Grizalltheway wrote:93henfan wrote:
The way to get out of this is massive, painful cuts to entitlements and DoD instead of just discretionary spending, rollback of sweetheart tax breaks and loopholes, tax reform (some sort of flat or consumption tax along with a drastic lowering of the corporate tax rate to bring some of that money back onshore), and a balanced budget amendment.
We all know this, but few will agree to every single one of the items, hence the current boondoggle.
I find it hard to believe the cash stashed in offshore accounts would magically find its way back here, even if the corporate tax rate were drastically lowered. I don't necessarily think it would be a bad thing to lower it, but why would they decide to pay x percent on it, when it would remain tax-free in the Cayman Islands?
Its not the Cayman's anymore, its places like Switzerland and Ireland that have 16% and 12.5% corporate tax rates compared to the US, which has the highest in the world, not even including state & local. Posted excerpts from this 4 page long 60 Min Piece (certainly no conservative news source) on another thread last yr:
"......When President Obama threatened to clamp down on tax dodging, many companies decided to leave the Caribbean. But instead of coming back home, they went to safer havens like Switzerland.
Several of these companies came to a small, quaint medieval town in Switzerland call Zug.
Hans Marti, who heads Zug's economic development office, showed off the nearby snow-covered mountains. But Zug's main selling point isn't a view of the Alps: he told Stahl the taxes are somewhere between 15 and 16 percent.
"And in the United States it's 35 percent," Stahl pointed out.
"I know. It's half price," Marti said.
Marti told Stahl that Zug most probably has the lowest tax rates in Switzerland.
"So you're kind of a tax haven within a tax haven?" she remarked.
"Maybe, yes," he acknowledged.
The population of the town of Zug is 26,000; the number of companies in the area is 30,000 and growing at an average rate of 800 a year. But many are no more than mailboxes......
......Economist Martin Sullivan says it's standard operating procedure for companies like Cisco. "U.S. multinationals are shifting their research facilities, shifting their manufacturing facilities, and shifting some regional headquarters into Switzerland and into Ireland. And those are massive numbers of jobs," he told Stahl.
Sullivan says Ireland taxes corporations at just a third of the U.S. rate, so no wonder the outskirts of Dublin look like Silicon Valley. Many well-known companies are all but obliged to go abroad.
"Well, if you have a 35 percent rate in the United States and, for example, a 12.5 percent rate in Ireland, there's a incentive to move your factory to Ireland," he explained.
"Six hundred American companies are in Ireland and they employ 100,000 people," Stahl pointed out. "Those are jobs that aren't here. And they moved to Ireland because of taxes."
"The U.S. Treasury in effect is subsidizing investment in Ireland," Sullivan said.
"Why isn't everybody in Ireland if it's that great?" Stahl asked.
"Almost everybody is in Ireland," Sullivan said. "All the pharmaceutical companies, all the high tech companies. You're stupid if you're not in Ireland," he replied.......
........If they bring the money home, it's taxed the full 35 percent. If they leave it overseas, the IRS can't touch it. In other words, the tax law all but forces companies to keep their money out of the country, indefinitely.
"We leave the money over there. I create jobs overseas; I acquire companies overseas; I build plants overseas; and I badly want to bring that money back," John Chambers told Stahl.
Chambers told Stahl Cisco has almost $40 billion overseas that could be brought back to the U.S.
The total amount of money U.S. companies have trapped overseas is $1.2 trillion. Chambers is advocating for a one-time tax break to allow them to bring that money home at a rate of, say five percent. That would, he says, stimulate the economy and create jobs.
"What is your downside for money that isn't going to come back anyhow? I'd say your downside is zero," he told Stahl.
But the Obama administration opposed this idea. When it was tried in 2005, the Treasury did rake in billions of dollars, though very few jobs were created.
"What if tomorrow Congress passed a quickie law and the tax rate was 20 percent? Would that solve everything?" Stahl asked.
"I think it is the most important ingredient that we have to think about being competitive," Chambers replied.
"You lower the rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. You lose something like $2 trillion in taxes. We have a horrible deficit crisis, debt crisis. That's almost too much money to lose. What's your answer to that?" Stahl asked.
"My answer's very simple: every other developed country in the world has already done this. I'm not asking to give me a favor, or a hand out," Chambers replied.
"You know what: it sounds it," Stahl remarked.
Chambers replied, "All we're asking is: Give us a level playing field. Get us close."
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