Posted on 07/31/2002 7:38:31 PM PDT by Action-America
Edited on 07/31/2002 7:47:36 PM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
With major corporate responsibility legislation passed, elected officials are turning to a new target -- business tax evaders -- in a scramble to convince voters they are cracking down on corporate wrongdoing.
Senate hearings today will touch on the topic, but House members got a head start last week. First, they overwhelmingly approved a corporate responsibility bill drafted largely by Senate Democrats. Then, while debating a less-noticed provision in the president's homeland security proposal, 110 Republican members defied their party's leaders to confront another brand of questionable corporate behavior: companies locating overseas to escape U.S. taxes.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I agree. Even proposed a way to do it over two years ago: A Proposal to Abolish the Corporate Income Tax
Trouble is, the globalist NRST flying monkeys don't like tariffs. They prefer smothering American consumers with a whopping 30% sales tax.
...will pay more to support their socialist schemes and will work work for the government first and employees and investors second.
But, if the Democrats and Republicans in Congress have their way, those companies
...will pay more to support their socialist schemes and will work work for the government first and employees and investors second.
Indeed, those non-multinational companies that don't have enough foreign business to allow them to leave, will end up working for the government first and the investors and employees will take a back seat. Furthermore, if it is allowed to continue, the investors and employees will end up working for the government, as well.
With the help of many of the Republicans in Congress (and the Whitehouse), the socialists are winning. It's time to dump about 3/4 of the Republican and all of the Democrat incumbents and replace them with true conservative Republicans, Libertarians or true conservative Democrats (hey, in some districts, you can't get elected unless you are a Democrat).
But, one fact is indisputable. The entrenched politicos that are in power today aren't cuttin' it.
No police protection, no fire protection, no roads, sewers, electricity. Extend it to corporate officers along with the business itself.
Yeah, right! Drive the jobs overseas. That's real bright.
For one thing, whenever a tariff is imposed on imported goods, domestic goods of like kind increase in price almost as much as the amount of the tariff.
The result? Foreign goods increase in price and so do domestic goods.
Look what happened when the President imposed a 30% steel tariff recently; it is my understanding that foreign and domestic steel prices increased 30%!
Nobody wins under that scenario: Steel workers have lost their jobs because of the tariff, and businesses that use steel are not buying as much. Consumers lose because the price of products that use steel increases. Manufacturing companies lose because the price of their products goes up and sales/profits go down. Tariffs are a "no win" situation.
Tariffs are a dumb, dumb idea, doing far more harm than good.
The best way to fund the legitimate activities of our government is with a consumption tax. FRee trade, is after all, supposed to eliminate tariffs in their entirety.
If the US continues towards the stated objective of lowering trade barriers by eliminating tariffs, and keeps the stupid progressive income tax, foreign goods will be sold, for all intents and purposes, tax free in America.
To a large extent, our present tax and tariff laws severely disadvantage US businesses at home and abroad relative to their foreign competition. But tariffs are not the way to fix that problem.
The only viable alternative, which truly levels the playing field among manufacturers in a world trade environment where there is FRee and Fair trade between nations is a territorial border adjustable consumption tax.
And the best territorial border adjustable consumption tax is the National Retail Sales Tax.
BTW, who introduced your proposal to abolish the corporate income tax into the US House of Representatives, and what was the bill number?
FWIW, I agree with you on the first part of your proposal: Let's repeal the corporate income tax. But it should be replaced with nothing. Talk about "jump starting" the economy!
“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” [Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush, 1800.]
Scrap the Code! Scrap the IRS! Abolish the VLWC!
We will never be a truly FRee people so long as we have the income tax and the IRS.
Click here to help us scrap the Code, scrap the IRS and abolish the VLWC!
You can also click here to find out how to help us replace the income tax with a National Retail Sales Tax and abolish the IRS!
We will never be a truly FRee people so long as we have the income tax and the IRS.
They can't give up the US market. How long do you think their US warehouses would remain standing?
Think again.
There are two points that you ignore.
1) Most of the companies that we are talking about are multinational companies that have intentionally developed significant offshore business, for this very reason. Sure, they may only get a maximum of 10% of their income from any other single country. But, 10% from England, another 10% from France, another 10% each from Germany, Japan and Russia, 8% each from Spain, Italy and Australia and another few percent from each of a number of smaller countries and you suddenly see that the amount of US business that many of those companies have is far less than the tax savings that they would recognize by leaving.
Giving up 15-25% of their business for a couple of years, to save 35% in taxes forever is not a bad deal. In fact, that's a possibility that every company that has chosen expatriation has had to consider and still, they chose expatriation.
I remember one of the officers of a company that expatriated a while back, who said that even if the US government was to make the mistake of attempting to bar expatriating companies entirely from doing business in the US, that the US economy could not handle the negative effects of such legislation for more than a couple of years, while it would be only a temporary setback for established multinational companies and even that would be offset by a significant permanent tax savings. In fact, the only thing that is keeping most of them here now is the patriotism of their American officers. But, as oppressive laws put more and more of them into a position where their patriotism puts their company at risk, more and more will choose survival over patriotism.
They may have to give up some US business. But, the other choice is corporate oblivion.
2) The other point that you ignore is that the US must have some way of repatriating all massive amount of the US Dollars that are currently offshore. Without foreign business investment in the US, there is no way to get those dollars back into circulation and "circulation" is the name of the game. Without enough dollars in circulation, other countries can easily force the value of the dollar to artificial lows.
The fact is, that the US needs those corporations doing business here a whole lot more than those corporations need to do business here.
Why don't we just do that NOW, so the companies would stop leaving???
Let the GATT and NAFTA treaties work out -- eventually there will be no tariffs, then we will have both FRee and Fair trade!
Agreed.
I believe that this is the vote that I watched the other day on C-SPAN. It was on a Rosa DeLauro amendment. The number of Republicans voting against was somewhere near 200 but there were enough voting for it that the Republicans knew they couldn't win. About 100 of the Republicans then switched their vote.
A similar amendment was introduced in the Senate on (I believe) the appropriations for the Defense Department. I watched a speech by Phil Gramm (R-TX). He called it for what it is. It is extremely popular - as evidenced by some of the ridiculous statements here on FR - but is it good public policy?
As Senator Gramm said, a company domiciled in the U.S. now pays corporate taxes on earnings from all of their enterprises - even those overseas. Other countries don't tax corporations as much as we do.
And, as Senator Gramm said, the tax code says that any company, no matter where they are domiciled, pays U.S. taxes on income earned in the U.S..
Thus, a company such as Stanley, if they changed their domicile offshore, would still pay taxes in the U.S. for income earned in the U.S..
The amendment offered in the Senate (by that communist Paul Wellstone) would forbid the Defense Department from buying from Stanley (if they changed their domicile) but would allow them to buy from foreign copmpanies in China, Germany, etc. even if they hired not one damned American worker.
Do you idiots out there really understand the problem?
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