Corporations are taking advantage of a tax loophole that Republicans created to kelp them avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Democrats have made several attempts to close that loophole, and of course Republicans blocked them. Barack Obama and one of America’s national treasures are calling them out on it.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday hammered U.S. companies that avoid federal taxes by shifting their tax domiciles overseas in deals known as "inversions" and called on Congress to pass a bill to end the practice.
During remarks to a rowdy crowd at the Los Angeles Technical College, Obama promoted what he called "economic patriotism" and made clear he believed the companies that were engaging in such practices were not being patriotic. The president is in California on a three-day fund-raising swing for Democrats.
So-called inversion deals occur when a U.S. company acquires or sets up a foreign company, then moves its U.S. tax domicile to the foreign company and its lower-tax home country.
Nine inversion deals have been reached this year by companies ranging from banana distributor Chiquita Brands International Inc to drugmaker AbbVie Inc, and more are under consideration. The transactions are setting a record pace since the first inversion was carried out 32 years ago…
Inserted from <Chicago Tribune>
Photo credit: Nation of Change
I do disagree with Obama on one point. There is only on corporate emotion. It is not patriotism. It is greed.
Ed Schultz interviewed our national treasure on this issue and on the Republican attempt to stall VA funding.
According to the article, Republicans say they support closing the Inversion Loophole, but only as part of restructuring the tax code. That’s RepubliSpeak for raising your taxes and giving massive tax cuts to billionaires and giant corporations.
10 Responses to “How RepubliCorp Is Ducking Taxes”
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We all suffer the world over from the same blight – corporate greed and evasion of taxes (and evasion of responsibility for anything they do) – we must start a movement in each country to make sure that a) corporations/companies can't do this and b) that any corporation/company that wants any kind of gratuity from government in any form whatsoever can only get something if they pay taxes in that country – and full taxes at that! The stuff that they have been getting away with beggars belief – and it is beggaring us all!
Amen Pat!
beggaring or buggering?
As a veteran, I have a little extra skin in this game. Having been long familiar with all these statistics, it's not the content of the segment I find most appalling. The most appalling part is the every single American should also already know this – and should be actively working to change it. And that is not the case.
Part of the problem is that VA employees have been part of the coverup for decades.
I wish more senators saw things and understood things the way Bernie does. I noticed on twitter feed that said…. if corporations are people, then we should arrest these tax evadors…. I agree. The tax code does need to be revised, but not on the backs of the poor and middle class. That seems to be all the Republicans are interested in doing.
Thd tax code needx to be made more progresive. Republican "reform" is the exact opposite.
. . . and I wonder just how Obama thinks a change can be accomplished with the do nothing Republicanus/Teabagger dominated Congress?
I like that idea. It would be relatively easy, at least in my mind, to administer using individual and consolidated financial statements.
Republicanus/Teabaggers might prefer a change to inversions to be part of an effort to reform the U.S. tax code but there are 2 problems with that. First, the Republicanus/Teabagger dominated Congress will draw out any and all efforts to reform the tax code unless corporate rates are dropped very low; and second, there is no incentive for them to change the inversions. They are just as unpatriotic as the corporations.
Exactly!
I found this in Yahoo news to be quite interesting and maybe a way to fix this lousy loophole. Odd that it came from a Reaganite.
~~"By invoking a 1969 tax law, Obama could bypass congressional gridlock and restrict foreign tax-domiciled U.S companies from using inter-company loans and interest deductions to cut their U.S. tax bills, said Stephen Shay, former deputy assistant Treasury secretary for international tax affairs in the Obama administration. He also served as international tax counsel at Treasury from 1982 to 1987 in the Reagan administration."
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is also calling on Congress to pass legislation but Agent Orange and all of Grover Norquist's co=conspirators all say "NO TAXES!"