Obama wants to have companies that have offshore accounts to start paying up. Now to all those out there who think that this is some kind of tax increase on business think again. A person making $50,000 pays a tax rate of 25%. A corporation making $500,000 has a tax rate of 35% but with the little loophole of having a PO box in the Cayman Islands or other tax haven and someone there to forward mail back to corporate headquarters the corporation pays no taxes. Corporations say they pay taxes to the foreign government while telling the foreign government that they pay the U.S. taxes. The end result is that the individual taxpayer pays thousands while the corporation pays nothing. This will be interesting when they start auditing the books and checking the declared taxes corporations say they pay.
It's estimated that $21 billion is lost from this corporate tax evasion. Here's an idea let's have the IRS audit their books for the last 7 years and make them pay the same penalties and interest that they charge the little guy. Then maybe we'd see that CEO pay and bonuses start to look realistic.
I see the stock market went up by a couple hundred points today. I have a theory about that. It isn't because the economy has bottomed out. It's because the short sellers are looking for a good time to dump their positions. There's no way corporate profits are going to go up anytime soon if Chrysler is basically finished and GM is not far behind. That's over 200K workers out with no prospects. Think what that will do for consumer demand. There's so many companies calling it quits or cutting back I can't count the empty store spaces any more. The only places with even half full parking lots are the food stores and even shoppers there are buying less.
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Obama is going to out the companies who refuse to divulge. When they have to start paying their share they will pass it on to us then we must hold them accountable. Let them leave and not be allowed to do Business with America if they want to play games.
It's estimated that $21 billion is lost from this corporate tax evasion..
That figure seems low to me. As for Wall Street, it's just all a greed thing and needs to be completely changed how it works.
But I've posted about that before and I'm not going into it again.
A few weeks ago, I was working with C-SPAN on in the background. Someone in Congress said that if everyone who owes taxes would actually pay what they're supposed to pay, revenues would jump by $75 billion — just about wiping out the deficit. (Sorry, I can't recall who. It might've been Rep. Barney Frank.)
That's an incredible amount of money. And yes, it's a sum those of us who honestly pay what we owe have to cover for all the tax cheats who'll be damned if they'll pay their share.
By all means, the law should be changed so those tax-dodging corporations will have to pay their share, plus stiff penalties for having used tax havens. Their lying, cheating executives should also face time in prison for tax fraud.
Don't hold your breath, though. I saw a reaction from Sen. Max Baucus, DINO from Montana, about Obama's plans. He said,(to paraphrase): Now wait just a minute. I'm not jumping on this bandwagon (to end U.S. corporations using overseas tax havens) before I know what impact it will have on the competitiveness of our businesses.
You can sort of tell that Baucus, who heads the Senate Finance Committee, is a lot more concerned about the poor downtrodden corporations than about average American paycheck workers. I wonder if he ever talks to average Americans, as opposed to corporate lobbyists.
Boycott companies who are unethical or anti-social in any way. Vote with your dollar!
On your other pots on swine flu you might wanna read this:
http://ahealthierwayofliving.blogspot.com/2009/05/really-scary.html
but I guess you personally have nothing to worry about, since you have the right outfit to wear for any occassion and you should have your immune system all geared up, due to your work. That's the way to go!
This mornings Horsey cartoon is great and spot on.
Sarah - If we did that we'd have to go back to living on a farm growing our own food and making our own clothes. There's well over 18,000 companies hiding their money in the Cayman Islands alone.
This tax reform needs to get done. It's time to end these post office boxes in the Cayman Islands qualifying as a corporate headquarters.
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