Obama: Corp. tax-cheats cost $210 billion

While this makes absolute sense, I think a fight with the right will be coming. While they like to claim their dismay at giving companies a bailout, they are still the party of big business and believe in thier absolute right of them raping and pillaging the masses. Why would anybody be against a guy making a buck? Watch for the spin on this one...it's going to be a doozy.

Interesting thing about those very high bracket tax returns:

the minimal amount of information they are required to disclose.

Very easy to hide the fact that you sold your company for $40 million and had a capital gain of $35 million but you paid one of those 1000 member law firms $1 million for an opinion letter and did a little restructuring and only paid $1 million in taxes.

Again, the "advice of counsel" out.

Or, you could probably get an even less expensive opinion from a professor of tax law at Harvard, the one who said Marc Rich did nothing wrong.

All high bracket individual returns should be audited regularly.

You'll find lots of evaded taxes there.

Bill R. we're already beginning to see the right wing spin on this and believe me, it will not play in Peoria. Every day the GOP and their media blow-hards are proving to the American people that they are not on their side. They want the rich and powerful to keep all the perks that have been bestowed upon them, while the rest of us see our wages stagnate or our jobs disappear altogether.

The US has one of the highest corporate tax rates among Western countries.
The US is one of the very few countries that tries to tax all of a corporations worldwide earnings, as opposed to just taxing the amount of earnings made from US operations. Currently these US based companies get a tax credit, but they can not move their profits back to the US without paying more taxes.

For example, French based companies have to pay US corporate income tax on their earnings in the US, but owe nothing back in France. Canada is the same way.

Given the above, why would any international company continue to be a US based company given Obama's threats? These companies can physically locate their operations elsewhere and that means corporate HQ jobs will go elsewhere.

Yes, the jobs to serve their US operations will continue to be here, but their personnel to serve their international operations will go outside the US.

It is great to see the reasonable argument, being made, here, on this subject. Nobody is saying, not to make a dollar. What is being argued is, do we need the greedy, to be the beneficiaries of government tax policies !! I don't think so. Working American need some help, right now, not the profit-gorged Corporations !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.

I love the headline and the photo, it sums up the entire Dem' Admin'. Headline: Obama: Corp. tax-cheats cost $210 billion.
Photo caption: President Barack Obama, followed by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, right, and Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service Douglas Shulman after touting tax reform in the Grand Foyer of the White House. (Photo by Charles Dharapak / AP)

Nothing like touting the tax cheats, with the head of the IRS who is one. Priceless. LOL hehehehehehe

WJ - to address your point - so what?

Quippy - You're seeing your wages stagnate and jobs disappear exactly because of policies like this. Obama says he doesn't want to reward companies for moving jobs oversees - and what's that imply, he wants them here so they can be punished? If my company could be moved oversees, I'd do it in a heartbeat and that's what any business that can will do. It won't increase tax revenue, just like most liberal policies, it will raise the rate, but on a smaller number of people and ultimately, tax revenue drops just like it has every single time it's been done in the past. You want your wages increased, you don't want to lose your job - oppose policies like this.

Posted by: WJ | May 4, 2009 1:46 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think what they intend to go after is the profits made and illegally hidden in accounts offshore to avoid the taxes that rightfully should be paid in America...See Aruba, Switzerland, etc. I'm all for it if it reduces my tax burden and they pay their fair share. And yes, I feel that every company should be able to make a profit. It's just that there are those who are greedy and do not pay what they should like the rest of us .

Great! But where has congress been all these years?

First of all, Obama needs to go after the tax cheats within his own administration and party first. Geithner, anyone? Rangel, anyone? Murtha, anyone? "I love the smell of dead babies" Sebelius, anyone?
Second, how about lowering the tax rates of American businesses? Now that would be a stimulus that actually would ignite the economy and get people back to work!

I would love to see the Republicans try to criticize this one! At least the underlying policy intent of this proposal. (How well it's carried out is, of course, open to debate.)

I'm sure Republican leader Limbaugh will find some interesting method of both denouncing new tax increases, while at the same time supporting businesses' right to evade paying existing ones.

If only I could tell the Cook County property tax collector that my house was in the Cayman Islands!

Given the above, why would any international company continue to be a US based company given Obama's threats?
Posted by: WJ | May 4, 2009 1:46 PM

Because we are still the largest nation of consumers.

The practice of "off-shoring" cheats other taxpayers, the president said, and those who circumvent the system are "aided and abetted by a broken tax system" that he pledged to fix.

Does this mean Rengal's on the hook?

"President Barack Obama said this morning that he plans to crack down on American companies that LEGALLY avoid U.S. tax obligations by investing money in countries with lower tax rates."

If it's currently legal, how are these companies cheating?

"$210 billion in tax revenue over the next decade" .While spending $3,000,000,000,000 to stimulate the economy in his first 100 days in office.

Matt, if you want to move your business to a foreign tax haven that is your business. Since you haven't done that, could it be because the best opportunities for your business to profit are here in the United States? If so, pay your fair share of tax on it, just like U.S. workers pay taxes on their earnings, their purchases and their property. Businesses and the rich have developed a skewed sense of entitlement that is beyond reason.

You fools, corporations don't pay taxes, you pay taxes, they pass them on to you...

Also I think you will find several Democrats who oppose this since it might beneifit them personally.Seems they like to raise taxes, just not actually pay them.

I keep hearing over and over that the US has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. So what? The taxes (paid by corporations and individuals who aren't tax cheats) also pay for a defense budget that is larger than every other nation on earth COMBINED. That's why those rates are so high. Why is it that conservatives get so indignant when immigration laws are broken (especially when the result of it is cheaper labor for those same corporations), but think it's ok to look the other way when tax laws are broken?

FYI, we also have the world's highest incarceration rate, the highest infant mortality rate, and the highest breast cancer rate, among other things we "lead" in. How about we worry about lowering taxes on corporations when we've given up our "lead" on those problems?

More liberal poppycock. Sounds great on the surface: make those greedy corporations that are the dirt and scum of the earth pay their fair share... Except, of course, when you consider FACTS, instead of blatant intellectually dishonest. Facts like the U.S. has the second highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. Historically the effective tax rates of most multinational corporations have been lower because this draconian tax policy incents them to hire overseas and never repatriate profits so they are reinvested back into U.S. commerce. But instead of doing the **sensible** thing, which would be to close the loopholes while simultaneously lowering the tax rate, which in turn is passed on to YOU the consumer (higher prices) and YOU the worker (less jobs). All of which is lost in the populist rhetoric of hope, change, hope, change, hope, change, hope, change....

The corps need to close all operations in the US.

Why work and contribute, just to be called a crook?

Forget them and go elsewhere.

Such a tired knee-jerk set of objections ("they'll move out of the US," "they'll pass the taxes on to the consumer," ...it's not even worth responding to some of the junk that gets posted by the lower-20% these days).

Really, the trickle-down conservatives should look at their economic record over the past ten years and shut up. Just shut up. Even Wendy Lee Gramm has shut her face, and she's the one who started it. Bless her husband, Phil, too, "the #1 most blameworthy" for all that shameful Wall Street de-regulatin...

Ever try to do business in Singapore, Argentina, or Japan? Pay political middle men much? How's your Japanese, by the way? You want to visit your HQ in Mexico City sometime this week, you say? Maybe better next month with a few bodyguards in tow? Even France, Germany, and Italy can be horrors for someone trying to do business without political distraction.

Maybe GE actually derives a few benefits from the peace and quiet of Niskayuna.

Methinks the party-of-NO d'oth protest too much.

Again...it is tax CHEATS they want to reign in...not responsible business people. If you love this country, you pay your fair share. If you don't like how much your share is...VOTE!!!

If you want to fix the tax system, tie it direcly to the voting system. No taxes, no vote.

That would be the start of a fair tax system as well as a fair voting system.

Of course it would also mean the end of the Democratic Party, but I'm willing to make that sacrafice.

United States citizens would not mind this tax enforcement so much if these pathetic politicians were not such raging hypocrites. When the pols get busted for not paying their taxes (in Obama's own Administration); he makes apologies and calls it a big 'mistake and misunderstanding'. When corporate America fudges on taxes, Obama makes like a tough guy.

Another example that the Obama experiment is going horribly wrong.

Over 18,000 US "headquarters" in the Cayman Islands alone.

Time for a real tea party.

Some interesting facts - it won't generate $210 billion over 10 years since gov't will make a law and corporations will do their best to counter-act the tax effect on its shareholders. The corporation's fudiciary is to their shareholders, not teh gov't.

Who is one of the biggest offenders of this - General Electric - owner of left-wing NBC news.

Ronny,

The Gramm-Billey act signed into law by Bill Clinton was passed by the US Senate by a 90-8 vote - seems pretty bi-partisan

" Bob ", it would serve the discussion a lot better, if your were to present the whole picture of the Gramm-Billey Act of 1999. First of all, the Gramm-Billey Act was solely sponsored by Republicans. The initial vote in the Senate was 54-44, along Party lines. Deals were struck and the vote of 90-8, was a vote that entailed more then the Gramm-Billey Act, alone !! Why not tell the whole story, instead of presenting the facts, to enhance your position !!? Can't the Republicans deal with the whole truth, or just their version of it !!?
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.

I think it’s rather curious, not to mention unfair, that this article describes the targets of Obama’s efforts as a “tax cheats” since he isn’t going after people who have violated any tax laws. He’s going after people who lawfully use the tax code to pay less in taxes than he thinks is fair. But that’s not cheating. It is not a crime, unethical, greedy or cheating to not overpay one’s taxes. It may be cheating if they do it again after Congress changes the tax codes to prohibit their behavior, but not until then.

FITZ,

I agree with you Bob should have told the whole story, as so you should. The bill got the additional votes for Democrats agreed to support the bill after Republicans agreed to strengthen provisions to have the banks provide more mortgage money to lower income families. ... And thus started the house of cards