Corporate Looting of America Redux: The "Repatriation" Scam

[marmar]

from the Working Life blog:



Corporate Looting of America Redux: The "Repatriation" Scam
by Jonathan Tasini

Tuesday 19 of October, 2010


The raid on our country's treasury has been underway for 30 years (and more). The corporate leaders have successfully drained our common wealth, shifting money away from the community and, instead, diverting it into the hands of a few. And now the din is growing for another robbery of the people to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.

It's called "repatriation" of profits. It goes something like this: "we (meaning, big corporations) made a whole bunch of money overseas and we've parked it over there because we didn't want to pay our fair share of taxes. But, out of the goodness of our hearts, if you give us a tax break, then, we will bring the money back to help all our poor citizens". Instead of paying the 35 percent corporate tax rate, these corporate evaders want to pay 5.25 percent--which is almost free money.

The Financial Times reports today that the campaign is gathering steam:

US multinational companies are clamouring for a tax holiday to repatriate billions of dollars "trapped" overseas but are being rebuffed by Barack Obama’s administration.

JPMorgan research estimates that 30-40 per cent of the almost $1,000bn in cash held by non-financial S&P 500 companies is in foreign jurisdictions...

"We do have overseas cash and we would be very supportive of a repatriation holiday," said Keith Sherin, chief financial officer of General Electric. "If you think about it, there is a lot of cash trapped overseas. If companies could bring that back at more competitive tax rates, I think it would be good for the US economy."

This is a scam. And the Obama Administration should be applauded for, at least for now, opposing the corporate welfare gift.

It's a scam at so many levels. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.workinglife.org/blogs/view_post.php?content_id=15001

[HCE SuiGeneris]

1. Google - avoiding 3 Billion dollars in taxes through such tactics

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/google-loophole-dodge-corporate-taxes-bloomberg-report/story?id=11939752

[mdmc]

2. ..