Hillary Clinton gave a big speech in Raleigh on her plans for the economy on June 22. It was full of Bernie Sanders-like rhetoric about “outrageous behavior” by business and Wall Street.
But it also included a dog whistle that only huge multinational corporations would hear, telling them that she plans to deliver on one of their greatest dreams and slash their longterm taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars.
Here’s what Clinton said:
Let’s break through the dysfunction in Washington to make the biggest investment in new, good-paying jobs since World War II. … In my first 100 days as president, I will work with both parties to pass a comprehensive plan to create the next generation of good-paying jobs. Now, the heart of my plan will be the biggest investment in American infrastructure in decades, including establishing an infrastructure bank that will bring private sector dollars off the sidelines and put them to work here.
An infrastructure bank to rebuild America’s tattered infrastructure is a reasonable idea, and was also proposed by Barack Obama when he was running for president in 2008. Certainly America’s tattered roads, bridges and sewers desperately need an upgrade.
The question is where the money for it would come from. Republicans would never let it be paid for with borrowed money, and in 2011 they blocked a proposal by Obama to fund it with a surtax of 0.7 percent on incomes over $1 million.
But last year, behind the scenes, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., quietly tried to lay the groundwork for a classic Washington, D.C., bipartisan solution — i.e., the kind of deal that both parties’ big donors adore and regular Americans would despise, if they ever heard about it.
Under U.S. law, multinational corporations based here theoretically must pay taxes on their profits earned anywhere around the world at a rate of 35 percent. However, they don’t have to pay U.S. taxes on overseas profits until they repatriate the money back to the U.S.
This creates incentives for U.S. multinationals to use financial engineering to appear to earn their profits in low-tax countries — for instance, Apple’s tiny Irish subsidiary is bizarrely profitable — and then leave the money overseas.
Congress granted corporations a tax holiday in 2004 that let them bring back their profits at a tax rate of about 5 percent, or one-seventh of what the normal tax law required. Clinton, then a senator from New York, voted for it, as did Schumer.
The incentives haven’t changed since then, so profits held overseas by U.S. multinationals have accumulated again and have now reached an incredible $2.4 trillion. That’s about 65 percent of the 2015 federal budget and 13 percent of the entire U.S. economy. If U.S. multinationals had to pay the statutory tax rate on that, they’d owe the government about $695 billion.
The prospective Ryan-Schumer deal doesn’t have many details. But it would change the law so that profits earned by U.S. multinationals overseas, including the $2.4 trillion overseas now, would be taxed whether or not they were brought back to the U.S. — while also radically reducing the tax rate on those overseas profits. This would essentially make the 2004 tax holiday permanent. That’s why Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has called such plans “a giant wet kiss for the tax dodgers.”
Trump’s official tax plan would do exactly the same thing. His ally, billionaire corporate raider Carl Icahn, has pledged to fund a Super PAC with $150 million to make it happen.
In the short run, both Trump’s plan and the Ryan-Schumer framework would provide a burst of tax revenue from the money collected on the $2.4 trillion currently overseas. In the long run they would significantly reduce U.S. taxes on multinationals. They would also, if they instituted lower tax rates for overseas profits than for those earned in the U.S., provide an even greater incentive for big corporations to use accounting shenanigans to appear to “earn” profits in other countries.
But how do we know this is what Clinton was talking about?
According to her platform, she will pay for increased infrastructure spending via some unspecified “business tax reform.” Despite promises back in December that she “will have more to say on her vision” about business tax reform, she’s been curiously silent.
However, when she met with the New York Daily News editorial board in April, she explained that the source of the infrastructure money “may be repatriation.”
Then there’s her statement this week that her infrastructure bank would “will bring private sector dollars off the sidelines and put them to work here.” That phrase — bringing corporate money “off the sidelines” — is a favorite of both Democratic and Republican elites to describe slashing the tax rate on overseas profits. For instance, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., used it in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, as did economists writing for the New America Foundation, a liberal think tank.
That’s why Clinton can honestly predict that she will “break through the dysfunction in Washington” and “work with both parties.” Both parties want to deliver a massive tax cut to their huge corporate patrons.
Hillary supporters either approve of neoliberalism, or don’t know about it. Why would they not know about it? The corporate “liberal” media won’t talk about it, including MSNBC, our “friends” who cheerlead for, or ignore, neoliberal policies.
I have found it particularly astounding/ alarming to see our “progressive” minorities vote en masse for Madame Secretary Establishment. There’s something wrong here.
Careful, calling attention to the dismal state of voter participation and awareness and the relevant failure of our media to inform the working class and poor, who have very little time to peek their heads above their 40 hour work-week, is going to get you called a racist.
An infrastructure bank
In other words, Horilly has promised the predatory thieves on wallstreet – lots of chuck “scheming” schumer’s friends and family – all the public resources of America by forcing Americans to HOCK PUBLIC PROPERTY using the criminal system wallstreet used to rob Americans of homes, but on a much larger scale.
This is the same pattern used by israel against Palestine in the 1940’s.
We know many NY stockbrokers. Hillary is the darling of Wall Street. Democrats have always been the party whihc knows how to make a serious buck. No easier way than when you control money (brokerages).
The Clintons stand to make $1 billion by the time 2020 rolls around. I hope she gets elected. The rich are going to love it – AGAIN!
horilly clinton.
i used to believe she was a good person.
now she makes a lot of money screwing everyone.
HRC is the epitome of a sell out,and Trumps calls for protectionism and tariffs is not what the globalists want to hear,so this is propaganda falsely accusing Trump of co thinking,and BS.
Agendas destroy journalism.
>this is propaganda falsely accusing Trump of co thinking,and BS.
Agendas destroy journalism.
You realize the Intercept is one of the last few real news sources left? You donut get to qualify facts based on whether or not they support your narrative or stroke your ego. I’m sorry you were seduced into supporting the demagogue. I’m sorry for this whole election. I hope both candidates are soundly rejected.
>this is propaganda falsely accusing Trump of co thinking,and BS.
Also, you need to learn to take Alex Jones with a grain of salt. Apply a little critical thought to his worldview. He says the Illuminati control EVERYTHING, and that Trump is an outsider, and Trump is the great white hope of foiling the Illuminati. Just take a little while to think about this cosmos WWF wrestling match Alex Jones is selling.
Free trade and repatriation of profits for multinational corporations have been on the top of the Must Do list which hangs in the White House and Hillary can not wait to pay back her corporate bribers/donors and cash in by selling more access.
If, as this article notes, “That’s why Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has called such plans ‘a giant wet kiss for the tax dodgers'” then why in the heck is she campaigning like a sycophant for Hillary Clinton?
Exactly. She is a sell out.
Ther bubblemint twins doing the teaberry shuffle of fruit stripe dumb,as America winces at the dual bubbleheaded display of hypocrisy and ambition.
Its the coats.
The largest voting block in Massachusetts is “unregistered” with a little over 50%. So it was puzzling to me that when Warren ran for the Senate, she ran as a DemocRAT, when it is highly likely she could have run as an Independent and won. With her recent endorsement of the criminal Clinton, it is now clear that she put her ambition above her integrity. I let her know that she lost my respect, and my vote. One luxury I have is that if Clinton is the Dem nominee, she will win Mass and I can once again vote for Dr. Jill Stein without remorse of any kind.
But so far the primary has been very revealing, of how hopelessly corrupt the DemocRAT Party and its members are, to rig, commit vote fraud and finally endorse such a rotten candidate as Clinton. It’s eye opening and confirms my decision to stop voting Dem after all of them condemned Edward Snowden, a person of such integrity and courage that they could not imagine existed.
I wouldn’t count on them winning any electoral state but DC.
Because she wants to be VP. Really, you can ‘t see that?
Please pass the popcorn….
This country is beyond help.
Tens of millions of people are eagerly voting for Hillary Clinton when she is PRECISELY the type of DC insider who will exacerbate all the most crippling problems currently plaguing our country.
It is tremendously depressing.
Even Elizabeth Warren seems to be buying into the “anything but trump” bullshit.
Differences between Clinton & trump, just like differences between Dems & Republicans, are about style, not substance.
If Clinton thinks Warren as running mate will bring Sanders voters on board, she is delusional.
Sanders has been “on board” all along
and so has Warren.
Now both of them are going to work more openly to keep
their delusional supporters from having the integrity to
reject the criminality of the democrat version of republicanism.
Any evidence for this wacky theory? Didn’t think so.
Many, if not most, Sanders supporters will continue to support Sanders through to the convention, and afterwards, vote Stein or not vote at all, despite whether or not he gets behind Clinton (which he has shown great integrity so far by not doing). If you propose that Sanders has been ‘on board all along’ and working with Clinton in some secret plot, the onus is on you to prove it.
For those reading these comments, just make sure you keep one thing in mind. Keep asking yourself, who here is probably a paid-Clinton-campaign-troll, who is here to “correct the record”.
thanks for not actually reading the comments section for this article: pretty sure not a single pro-Hillary comment has yet appeared.
just *gleefully* corrupt
As Bill Burr put it, “Who runs the world now? Nerds. I couldn’t believe it. Nerds.”
(geeks, don’t worry I think he is okay with you)
Nerds are intelligent.These two are morons.
What’s new? Same ol’ shit day in day out from these self-entitled self-driven political hacks, MSM corporate propaganda machine.
Say one thing to the public to gain their vote and trust, then do the bidding of their corporate masters once the votes are in
Disgusting pigs!
Kori Schake, a national security official under former President George W. Bush, has joined the ranks of Republicans endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.
Another Former Bush Official Backs Hillary Clinton
Which should tell Clinton supporters that Hillary is… well, too damn neoconservative!
However, they just ignore it. Stubbornly. They cry “But Trump!” as if that single point somehow mitigates any criticisms, including the glaring problem that reprehensible characters are finding what they want in Clinton AT ALL.
Hillary is 5 points ahead of someone who has never held political office, is unfamiliar with how the federal government works, and does not have the backing of many establishment republicans, and democrats think that’s awesome.
You are wrong.
Trump knows exactly how the faking U$A “government” works.
He is an outstanding example of what Clinton and the
vast majority of democrats and republicans support.
Their predatory, arrogant delusions and lies
are what gives their lives meaning.
To them, equal justice is for losers.
Howard?
The countries infrastructure is the corporations responsibility. Their earnings, income or theft are made using that infrastructure and sadly in the USA, the property tax system is woefully mis-structured.
Any corporation or business, including the casinos in NJ have always paid the same rate of property taxes as the home dweller and while each individual benefits, the greatest benefits flow to the businesses who get to expense the property tax before they report any income. Property Tax must have an income component.
We lost our greatest leverage by allowing corporations this tax breaks while providing them with the greatest markets. Who made that deal ?
In Atlantic City where the Revel, a $2.1B property asset is written down to a more “affordable” property tax is a tax crime and the perps are our government representatives.
It should be clear by now that there is no good reason for Sanders’ supporters to vote for Hillary Clinton. The Democratic platform is pro TPP, pro fracking, pro Israeli occupation of Gaza, pro tax cuts for billionaires, and against a minimum wage tied to cost of living increases. Sanders got nothing in the platform hearings. His supporters will not listen to him when he tells them they have to vote for Clinton. All he has to offer them is fear of Trump. Who’s going to listen to that?
I find it more and more difficult to visualize voting for Hillary Clinton.
And the Democrats seem to have learned nothing from the Brexit vote.
Bernie Sanders said that he wants to help “reform” the DemocRAT Party, but they just kicked him and all his supporters to the gutter with their corporate platform. Couldn’t even get a concession on TPP because “dear Leader” wants it for his corporate owners. It’s all about the speeches after he leaves–he learned from watching the Clintons, take care of the corporations while in office (TPP) and they will take care of you (high paying speeches) after you leave.
Sanders has been around long enough that he should know better, so the fears of some that he was a stalking horse for Clinton appear to be coming true. Either that or he is hoping for a DOJ indictment of Clinton to happen before the convention. Doubtful, as Obama looks to be “slow walking” it so that once the nomination process is complete, that a fait accompli will make it harder to dislodge Clinton.
This is a dangerous tactic, but the Dems feel emboldened. After all, if you can get a person as corrupt as she is to become your nominee, then you think you can harass and hector Sanders and his supporters into working for the Dem Party. That won’t work on me, but many others are being made to fear Trump, not without good reason. But messing with the FBI by trying to stop indictments is a risk because Comey is a Republican, has a 10-year appointment and already stood George Bush and his minions down when he worked under Ashcroft. So I don’t see him buckling under, and his investigators may revolt also and go public if there is an effort to protect Clinton. They threw Petraeus under the bus, and he was a big establishment military hero, whose security “crimes” were far less serious than Clinton’s appear to be, so far. Her arrogance, hubris and confidence in her invulnerability must also be getting under their skin.
I sent a letter to Sanders campaign, as they acknowledge reading them, telling them that if he was planning to endorse or support Clinton, he could count me out, and should not give my contact info record to them. I also told them that the focusing on Trump as the most important issue, rather than Clinton’s corruption and criminality, was misguided and yet another indication that he might be working for the oligarchs and against his base. Then I wished him luck, and said I felt no hard feelings, that he was brave to ry because if Clinton loses, no matter what the reason is, the Dems will be blaming him for 50 years.
I live in MAss, and tweeted to the super-predators Sen Warren, Markey and Rep Neal, that they lost my respect, and vote, when they decided that the “one person, one vote” principle was no longer operational. That their anti-democratic primary rigging has caused me to leave the DemocRAT Party forever. It is too bad, because those three are among the very most progressive Congress people in the country, but as part of the corrupt Dem machine, I just am done with them.
What I would like to see, since it is now clear that Sanders will get nothing of a concession from the Dems, maybe not even a speech at the convention, is for a counter convention of a new coalition of progressive third parties to be held in Burlington, VT. The convention could bring the Greens along and Sanders and Jill Stein and a few others could work out a platform and candidates. Due to the massive corruption of the DemocRATS in the primary, with rigging and vote suppression and fraud, Sanders is under no obligation to honor his previous promise to not run third party. And a convention of progressives in Vermont would be a wonderful thing, instead of a war in the streets with one of the most brutal police forces in the country breaking heads and limbs, and chemically suppressing the futre of our country, unleashed gleefully by the oligarchs of ap arty too corrupt for any person of integrity who belives in the founding principles to “pivot and unite” with. It is Hillary Clinton who is the real “spoiler” in this POTUS race, and Sanders should continue to stand his ground, and go Independent again, as I believe his supporters will back him. I certainly will, and I am a Senior, not one of the much maligned millenials. My neighborhood is full of people like me, my age group, and there are many Sanders signs and bumper stickers, but NO Clinton ones, which is this feminist area, even I find amazing. I think a combination of Clinton legal problems getting more serious, and an Independent third party coalition starting, with moderates and sane Republicans, could get Sanders the POTUS win.
Sounds like a good plan.
MA Independent: Have you had an email from the United Progressive Party?Headquarters Burlington.
I got an email from SF about a rally of third parties including Stein, but it didn’t mention Sanders. Why can’t these people get together? I’ve been asking for years for one big third with one platform and one candidate for every office from dog catcher to president. This is our last chance before world domination by the Oligarchy Party takes over.
“provide an even greater incentive for big corporations to use accounting shenanigans to appear to “earn” profits in other countries”
There 3 things wrong with this statement:
1. US companies DON’T like to leave large cash balances in overseas accounts in other currencies. Generally, they like those balances here at home to invest and manage.
2. You assume that they will increase profits overseas just to get the lower bring-it-on-home tax. Wrong. They will still need to pay the foreign tax in those tax jurisdictions. The profits earned in their overseas subsidiaries are still subject to tax. So, you are saying Corporations would voluntarily pay more taxes overseas rather than have more profits here in the US for which they already receive a tax benefit via a Cayman Island structure (exclusion of foreign income). Where’s your proof for that?
3. The ‘shenanigans’ you refer to aren’t accounting shenanigans per se, they really are transfer pricing study shenanigans. Setting up an intercompany agreement/arrangement means they must have a transfer pricing study done. The IRS even allows for them to have it reviewed and for ~$30,000 the IRS will agree to the accuracy/validity of the study and will not be able to change it going forward. So, this really is a tax or transfer pricing issue, not an accounting issue. Public companies go through public audits each and every quarter. If something is seriously misstated, auditors would not sign off.
It will be the IRS and the transfer pricing studies that will be manipulated.
I’d just comment on your comment.
1.) US (and many foreign) companies leverage the tax haven model to great effect. So while they may not LIKE to leave cash balances in seemingly volatile currencies – they ARE. Obviously the idea of paying a 4% tax rate in Ireland is of far greater appeal than paying 35% on income repatriated to the US. Large corporations, interestingly enough, are able to borrow against their cash and cash-equivalent assets they have overseas so it’s really a win-win for them. Also, remember that the US requires taxes paid on all profits earned all over the world. The US refunds all foreign taxes paid upon payment of US tax, as otherwise that would be double taxation on the same income. Companies just view paying a 4% or similar rate is cheaper than 35% and thus can effectively use their cash piles by leveraging those assets while they sit abroad.
2.) The author is suggesting that large companies use hubs (like Ireland) to funnel their money from international sales and serve as external investment structures – i.e., Ireland would serve as the financing operation for investments made in European operations. Now, I don’t know the specifics of how a corporation could shift “profits” around, as money earned in the US will inevitably be taxed at a US corporate rate. They could, however, shuffle their entity structure abroad depending on international tax laws to reflect ownership and tax liabilities in different countries. To answer your latter point, they are indeed paying “more” taxes overseas because they are less than the taxes they would pay if they reported it as US taxable income that was being held by a US financial institution.
3.) They are indeed accounting shenanigans. They’re establishing entities in various locations purely to receive the tax benefits offered by that country. Many countries don’t ascribe to the US way of doing business, for instance, in much of the world people are taxed at “residence” as opposed to “citizenship” (as we are here) – though I’m not as certain the rules are as strict for corporate structures. They effectively have international inversions they’re working through to minimize their tax liability. There’s a reason Burger King was “bought” by Tim Horton’s – Canadian taxation is more friendly and Burger King’s business is losing growth, so they’re cutting costs. Apple and many other large American companies haven’t gone to those lengths yet with their US based HQs, but they do it already internationally, utilizing smaller entities to serve as overseas points of profit consolidation. There’s nothing illegal about what they’re doing, lobbyists have legislated it as such, but it’s not a transfer pricing issue, they’re just looking for maximum tax efficiency by using cost effective ways to establish residency in low-tax jurisdictions and then have those jurisdictions act as international HQs for ownership and taxation purposes.
Anyways, bottom line is this. Our tax code is f*cked and way too friendly to corporations. Many countries have a large issue with corporations moving money to low tax jurisdictions (estimated $21 trillion in tax sheltered funds as of 2010) while maintaining large operations in the countries where they make the most profit. This has huge consequences for local communities that effectively subsidize the cost of doing business for these corporations, who realize the benefits of public infrastructure/government stability without paying much in the way of maintaining it.
Can you point to an example of a US corporation moving operations overseas in order to pay more taxes to foreign government than it would have paid to the US government had it kept operations in the US?
“Public companies go through public audits……”
Heard of Enron? AIG? Countrywide? Wells Fargo? Arthur Andersen? Bear Stearns? Adelphia? Lehman Brothers? Tyco? Halliburton? HealthSouth? Global Crossing……?
You’re slicing the shenanigans pretty thin here.
Even when Liberals are critical of the establishment, they scapegoat Trump. You should be saying Hillary Clinton hinting at Clinton-like giveaway to corporate america, since it would be far more accurate rather than placing it on someone who has had no political career outside of playing whatever role Donald Trump is supposed to be playing.
As usual, you get what you pay for.
Actually, Kurt Vonnegut said that.
Meaning no offense to Vonnegut,about 5 billion other humans have had that thought.
Can someone clarify this for me? I am asking because everyone who favors the government taxing ‘the rich’ and ‘the corporations’ seems to be dancing away from this core issue and hide behind curtains of outrage and righteousness.
I’ve posted this elsewhere on this thread but let me post it again and let’s see if anyone can help me understand – and forget about Hillary (yes she IS crooked) and corporations (yes many are ‘evil’ but I suspect that to a large degree they are given little choice but to be evil).
So, here’s the question: are we ‘property’, owned by the US gov’t or are we free humans?
___________________________________
A state can legitimately make money by taxing goods and capital as it crosses borders. THAT I can understand because the state provides protections within its borders, maintains infrastructure, enforces laws, etc.)
However, the ONLY explanation I can find for a state (in this case the US) claiming the right to tax income realized abroad is for the state claiming ownership of the person who earned that income because none of the services and protections provided by the state within its borders are offered abroad.
If I leave the US for 10 years and earn a million Bulgarian dollars in Bulgaria, what right does the US have to tax my earnings there? Unless the US owns me, body and soul.
THINK ABOUT IT. The US owning its citizens, by the way, explains many other things such as the US asking for a portion of a citizen’s assets when the citizen dies or the US claiming the right to prevent citizens (and residents) from consuming certain substances that could potentially ruin the citizen’s body and mind and therefore diminishing the citizen’s value, i.e. a state-owned asset.
Unless the gov’t claims to own us, there is no such thing as us ‘hiding’ anything abroad. Because it’s none of gov’t’s business what ‘we’ as free humans do, earn or own abroad.
I think that your argument holds weight if, while making money abroad, you do so as a non-US citizen. What does it mean to be a US citizen? Perhaps you, by being a US citizen, are not so much “owned” by the state, but you are nevertheless a member of the state with which you profess affiliation. As a member of a nation state, you owe at least government designated taxes in support of that state. If you feel that in leaving in order to make money abrogates your obligations as a member citizen, then why do you choose to remain a citizen at all? Go make all the foreign money you wish, but resign as a citizen of the US if you don’t care to any longer support the “mother ship”.
more tedious libertarian feints in the tedious libertarian fainting room —->
Vic, you are an excellent debater. Thank you for clarifying everything.
Question: Are we property?
Answer: No. We abolished slavery.
Are you taxed to hell. Yes, absolutely. You, being a US citizen, are taxed regardless of which country you worked in. You possibly also have tax obligations in whichever country you earned that income Tax rules are different country by country. In Taiwan, I believe you need to be in country for 280 days before you need to file. And it’s the same there. Whether or not you were paid by a Taiwan entity, you are still taxed at Taiwan rates.
The privilege to work is just that, a privilege. You don’t have to work and thus, not pay taxes. But then again, how would you pay for rent, food, clothing…Homeless don’t work. Also don’t file or pay taxes.
The US does give you a foreign tax credit. But that only goes so far. If you really worked a lot overseas, the foreign tax credit may not be enough to offset. If you work for a large Multinational corporation, you might ask if they offer a tax-equalization plan. Many companies I’ve worked for had such a plan as to not get their employees in trouble in foreign countries and thus, barred from reentry. I’ve often tried to set these sort of programs up in companies where I worked as to not get the company or the employee into trouble with a foreign government.
Hoped this answered your question(s).
Galactus,
And my question was what ‘entitles’ the US government to tax income earned abroad.
You seem to suggest that the US taxes income earned abroad because that’s what the US government does. And, yes, I knew that. But that does not answer the question of ‘what gives them the right to do so’.
One possible answer to the above, which I suggest, is that it’s the right of the owner. The government seems to claim ownership of its citizens. Yes… I know… government by the people… etc. But the fact that they assume the right to tax incomes earned outside their boundaries, the drugs restrictions, their taxing the estates of dead people, taking some of their ‘property’ seems to back my theory.
Arth: “One possible answer to the above, which I suggest, is that it’s the right of the owner. The government seems to claim ownership of its citizens.”
Social contract theory explains why a government can tax its own citizens, regardless of where they live. Citizens enjoy special rights and responsibilities that non-citizens don’t possess. The government provides protection from criminals and foreign invaders, arranges visas for international travel, makes economic treaties with other nation states, provides health care, provides education, provides the right to vote, allows citizens to run for elected office, protects freedom of speech, provides employment, and provides other services for its citizens in exchange for the right to tax them and requiring special services from them (e.g., the requirement to serve in the military or on juries). Because you don’t lose your citizenship when you travel or live abroad, the government retains its right to tax you and impose other responsibilities of citizenship.
If this social contract is not acceptable to you, you can always renounce your citizenship, although you will lose one-third of your assets to the government (in the case of U.S. citizenship) and you may be banned from reacquiring citizenship from the same nation-state in the future.
Hi,
No the US doesn’t own you, we just have a relatively antiquated tax system. It makes sense if you put it this way – you’re a US citizen/corporation and the US has effectively provided you the stability to maintain a base of operations whereby you can establish operations around the world. Now, you’re under no obligation to retain your US citizenship, but I guess that citizenship is pretty valuable given how much they will charge if you leave and earn money abroad. We do, of course, provide the ability to (in general) be repatriated for trials, support from embassies during times of crisis, etc.
The maximum nominal rate is 35% for corporations and 39.6% (i believe) for individuals. Compared to many countries, this rate isn’t all that bad (50% plus on income in many countries)
Now, you could renounce your citizenship, as a few wealthy individuals have done and you would only be able to be in the US for 180 days or less per year but get the benefit of whatever country’s tax rate they apply residency tax in.
Just an interesting look at some who’ve chosen that path:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2016/03/01/the-billionaire-banker-in-the-shadows/#5dcb65441f4d
Josh,
I am sorry but what you are saying is that “the US gov’t does what it does and if you don’t like it, stop being an American” (which, by the way, it’s not so easy).
Your statement does not address my suggestion that the US gov’t is treating the country’s citizens as if they were ‘property’. There is no other explanation for the US gov’t claiming the ‘right’ to tax a citizen’s earnings abroad, to take a portion of a dead person’s assets or to prohibit an adult to ingest certain substances.
There is no justification for the gov’t to claim a portion of someone’s earnings abroad other than the gov’t claiming ownership of the earner because the gov’t provides no protection, infrastructure or any other services outside the borders of the United States or its possessions or colonies.
We the people are the property – actually domain – of the USG. By the same token, you as a citizen are te owner of the USG and as such, have to pay for it. It’s a double edge sword. But because there are no sacred boundaries between cits and gov, the gov has mutated into a thieving state. The USG has removed “dom” from “free” which means that they are now free to rob Americans and assist in allowing wallstreet to also freely rob and mine mainstreet and we are dom for allowing them to do so.
I agree that the gov’t/citizen relationship has become an abusive one where the government is the abuser, because the government’s power is immense while the citizen’s is extremely limited and, if the statists have their way, it will decrease even more thanks to various ‘common sense’ initiatives such as ‘gun control’ and numerous regulations.
It’s amazing how so many citizens are brainwashed into believing the government claim that people who move some of their assets abroad AFTER paying taxes for their earnings here are somehow ‘hiding’ them. Similarly, slave owners would claim ownership of the fruits of a slave’s labor.
It’s a Libertarian. The only value, the only belief, the only reason for existence for a Libertarian is whatever fuels the acquisition of money and assets. This is what they term “liberty.” The individual person having the right to housing, food, health care and meaning in life, the individual human having intrinsic worth and therefore intrinsic rights is anathema to the Libertarian. These are the greedheads who take and take through paying puny wages and puny taxes all the while having a huge outside affect on legislators that are supposed to represent US. All of US. Whining about their corporate personhood, while exhibiting their ugly cyborg minds. It’s a Libertarian.
This is the woman who is supported now by both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
As always in the US the phony “liberals” and disingenuous “progressives” are subsumed to their glee at increased “power” into the Imperial maw.
Never ever trust a US politician of either main party, especially if they claim to be either of the above.
Sanders has not and will not endorsed Clinton, he said he’d vote for her over trump. It was a hypothetical statement. The media continues to mislead by pretending Clinton has the nomination which she doesn’t. Clinton could say she’d vote for Sanders and it would make as much sense.
It seems like that’s splitting hairs. Though I understand that his personal vote for her is not an endorsement in and of itself, to state his vote publicly months in advance of the election seems to be a tacit endorsement. That seems to me to be Bernie’s insinuation that voting lesser of the evils is better than having the integrity/ethics to vote for the candidate who best represents your values. Clinton vs Trump is a false choice. There are other candidates on the ballot in the general election. In my opinion, voting in favor of the same systemic political cancer which you’ve denounced as corrupt is ethically bankrupt.
Nah,it was a hypocritical statement.How any sane and humanistic person could vote for the Hell Bitch is beyond comprehension,and just exposes your pathetic hero worship and his hollow rhetoric.
Sanders does not support and hasn’t endorsed Clinton, saying he’d vote for Clinton was hypothetical, she could say she’d vote for Sanders and it would make just as much sense since neither one has gotten the nomination yet. The media continues to shill for Hillary as if she’s the nominee, not the “presumptive” nominee, like they’ve been doing since day one.
When someone says they will vote for a certain candidate this is support in my book. Warren is out campaigning with her. Bernie may follow or not he will vote for a war mongering big bank friend Imperialist.
You, go ahead and trust them, not me.
I leave every Bernie sticker I have on my car until November. I will add a Jill Stein 2016 sticker, as soon as I can get one.
I could never vote for Hilary!
Piece of shit. We need our own October Revolution here pronto.
You want to give the tyrannical corporate government -more- power so that it can fight the tyrannical corporate government? How exactly does that work??
perhaps a study of America’s water supply will show higher concentrations of fluoride in the water in democratic areas. There has to be some rational explanation for the stupidity of the support for Hillary and her elite masters.
Adroit unravelling of the real purpose behind the façade. Much appreciated.
Clinton’s history of astonishingly shady and underhanded dealings that always benefit either her or contributors to her agenda are described in this 20 minute video (even watching a bit of it will shock anyone who knows only a little of her past):
Hillary Clinton: A Career Criminal
(*As a few examples, consider her suspicious meeting to get confirmed terrorists pardoned so that Puerto Rico would support her, Whitewater, the fact that the New York Times called her a “congenital liar” etc…)
The bizarre subtext of this report of battling economic plans is that government must raise taxes to provision any of its programs (e.g. infrastructure rebuilds).
But where do the people paying taxes get their dollars if the monopoly provider of non-counterfeit dollars (government) doesn’t spend them out into the economy first?
Even worse is the “fiscally responsible” notion that we must reduce national “debt” (payable in those dollars government can create without limit).
Our money *is* “debt.” Most people are familiar with this concept when they have a bank account. That account is an asset to the depositor, but a liability to the bank. We assign the bank’s liabilities (its debt) to the payee when we write a check. The national “debt” (not at all like household debt) is the bank’s liability, but the population’s asset (currency, bonds, etc.).
Reduce the “debt” and debtors suffer because currency is less available while their obligations remain the same. The real agenda behind reducing national “debt” is the economic elites’ wish to harvest all economic excess with a series of privatized toll booths (for roads, schools, utilities, intellectual property like patents, etc.) while reducing the population to debt peonage in a re-hash of the Guilded Age.
See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/l-randall-wray/the-federal-budget-is-not_b_457404.html for more historical background.
If the true reason behind reducing national ‘debt’ is the economic elite wishing to make us slaves, then the true reason behind the fed’s inflationary economic policy is to pay off said debt by devaluing the property and assets of all citizens, from the poor to the economic elite. Agreed?
“But where do the people paying taxes get their dollars…?”
Push your argument a little farther and consider that money is not real. It’s one of those, long ago, perhaps once convenient, fictions people made up to assist them and now it controls them. But, if money isn’t real, merely an idea, then how crazy it is that people die from the lack of it or kill to get it?
The notion that the US government has the right to tax profits earned overseas is not only unbelievably arrogant, it actually implies that the US government ‘owns’ its citizens (because they do tax money earned by US citizens abroad) and the US-based corporation.
Seriously, can anyone explain how can the US gov’t claim the right to tax moneys earned by someone outside the US unless the US gov’t claims ownership of that person?
The beauty of financial arbitrage created by tax lawyers and CPA’s, are that corporations can falsely claim that the most profitable sectors of their businesses reside in the Cayman Islands or Ireland. Thus dodging their tax obligations and complain that the system is unfair. Increasingly we are seeing government institutions being run by corporate executives and lobbyists. Thus making it difficult to know if criticism of government policy is a de facto criticism of corporate agenda and vise versa. Ultimately if corporations dodge their taxes someone else has to cover them, which usually involves increasing taxes on the middle classes, running large fiscal deficits, and printing money.
The taxes $700 billion in taxes stolen from We the People by off-shoring profits is a scam perpetrated on Americans by the richest, even as 50 million Americans suffer in poverty. Clinton is being funded by these thieves, $45 million is no pittance, ensuring Clinton’s sell out. Here’s my position, tax the shit out of these thieves, full payment repatriated, plus penalties. There is no justification for these thefts. Further, identify those tax laws that allowed this theft to occur, and tell us who and how this situation was put in place. The are traitors.
Bernie has said that we haven’t heard what we want from Clinton, Clinton’s 5 percent solution is exactly what is meant. I will vote for Clinton iff she begins to recognize that she stands for the same gobbledygook that produced the $800 billion in stolen taxes in the first place. Those taxes have been stolen, and continue to be stolen, and while that is unrecognized by Clinton, my no vote for her will contain the recognition her policies demand.
A state can legitimately make money by taxing goods and capital as it crosses borders. THAT I can understand.
However, the ONLY explanation I can find for a state (in this case the US) claiming the right to tax income realized abroad is for the state claiming ownership of the person who earned that income. If I leave the US for 10 years and earn a million Bulgarian dollars in Bulgaria, what right does the US have to tax my earnings there? Unless the US owns me, body and soul.
THINK ABOUT IT. The US owning its citizens, by the way, explains many other things such as the US asking for a portion of a citizen’s assets when the citizen dies or the US claiming the right to prevent citizens (and residents) from consuming certain substances that could potentially ruin the citizen’s body and mind and therefore diminishing the citizen’s value, i.e. a state-owned asset.
Unless the gov’t owns us, there is no such thing as us ‘hiding’ anything abroad. Because it’s none of gov’t’s business what ‘we’ as free humans do, earn or own abroad.
Hate the bastards getting away with it, but we have to get the factories back before we can re-unionize and force them to be socially responsible.
The public has been loosing the battle with the corporations since the end of the Carter regime so, how about we give it up. It’s like the war on drugs, an abject failure, so give it up. What I would really like to do is to have all money created by the state and end the “debt” system of money creation by private banksters and put a 100% reserve on bank loans. Money is like music or mathematics, an abstraction that the elites use to control the working class. Of course, that would take blood in the streets as your own soldiers shot you down for the banksters. So, how about this, drop corporate taxes to zero which is essentially where they are for many large corporations anyway. That would give a level playing field for small and medium size business to compete and innovate. The rest of the world would have to follow suit. Now the hard part; put a progressive tax system on individuals with no deductions, I repeat, no deductions for anything but children, the aged and disabled. This would free up all the lobbyists, lawyers, and various parasites to learn a trade and do honest work rebuilding infrastructure etc. If a corporation wants to have a Jet: to take people out to fancy restaurants, let them pay for it, not make me pay for it. Zero tax, wow, what corporation could resist the savings on creative accounting, lobbyists, lawyers, Politicians; you could cut corruption at least 50% overnight. Of course, if you have the state create the money you wouldn’t need to tax anyone other than a way to make the money circulate around but one step at a time. If corporations really think their CEOs are worth the money; let them pay it and we tax it with no deductions and jail for those who find creative ways to hide it offshore.
Although your argument has many merits, it contains a critical flaw, namely the assumption that all corporations care about is taxes, so that if we did not require them to pay any taxes, they would have no need for lobbyists.
In fact, corporations have many other interests. Here is a partial list:
1. Wages: There will always be a corporate interest in lowering wages, by either not raising the minimum wage, or eliminating it altogether. Ancillary topics include rescinding laws mandating overtime wages, child labor, and a specified work week.
2. Payroll taxes: Getting rid of Social Security, or at least the employer contribution. I admit, there is some interest in keeping the program, but what the lobbyists are aiming for is for the workers to assume to entire burden of financing Social Security and Medicare, and having the private sector administer it.
3. Health insurance: Get rid of any and all mandates for employers to provide, or assist in providing, health insurance coverage.
4. Environment: Eliminate rules and regulations that limit what corporations can dump into the air, water or soil. These rules cost them untold millions.
5. Tort law reform: Each year, corporations are forced to spend millions on attorneys and in damages for superfluous acts like causing cancer, building cars that explode on collision, etc. There is a strong interest in eliminating the right of proles to sue for damages.
6. Safety: Corporations are forced to do testing on drugs before they are put on the market, to test their GMO products to make sure the seeds actually sprout, and to design everything from ladders to automobiles to minimize the risk of accidents. These programs are expensive, and need to be eliminated to ensure corporate profitability is no longer adversely affected.
I am sure there are other areas in which the state intrudes on the corporations’ right to life. If you are really a right to lifer, you need to expand your horizons from just the abortion clinics to all those poor, persecuted multinationals.
Jon, Obama’s “infrastructure Bank” is also a not so silent “dog whistle”, straight out of Margaret Thatcher’s “public private partnerships” (a euphemism for the private sector earns all the profits and the public picks up all the costs). Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are among the biggest corporate pimps on the planet and their whistles, while apparently silent for gullible journalists like you Jon, are painfully and loudly roaring in the ears of anyone paying the slightest attention. Do you really need to try to help create an illusion of Obama ever having a progressive bone in his body? If so try to get a job with CNN or any of the other corporate media outlets – don’t waste space on the Intercept with mealy-mouthed pieces that won’t call the “shit” – shit.
If true, it’s one of Clinton’s rare good ideas. Would you rather the money get taxed as it repatriates, the better to further the warfare state? More $$ for bombs for Yemen, for arming Syrian factions, for antagonizing Russia, on and on…better to bury the profits in a hole than to let the USG get their hands on it.
Good article Jon. “We’re not broke” is a good documentary about corporate tax dodging for those that are interested.
Yes, because the private sector is doing so well running our prisons, wars and colleges.
Income taxes and wars go hand-in-hand. Supporting it equals support of the warrior super states,and the concomitant spying for our “protection”. William Pitt the Younger for the Napoleonic Wars, plus this from your hero.
http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Historical%20evolution%20of%20income%20tax%20(Arthur%20Jatteau).pdf
End both corporate and personal income taxes, and end the FEDs, and much of this security state apparatus would die.
The idea that something that makes money is always better than something that doesn’t has become the American Virus. Once infected, it takes over the operating system of the host. It then proceeds to run thru the memory files and corrupt them to dissolve their existing relationships. Once completed, the now zombied client forms a permanent connection to the network server to get its instructions.
Give it up. All taxes are paid for by the little guy. Business taxes are a cost passed on to customers. Ending repatriation changes nothing it doesn’t matter whether Elizabeth Warren likes it or not.
So then why do businesses and corporations spend billions on lobbyists in order to create tax dodges and to pay little to no taxes? Your old and stale comment about how “passing it on to the customers,” as if to say, “Who cares and why should anybody care whether or not corporations pay taxes of any significance” makes no sense when reality comes to call.
That is what corporations say not to pay taxes. Yet the corporate game is to maximize profits, not to sustain the same profit level. Thus corporations are always charging consumers as much as they can while maximizing profit, yet if they pay taxes they have already worked out their maximum price point to the consumer which would have little wiggle room to increase prices. Also the fact that they are sitting on $2.4 trillion dollars overseas mean that there are no price increase to pass on to consumers as the money has already been made. If these corporation had productive uses for this money they would deployed it (ie built factories, hired staff, research and development, ect.) instead they are just letting the money sit overseas idly as they don’t have productive uses for it. They are merely hoping that congress gives them another tax break like they did in 2004, so that they can bring the money over, to pay out huge bonuses and stock dividends. Ultimately this will become corporate standard practice, leaving middle class Americans on up to pay for large federal deficits to pay for stuff (like wars) that we have almost no say in.
First,
ANY words from Clinton, Trump, or their “parties” can have
any meaning they want the words to have,
including no meaning at all.
Secondly, maintaining the ILLUSION of two parties is part of the game.
Thirdly, the real focus of Clinton’s words (such as they are or are not)
is, ” bring private sector dollars off the sidelines.” AS IF privatized
and privatizing money is not the central focus already
Fourth and final,
Elizabeth Warren is a fraud who is ready to further unleash
the predatory capitalist for her beloved corrupt comrades. That
is how and why she is giving a “GIANT wet kiss” to Clinton’s
corrupt manipulations.
Sen Warren is a phony. She has double standards….
Gives impression of fighting for the interests of common man in the USA …….justifying killing of innocent civilians by USA’s so called ally, the only democracy in the middle east!!
She is a serious bubblehead,the worst kind,while her mentor is seriously Hillaryous.
Is it any wonder, ordinary citizens are disgusted with both parties and both the presumptive presidential candidates have the lowest approval ratings ever! No relief in sight on the horizon from this massive corruption. Very sad state of affairs for people who are barely surviving….in this very rich country!!!!
ps chronic liars and deceivers do not change…..
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-swaim-politics-lie-word-20160619-snap-story.html
People are turning on each other like trapped rats, blowing each other up with our household weapons of war. We’re left once again, after Bernie and all that, the choice to vote for US President for either continued rule by banks/billionaires or by banks/billionaires/war profiteers. Something’s gonna blow.
Provocative rhetoric from politicians ( and headlines from the media ) is bringing out and will bring out the worst in people with “genuine grievances”….. it will be exploited at their expense to their ( politicians and media ) advantage….. there has already been violence between supporters and protesters which unfortunately is likely to get worse. As you write, things will blow up and again, already “deprived” will suffer the most. Which way America?? Afraid to think…..with two worst candidates in the lead…
Hillary Clinton thinks she can pacify the electorate with various domestic programs as she continues to make war against innocents in the Middle East, Ukraine and in Latin America.
She is a Neocon hawk who is trying to pull a “Wizard of Oz” trick on the voters.
“Don’t pay any attention to what I am REALLY doing behind the scenes. War, war and more war, destruction, mayhem, chaos and possibly WW III. Just keep watching the MSM and their “domestic” BS and never mind what we are really up to behind the scenes with perpetual war for no peace.”
Hillary Clinton is a war criminal and liar. Comey has four more weeks to indict the rat before she gets the Democrat nomination.
The clock is ticking. If he hasn’t made up his mind in the next four weeks then this “slow-walking” dance Comey/Lynch/Obama are doing will be a crime in itself by allowing a criminal to become the Democrat nominee.
What is Comey “waiting” for? Christmas?!
What Comey is waiting for in three words: Statute of Limitations.
It worked so well for Eric Holder, Comey will surely succeed. Or, should he be out in the next administration, his successor will.
You don’t really think that the DoJ or FBI will go after a presidential candidate, do you? That’s so . . .so 1970s. The USA entered into a new era of law enforcement in this century, and there is no turning back.