include more than the standard writeoffs for state and local taxes and Weiner's mortgage. Weiner's campaign finance reports list his Forest Hills home as the address of his campaign committee, even though the committee rents office space in midtown Manhattan. A spokesman for Weiner, who resigned Thursday in the wake of a sexting scandal, refused to provide any details about the return."
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/odd_bulge_in_weiner_tax_form_rsC6JxQYMRd0odrIDDZVRN
The next time you read story about some politician bemoaning that "there's no money" and "we have to make cuts," just point to artful tax dodgers in our midst and PERPETUAL WAR that Defense Industry wants.
They include some of banks that trashed economy but gladly took our tax dollars to stay alive after economic meltdown. Bank of America. Wells Fargo. Citigroup.
Goldman Sachs took a $10 billion taxpayer bailout but gamed its effective tax rate down to one percent through what its executives call "changes in geographic earnings mix." Shame on them. Pay up.
See that FedEx delivery van go by on roads you paid for? Pay up FedEx! Don't pretend you're not making billions in U.S. Don't lie and tell us you made all those profits on\island with more palm trees than people. We know demand for coconut delivery isn't that big.
These corporatioÂÂÂÂÂÂns are heavy users of our taxpayer funded public infrastrucÂÂÂÂÂÂture and property rights protection systems. They use our regulated marketplacÂÂÂÂÂÂe, call upon our law enforcemenÂÂÂÂÂÂt system and judiciary to remedy disputes. They're protected by U.S. police forces and firefighteÂÂÂÂÂÂrs. They enjoy privileges and benefits of tax-paying citizens. They just don't pay their fair share for them.
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Corporations should get x% tax break for every x% of jobs they create. A corporation with 1,000 US employees who adds another 500 should get a 50% cut in their rate.
In addition, there should be and x% tax increase for outsourcing. A corporation with 15,000 employees who outsources 1,500 jobs should get a 10% tax rate increase.
a VAT TAX should be installed.
Say it ain't so.
But, they needn't worry.
Democrats haven't got the spine or the votes to stand up against corporations and act on behalf of the average citizen. If they did, unemployment would not be 9.1%.
Washington is a corrupt kleptocracy.
Washington no longer serves as representatives of the people, they serve only big company interests - that seek to create a citizens as corporate serfs.
This has been done before and has not worked. For each 1,000 positions created in aggregate in the U.S. by a corporation, they may bring back 1 Billion tax free. Reward corporations for good behavior. These dogs want the treats before being told to sit.
There are many such false facts in circulation. Many of these false facts attempt to convince the public that damages that were caused by either Wall Street, Big Business, or the Republican Party, were instead the fault of the American citizen.
Manufacturing has in large part abandoned North America in favor of Asia, but this is not the fault of the American citizen. Those who control investment resources decided to move those resources to other countries, especially China.
Karl Rove has now moved his skills to his Political Action Committee, "American Crossroads". Propaganda has seldom been practiced so deviously (http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/11/led-by-karl-rove-linked-groups-nonp.html).
This ploy to let corporations off the hook for their taxes means that if these tax cheats bring the money back tax-free, even if they use it to build factories (which is highly unlikely), they will own those factories built with a gift of tax money.
Those factories represent your crumbling bridges and your decrepit high schools.
One has to be really stupid or corrupt to buy this garbage from lobbyists from Apple and the Chamber of Commerce.
Or both.