Corporations Pushing for Tax Break Pay Little in Taxes |
| By: David Dayen Saturday March 26, 2011 6:00 pm |
(photo: twolf1)
There’s an element of blackmail to this. In response to the tax holiday in 2004, corporations started stashing more money overseas. Then coalitions like “Win America” argue that they need a tax holiday to allow them to bring money back to the US for investment, thereby winning America. Of course, the 2004 tax holiday went largely to executive bonuses, but they want you to disregard that. They also don’t want you to know that the largest beneficiaries of the tax holiday in 2004 cut jobs over the next two years.
Think Progress reports that the corporations in this coalition have a history of… not paying their taxes.
One company not on that list is General Electric. However, we did learn today that GE, one of America’s largest corporations, which would be a beneficiary of any repatriation tax holiday, didn’t pay any taxes last year:However, many of the corporate supporters behind the WinAmerica campaign already use the various loopholes and giveaways in the corporate tax code to drastically lower their corporate tax rate. Here’s what these companies begging for a new corporate tax cut currently pay in corporate income taxes:
Corporation Effective Tax Rate* Apple 25% Broadcom 1.4% Cisco 19.8% Cognizant 16% 2.4% Microsoft 25% Pfizer 17.1% Oracle 27.1% Qualcomm 20%
Wisely, the Obama Administration has wisely rejected the repatriation tax holiday idea, at least for the time being. But don’t expect them to say a whole lot about GE’s invisible tax liability. After all, President Obama just hired GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt to lead the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. I’m sure he has one idea to keep American companies competitive: don’t pay your taxes!General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.
The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.
Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.
That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E. The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.
1 Comment
Spotlight The Abu Zubaydah Standard in Obama’s Miranda Memo |
| By: emptywheel Saturday March 26, 2011 5:00 pm |
obsolete?
Compare that with the description of an “operational terrorist” whose Miranda rights may be delayed under a memo issued by DOJ last October.As we understand it, Zubaydah is one of the highest ranking members of the al Qaeda terrorist organization,
[snip]
Our advice is based upon the following facts, which you have provided to us. We also understand that you do not have any facts in your possession contrary to the facts outlined here, and this opinion is limited to these facts. If these facts were to change, this advice would not necessarily apply. Zubaydah is currently being held by the United States. The interrogation team is certain that he has additional information that he refuses to divulge. Specifically, he is withholding information regarding terrorist networks in the United States or in Saudi Arabia and information regarding plans to conduct attacks within the United States or against our interests overseas.
The two claimed preconditions for torturing AZ–that he was a high ranking member of an international terrorist group and knowledgeable about operational details of pending terrorist operations–are exactly the same as two possible premises (of three) for delaying an American detainee’s Miranda warning.For these purposes, an operational terrorist is an arrestee who is reasonably believed to be either a high-level member of an international terrorist group; or an operative who has personally conducted or attempted to conduct a terrorist operation that involved risk to life; or an individual knowledgeable about operational details of a pending terrorist operation.
Only, with AZ, the CIA had to send John Yoo a bunch of information purportedly proving their claims before they got to torture AZ.
Here’s how such claims will be checked under the Miranda exception:
Marriage Equality: Two Not Emphasizing Rights Still Make a Wrong |
| By: Gregg Levine Saturday March 26, 2011 4:00 pm |
One of these things is not like the other. (photo: Sean Loyless)
But I don’t want to go on at length here. Really. Let’s just boil it all down to something like this: I am uncomfortable with the shoehorning of what I see as a personal and religious matter into our purportedly secular and civil society. Alas, “Civil Unions for all, marriage for none,” makes a better rallying cry than it does a point for considered conversation.
That said, however, I can quite simply say that in our civil society, if something is legal for one, it just has to be legal for all. The bottom line is, everyone is equal under the law.
At least that’s how I see it.
Not so, it seems, for Lanae Erickson and Jon Cowan, two Third Way muckety-mucks who recently penned a piece for the Baltimore Sun in which they argued that if LGBT Americans want to see marriage equality become a reality, they need to make it less about equality and more about embracing what the authors see as traditional values. [cont'd.]
FDL Book Salon Welcomes Nathan Hodge, Armed Humanitarians: The Rise of the Nation Builders |
| By: Joshua Foust Saturday March 26, 2011 1:59 pm |
“As any student of aid and development should know,” Nathan Hodge writes in the prologue to his book Armed Humanitarians, “efforts to aid the developing world have often done more harm than good.”
Federal Budget Talks Break Down; Government Shutdown Likely |
| By: David Dayen Saturday March 26, 2011 1:00 pm |
After a series of public comments yesterday, it does look as if there could be a government shutdown after April 8. Either that, or both sides are sparring for tactical advantage. Or they just want to blame the opposition for the inevitable. One or the other or the other.
More on the Dwindling Global Settlement on Foreclosure Fraud |
| By: David Dayen Saturday March 26, 2011 12:00 pm |
I wrote yesterday about the disquiet many Democratic attorneys general and consumer advocates had with the initial offer of a global settlement to mortgage servicers for their role in foreclosure fraud. A lot has happened since then. First, the bank-friendly federal regulator at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency may be going rogue and offering their own settlement to the banks. Now, Shahien Nasiripour writes that the initial offer in the term sheet, which would have included principal reductions and loan modifications for as many as 3 million borrowers, has been scaled back.
Bill That Moves Vermont Closer to Single Payer Approved by State House |
| By: Jon Walker Saturday March 26, 2011 11:00 am |
Thursday evening, the Vermont House of Representatives passed H.202, which will move the state toward adopting a single-payer-like universal health care system for all the people of Vermont.
Libyan Rebels Take Ajdabiya, May Take Arms from US |
| By: David Dayen Saturday March 26, 2011 10:00 am |
Gadhafi is both defiant and dug in at the capital of Tripoli, while the rebels are a small, ragtag bunch that even with superior air support cannot really expect to win a conventional war. And that leads us to the next drip in the mission creep here, as the US mulls over arming the rebels.
It Started with an Earthquake, Remember? |
| By: Peterr Saturday March 26, 2011 9:00 am |
Much of the coverage of the disaster in Japan (including ours at FDL) has been focused on the nuclear reactors in Fukushima. As troubling as those reactors are, however, they are only part of the story. While the Fukushima Fifty and their colleagues work on the reactors, thousands upon thousands of other relief workers are laboring elsewhere — and they’ve got a LOT to do.
Video: NYC Mayor Bloomberg Booed, Heckled at Triangle Fire Commemoration |
| By: Gregg Levine Saturday March 26, 2011 8:12 am |
As I stood witness to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire centennial commemoration at the corner of Washington Place and Green Street on Friday, March 25, I was surprised and impressed by the size of the crowd, but the most unexpected moment of the day came when New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg stepped to the microphone.
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