Tag: Tax Incentives

That Global Minimum Tax

Biden’s Sec Treasury recently proposed a policy that I can get on-board with (there are some few that I can support)…….

https://lobotero.com/2021/06/09/global-minimum-corporate-tax/
Now it appears that more and more countries are signing on to this policy…..
Some 130 countries have backed a global minimum tax as part of a worldwide effort to keep multinational firms from dodging taxes by shifting their profits to countries with low rates. The agreement announced Thursday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development also provides for taxing the largest global companies in countries where they earn profits through online businesses but may have no physical presence. The agreement followed a proposal from President Biden for at least a 15% rate, an initiative that propelled the talks toward meeting a deadline for a deal by the middle of this year. The deal now will be discussed by the Group of 20 countries at meetings later this year, the AP reports, in hopes of finishing the details in October and implementing the agreement in 2023.
 
Under the deal, countries could tax their companies’ foreign earnings if they go untaxed through subsidiaries in other countries. That would remove the incentive to use accounting and legal schemes to shift profits to low-rate countries, since the profits would be taxed at home anyway. Not all of the 139 countries that joined the talks signed on to the deal. The proposal to tax countries where they have sales but no physical presence, which would require countries to sign up for a multilateral convention, excluded extractive companies such as oil and mining and regulated banks. The deal now faces more technical work and review by the Group of 20 countries. In the US, Biden has proposed a 21% minimum rate on overseas earnings of big US companies to deter them from shifting profits to tax havens. Biden’s US tax would need to be approved by Congress.
Like I said….I believe this is a much needed tax policy….
 
We will see just how effective it truly is or is this just a tactic to quell some larger issues.
 
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Repatriation Of The Dollar

When Trump was running as a GOP candidate he made a few promises that I thought I could get behind (that does not mean that I would have voted for him just that I thought they were good policies)……most of these policies were in the field of diplomacy and international relations….but there was one that I thought was excellent but did not think he could accomplish…..the promise of the return of funds held by American corporations in offshore accounts…..

But I was mistaken….there seems to be a bunch of cash returning to our shores……

U.S. companies have sent home over half a trillion dollars of cash they held overseas in 2018 to take advantage of tax changes, but data suggest the pace is slowing, potentially removing a key source of support for Wall Street.

Dollar repatriation in the July-September period fell to $93 billion, around half of second-quarter volumes and less than a third of the $300 billion or so sent home from January to March, U.S. current account data shows.

The repatriation bonanza followed new regulations that allowed the U.S. government to tax profits accumulated overseas, regardless of where the money was held. Prior rules allowed companies to “defer” U.S. tax on worldwide profits unless they repatriated the money.

The change offered a powerful incentive to bring home some of the $3 trillion U.S. firms were believed to hold in jurisdictions ranging from Ireland to Switzerland, either in cash or in securities such as U.S. Treasuries.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-us-repatriation-companies-idUSKCN1OU0ME

A good start but I still do not see all that offshore cash coming home……do you?  Plus I have not heard a plan to stop this practice, have you?

Closing Thought–05Feb18

Does everyone remember the promises of the campaign?  Of course not……if they did then Trump would be less popular than he is….but that aside…..does the reader remember all the promises of the return of American business from overseas?

The promise was that he, Trump, would make it such a positive business environment that those American companies would come streaming back…..

Harley-Davidson has crapped on that promise……

The iconic American motorcycle maker was part of President Donald Trump’s focus on U.S. manufacturing in the early days of his administration. Executives visited the White House in February to meet with Trump, who thanked Harley-Davidson “for building things in America.” But even Harley-Davidson had a manufacturing footprint overseas, and the Milwaukee-based company says the facility in Thailand will improve its ability to serve markets where demand is on the rise.

Harley-Davidson said the move will not impact its U.S. factories.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/05/23/harley-davidson-building-factory-in-thailand.amp.html

“Will not impact American factories”…..then why is the factory in Kansas City being closed?

Just asking?

Have a good evening…..peace out my friends…..chuq

Closing Thought–08Jan18

Those darn pesky facts

Trump recently signed a tax cut bill and several companies showed  their appreciation by giving its workers a bonus or a raise……and Trump had to proclaim these companies as forward looking and a credit to his “America First” agenda……but as usual Trump is a bullshit artist….

Companies like ComCast and AT&T were held up by Trump….well let’s look at the crap…..some are laying off workers…….but the tax bill saved them cash and they want to keep it…..

Comcast and AT&T were among the businesses that claimed Republican lawmakers’ effort to restructure the tax code in favor of wealthy corporations would allow them to be more generous to their workers, and publicly announced $1,000 year-end bonuses for their employees. The CEOs of both companies specifically cited the tax bill in separate press releases touting these “special” bonuses.

https://thinkprogress.org/companies-gop-tax-bonuses-layoffs-fdf07fdf90d2/

As usual the reality never gets reported for if they do then they are labeled “Fake News” by our mental deficient president…..somehow Obama will get the blame…..

My writing is getting old for the day….I will shut it down and rest for tomorrow’s stuff….chuq

Panama Papers……Will We Ever Know It All?

The big story this week has been the release of the so-called Panama Papers……a group of documents that spell out all thew people, rich people, that are avoiding taxes and such through an offshore corporation.

One of my readers asked me in my first post on this why there were not any Americans on the list……I told him that I did not know and that was a promise of much more to come….(you can read it here)……

Source: Panama Papers – In Saner Thought

But it got me to thinking…..how wealthy would someone have to be to pay to keep the info secret?  Then I read this piece……

The newspaper that first received the Panama Papers says it isn’t going to release all 11.5 million files it received from a whistleblower to the public or to law enforcement—because it “isn’t the extended arm of prosecutors or the tax investigators.” Sueddeutsche Zeitung has shared files relating to celebrities and politicians, but the German paper doesn’t believe there’s public interest in exposing all of the individuals and companies involved, the AP reports. The paper says it was contacted by a source at Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca who felt a “very strong moral impulse” to expose the tax evasion and money laundering the firm facilitated with its creation of thousands of offshore shell companies. In other coverage:

  • Panama’s President Juan Carlos Varela, apparently unhappy with his country’s name appearing in headlines about financial crimes all over the world, has promised to boost transparency and clean up the industry, the BBC reports. He says the country will bring in international experts to recommend changes.
  • The Guardian looks at how the scandal has exposed China’s “red nobility”—wealthy families connected to the Communist Party. Prominent figures named in the papers include the brother-in-law of President Xi Jinping. Unsurprisingly, the scandal is not being reported in China, and censors have been trying to scrub every mention of it from social media.
  • The CBC looks at how the wealth revealed in the leak is just a fraction of what an analyst calls “absolutely astonishing, mind-boggling amounts of money” tied up in offshore funds. Estimates run as high as $31 trillion, or 13% of global wealth, much of which is being kept in offshore funds to cheat governments out of tax revenue—or to hide the plunder of national resources.
  • The New York Times looks at the history of the Mossack Fonseca firm and its role in Panama’s economy. Co-founder Ramon Fonseca had been trying to expand his role in the country’s government, claiming he wanted to improve the nation’s human rights record.
  • At the Atlantic, Brooke Harrington examines the legal issues involved and concludes that the real scandal isn’t the law-breaking—it’s that so much of what Mossack Fonseca did was perfectly legal.

So my guess is that we may NEVER know all the bad players in this saga.

But I noticed that the media is not a good faith player either…..they basically focused on a Putin ally and overlooked the US allies that were on the original list…..so it looks like they will be protecting those that pay for the privilege.

Whoever leaked the Mossack Fonseca papers appears motivated by a genuine desire to expose the system that enables the ultra wealthy to hide their massive stashes, often corruptly obtained ………

Source: Corporate Media Gatekeepers Protect Western 1% From Panama Leak – Craig Murray

Do you think we will ever know thew whole story of the extent of this outrage?

Will Returning Vets Be Screwed….Again?

First of all, there was another debate of the GOP candidates on foreign policy….let me sum it up the positions of ALL the candidates on foreign policy…..Obama Sucks!  There is NO definitive positions by any candidate!

Recently, our president made a speech about the need to help our vets in finding jobs because they fight so the rest of us do not have to…..it was all sorts of things….especially tax breaks for companies that hire a vet that has been unemployed for 6 months or more……first, why would they need an incentive?  The corporates have incentives for everything….probably even if they have regular bowel movements…..I think it is just sick that they (corporations) need an incentive to do the right thing……and now he has signed his proposal into law…..but will history repeat itself concerning veterans?

Let’s talk about SPN and RE  codes……..

SPD, SPN (Separation Program Number) and RE codes are issued to all discharging military personnel. These codes are placed on the DD-214 form and provide any who see the DD-214 a summary and characterization of the veteran’s military service. These codes are intended solely for use by military recruiters for re-enlistment review and the Department of Defense for statistical analysis. However, an increasing number of employers, Veterans Administration service officers, law enforcement agencies and prospective mates are using these codes to base decisions on employment, veteran benefit eligibility, criminal behavior modeling and marital compatibility.

Shortly after the Vietnam War when thousands of military personnel faced post-war, DoD drawdowns, negative SPN and SPD codes were handed out like speeding tickets at the Indy 500. Because private employers were discovered to be using these codes to deny employment during the so-called “nutty Vietnam veteran scare”, regardless of the veteran’s “Character of Discharge” being Honorable, The Ford and subsequent Carter Administrations ordered DoD to reduce its use of SPN/SPD codes and directed VA to assist veterans in obtaining a new DD-214 that did not list the codes. For a very brief time SPD and SPN codes disappeared from military use. But as America’s all-volunteer military kicked-in full steam, DoD found it necessary to provide additional reference data for military recruiters to help identify and screen-out individuals who performed less than model service in one branch then attempted to re-enlist in another branch. Hence, SPD codes were restored with a vengeance. The use and abuse of SPD codes have risen steadily since and have produced more chaos and pain in the lives of innocent veterans that make their post-Vietnam use relatively innocent in comparison.

Will returning vets have to face the discrimination that followed returning Viet Vets?  Will the codes be used again to eliminate some from good jobs?

Penthouse Magazine (I can hear the women cringing in the background) broke the story of how corporations were using the DD214 against returning Viet Vets….the series made the military look bad so they have gone to an alternative…..the vet gets two copies of the DD214…one with codes, one without…..and this somehow will protect the vet from discrimination…..and that my friends is ….B*LLSH*T!

Corporations have the power….Vets DO NOT!

The Prez will do the bare minimum to appear as if the government cares……..corporations must be enticed to help those that were out protecting their assets across the world….it is time for the country to wake up and realize just what we owe our veterans…….

VETS!  Make sure that you carry ONLY the one without the codes!  Personally, I do not believe that this problem has been solved!  Do not fall to the predator corporations as so many of us from another war had to deal with in the past…..Watch Your Backs!  The government will NOT do it for you!

Give Us A Break!

We hear over and over how Obama and his policies have killed economic activity and jobs…..or that tax cuts will produce more employment…..or that the….well you get the idea….it is all so much crap!

Why would I say such a thing?

One of the shining lights, according to some, is Caterpilla…the heavy duty machine manufacturer….but look at this…

Seeking to bolster one of its more profitable business areas, Caterpillar Inc. agreed to acquire MWM Holding GmbH, a German maker of power-generation equipment, from 3i Group PLC and related investment funds for 580 million euros ($810 million).

3i, a British private-equity firm, bought the Mannheim, Germany-based company in 2007 for 360 million euros. The planned purchase is another move by Caterpillar to expand businesses outside its core areas of construction and mining …

Or maybe this….

Construction-equipment maker Caterpillar  said Tuesday it will buy locomotive maker Electro-Motive Diesel for $820 million from a private-equity firm.EMD is one of the world’s oldest and best-known makers of locomotives, producing its first engine in 1922.  The brand will remain unchanged as EMD’s brand is well-known in the rail industry.

So Caterpilla is spending about $1.5 billion on acquisitions….this will NOT create jobs…if anything some jobs will be lost because of the purchases…..none of this is to help put people back to work…..it is about the bottom line…the profits and the stock prices……business has NO desire to hire more people now and in the near future…it is more profitable the way it is today…..

So, give us a break!  Stop harping on the extension of benefits for corporations…they have NO intention of hiring more people…..nice try though….but I am not that stupid as to believe the hype!

Help For Small Businesses

Recently, our president has issued a massive challenge to the GOP in an effort to help small business and as we know….they are the engines of our economy (or at least that is the slogan these days)…it is election time and all the silliness has come to a head….small business is getting more attention that some idiot in Florida…..

Massaging the egos of the small business owners….both parties are not being forthcoming with the truth…..

But will these benefits create the demand that is needed to bring this economy back?

The problem with the small business tax breaks is two-fold: small businesses are incredibly diverse in their craft, and consequently, no single break works for every small businesses. The second issue with the proposed tax breaks is that many in the business see them as too producer driven, as the Small Business Job Act fails to address (and encourage) some much-needed consumer spending. Simply put, businesses do not need more equipment to produce items that are not selling, or selling at lower levels than in the past.

As Billy Rys explains, “Even if they’ll be able to write off their investments in just a few months, they don’t have the customers coming through the doors. They don’t have contracts to fill.” In the end, the usefulness of the proposed tax breaks will depend on the size and type of businesses, in addition to the financial state of the business.

I have been bitching since this whole debacle started with the economy….the Bush bailout only accomplished bank liquidity and the Obama stim plan was to help create demand……neither one of these plans have created the demand needed to jump start the economy….if tax cuts do not make inventories go up then No one will be hired…..if NO one goes shopping then NO amount of tax cuts will jump start the economy…..without DEMAND there will be NO easy recovery…..it is not rocket science!

Corporations Are Disgusting

Daily Agitator

There are always stories in the news about the shenanigans that corporations pull……some arte disgusting, more so than some of the others, but then there is one that makes me really hate these self-absord dicks…..

Poverty in the US is reaching fantastic percentages, especially with the recession and all the jobs loses……..close to 20 million people live below the poverty line in the US….there is NOT enough money for them to have food or clothing or shelter…….this story is all the more reason to be disgusted, especially because of the severe weather that is gripping the nation…..

This week the New York Times reported a disheartening story about two of the largest retail chains. You see, instead of taking unsold items to sample sales or donating them to people in need, H&M and Wal-Mart have been throwing them out in giant trash bags. And in the case that someone may stumble on these bags and try to keep or re-sell the items, these companies have gone ahead and slashed up garments, cut off the sleeves of coats, and sliced holes in shoes so they are unwearable.

This unsettling discovery was made by graduate student Cynthia Magnus outside the back entrance of H&M on 35th street in New York City. Just a few doors down, she also found hundreds of Wal-Mart tagged items with holes made in them that were dumped by a contractor. On December 7, she spotted 20 bags of clothing outside of H&M including, “gloves with the fingers cut off, warm socks, cute patent leather Mary Jane school shoes, maybe for fourth graders, with the instep cut up with a scissor, men’s jackets, slashed across the body and the arms. The puffy fiber fill was coming out in big white cotton balls.”

I am sorry but this is disgusting…..you mean to tell me that with all the tax advantages these companies get that they could not have donated the clothing?  Every day there is a news story of people dying because of the weather and yet these people, who could have helped, did not assist and yet they still get advantages of their position in society.  Sorry but this is criminal and there should be some apparatus in place to deal with this situation…..heavy fines or loss of a status or something that would penalize them for turning their backs on the American people.

The next time Wal-Mart makes a commercial that talks of their record in helping society…I want this story to follow it….the people need to stop throwing money at these types of businesses….I know that is a lot to ask during a recession when we have to get all we can for our dollar….but keep in mind….YOU may need something and these companies will turn their back on you…….hold these people responsible for their actions….if you do not….then WHO?

Tax Incentives?

For as long as I can remember in the political arena, tax incentives have been a buzz word to try and convince people that something is being done that will help whatever the situation is at the time….

The more things change, the more they stay the same…..someone somewhere made that line famous…..Obama’s new job proposals is the same line that has been talked about for generations….that is about all it generated ….talk!

President Barack Obama on Tuesday proposed a tax incentive for small businesses that add workers, even as Congress struggles to figure out how such an idea would work.

Obama’s other tax proposals were more familiar to lawmakers. He proposed extensions and enhancements of several tax breaks that were part of the economic stimulus package passed in February, including enhanced tax write-offs for companies that buy new equipment.

Obama also proposed eliminating capital gains taxes on small business stock, if it is purchased in 2010 and held for at least five years, expanding a tax break enacted in the stimulus package.

The Repub response to the proposal was a predictable as winter…….they hated everything the Prez said about jobs creation….and I mean EVERYTHING!  But their ideas sound familiar also……

–Give small businesses a tax deduction equal to 20% of their income.

–Let small businesses band together in associations to buy health insurance more cheaply.

–Curb civil lawsuits.

–Lower individual income tax rates.

–Expand health savings accounts, which are being squeezed in some of the current health-care reform proposals.

–Increase businesses’ ability to recover current losses by refiling prior tax returns.

Basically they are saying…….Cut regulations. Freeze spending. Cut taxes. No new taxes…..oh God forbid let us not leave out the old reliable…tort reform….there you have the Repubs answer to the current problem of NO jobs….Sorry, Batman….but that whole line of ideas is tired and antiquated……as a matter of fact it sounds very familiar to their health reform ideas….basically, the answers are the same regardless of the issue….one size fits all…..

But is this the big answer to a huge problem?