America's Corporate Benedict Arnolds

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Yes, Mr. Welfare State.

I do believe in the welfare state and medicare and Canada has managed it with budgetary surpluses and we are actually DECREASING our debt.

But if DANS is correct and ALL ofthe profit of ALL US corporations could not fund HALF government revenue, this sounds like a very big government. It probably spends too much on defense.

[MichaeltheGreat]

And a ton of other things, generally with a shocking degree of ineffiency.

[Kidlicious]

Even with much less defense spending a 100% corporate profit wouldn't cover it.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
And a ton of other things, generally with a shocking degree of ineffiency.

Like.....?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Like.....?

I just assume you guys have a ton of waste . The riders to some of you appropriations bills are hilarious.

heck-- The Canadian feds have wasted a ton on money as well on things like a useless gun registry and the Liberal party giving away money to people so they can then bribe the Liberal party. We do this in a country with a tenth your population and STILL have a balanced budget.

[Mr. Harley]

First, I must agree with Flubber. There is insufficient data in a single articles data to determine how seriously corporations are dodging tax numbers. Secondly, there is incontrovertible proof that tax avoidance activity has been at a fairly high level, if you look at the number of reincorporations outside the US, the number of tax shelters that are so raw that the Bush IRS is going after them, under funded as the audit department is (both parties get buy in), and the level of CEO and Board reimbursement (the money has to come from somewhere - but more on that later). It's like global warming. I was unconvinced until the glaciers started melting. I still don't know all the causes, nor the interactions of the various factors, due to lack of definitive proof. But the glaciers are still f**king melting, and the tax avoidance activity is at a fairly high level anecdotally.

DanS, your statement that 50% of tax revenue in the US is similar to your name-calling at Oerdin, i.e. you are presenting no facts, only opinions. The US economy was radically different due to deficit spending and WW2, companies were making huge profits, and the government was using its coercive power to grant corporations control over labor factors due to WW2. You could well be wrong - i.e. 50% of US government revenue during that time period, may indeed have been provided by corporate income tax and it may not have been confiscatory. Show your proof.

Lastly, Saras has some bad information of US corporation governance. To quote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal last year, I believe, over changes in corporate governance, as close as I can remember - "What do they believe, a corporation is a democracy?"

In the US corporate governance rules have for years made it both difficult and very expensive for shareholders to nominate candidates to the Board of Directors who are not approved by the current board and/or management. In addition, like Saras personal situation, many of these boards interlock, so a CEO sits on his fellow CEO's board, who sits on his board. Between that and the governance rules, the CEO does get to essentially steal from the company, i.e. get excessive compensation that is not warranted by either his job performance nor the availability of hungry upper-level managers who are both competent and would happily replace him.

There are some CEO’s who have earned there compensation. However, if you look at a country like Japan, and their CEO’s (and other upper level US management) compensation, and take that difference and reinvest it in the company every year – that may well be, when compounded over decades, one of the reasons Japanese corporations have routinely kicked the butt of US corporations in the global marketplace.

In addition changes made by the Bush administration and the Republican Congress have now made it much more difficult for stockholders to sue, especially over exactly those issues. Sarbanes-Oxly has created some accountability over the CEO providing bogus figures to inflate his compensation, but it does not provide any other protections against the interlocking boards as described above. There have been some recent attempts to change corporate governance, taking it from extremely difficult and exorbitantly expensive to simply very difficult and very expensive to run an alternate slate of directors to that put forward by corporate management, and those are in the process of being roll-backed. It seems investors are not owners, but some strange class of people who put money into a corporation somewhere between bondholders and the CEO plus the Board of Directors, who actually control the company.

That is the real scandal of US financial markets, that while largely doing away with the old game of class A and B stock, i.e. turning one group of investors into nonvoting stockholders, more akin to a kind of uber-bondholder instead of real stockholder who owns part of the company. Ownership without control often turned into a sham as those with the controlling stock found ways to divert profits into their coffers.

Now instead we have boards and CEO’s, along with associated upper-level managers life CFO’s, who instead use their control to find ways to divert profits into their personal gain away the actual stockholders. It’s a variation on the game mentioned in the previous paragraph, just the words and techniques have been rearranged. That, along with the huge amount of corporate welfare by the federal government, is the real scandal

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Like.....?

DHS has an incredible degree of spending abuse, about 21 billion a year is dedicated to Federal law enforcement agencies for the War on Drugs.

I also spent several months working for the Government before I reached the point where I couldn't stand it, and I saw a lot of waste and fun and games I'm not at liberty to discuss.

If you'd like, and can pay my fees, we can go through a few hundred thousand pages of Federal procurement paperwork after we do the FOIA requests.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

If you'd like, and can pay my fees, we can go through a few hundred thousand pages of Federal procurement paperwork after we do the FOIA requests.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
DHS has an incredible degree of spending abuse, about 21 billion a year is dedicated to Federal law enforcement agencies for the War on Drugs.

Eh... That depends on whether or not you support the War on Drugs.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Considering that those agencies already get a lot of other funds, and that for a 21 billion dollar annual payment we could probably just buy up the global market, it doesn't really depend at all on whether you support the underlying policy.

One example for DHS/WoD was a bunch of surveillance cameras of the wrong type, installed by an unqualified contractor who didn't pay Davis-Bacon and Related Acts (DBRA) prevailing wages for the construction and erection of the towers used to house the cameras. The cameras had to be replaced (government expense), and the employees filed claims for DBRA based prevailing wages on the tower construction and erection work, (ended up at government expense).

That kind of crap happens thousands of times over within the Government, not to mention pure pork barrel projects.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat Loss carryforwards from prior years are a huge issue, and there are other issues (depreciation, amortization, etc.) which can create differences between book and taxable income.

Except neither IBM nor Pfizer nor any of the other companies in question suffered any losses during the time period in question. They all reported huge profits to share holders yet they didn't pay taxes and they sucked up massive subsidies. you can try to hide this any way you want but it stinks and it is criminal.

That companies should make billions in profits but not pay any taxes and to recieve massive subsidies from the government is wrong. Dress it up in a tutu, put lipstick on this pig, I don't care it is still an abuse of the American taxpayer.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by DanS


I believe his numbers are FOS. Prove me wrong.

Thanks but all of the numbers in this study are duly cited and you are the one claiming they are wrong. It isup to you to prove they are not since everything is already cited and above board for everyone to see. You are the one who has the burden of proof to prove that your pet theory is correct not the ones who have everything documented.

You've been pwnd time and again about your baseless claims so now it is time for you to prove you are correct.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Still, it would be nice to be able to do that on personal income taxes.

And then what happens when a CEO buys a super expensive house, making his income -$100million, and carries that loss forward on his income taxes?

You do not get to decduct any losses on personal use property, but you do have to include gains on it. You only get losses/dedcution on property used to produce income or held for investment gain rather than for personal use. Cost of personal use propety is cunsumption, not an expense of producing income.

[Dinner]

Flubber thanks for coming out but you are going to have to support yourself in some way. So far you made four outlandish claims which were pwnd to hell and now you're still not coming up with anything new. The sole good point you made was about tax lose forwarding but you haven't shown anyo fo the ten companies in question made any loses in the previous three years. Instead I have shown that they reported billions in profits but didn't pay any net taxes.

That wrong. I'm against corporate subsidies and if you had any integrity you would be too.

[Imran Siddiqui]

DanS, your statement that 50% of tax revenue in the US is similar to your name-calling at Oerdin, i.e. you are presenting no facts, only opinions. The US economy was radically different due to deficit spending and WW2, companies were making huge profits, and the government was using its coercive power to grant corporations control over labor factors due to WW2. You could well be wrong - i.e. 50% of US government revenue during that time period, may indeed have been provided by corporate income tax and it may not have been confiscatory.

I believe that was his point. You can't compare 50% revenue from corporations in 1950 to be the same as 50% revenue from corporations in 2005. He was stating that all profits from corporations TODAY would not cover that 50%.