Tag Archives: Tax

Jonathan Turley ~ The Grand Theft Auto Tax: Biden Calls For New Tax On Violent Video Games

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Jonathan Turley May 15 2013

Jonathan Turley

Yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden stated publicly again that he wants violent video games to be taxed and sees “no legal reason” why we should not move forward with a new tax. The story was telling in two respects. First, there is no evidence that such games produce the type of attacks seen at the Boston bombing and school shootings. Yet, this was the first thing that various politicians grabbed to show a response to the killings — besides of course reducing our civil liberties further. Second, Biden again seems intent on fulfilling the stereotype of a liberal politician where the answer to every problem is a tax. There is no discussion of how such a tax would accomplish any economic or public policy objective beyond moving money from people Biden disfavors to people he favors.

Experts are divided on the impact of violent video games with some finding no real longterm impacts and others finding a contributing factor in violence or delinquency. Putting aside this debate, there is no discussion of why a tax would serve any purpose beyond driving up costs and of course producing more revenue for the government.

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Michael Snyder ~ Abolish The Income Tax

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The Economic Collapse Blog February 18 2013

You Won’t Believe Who Is Getting Away With Paying Zero Taxes While The Middle Class Gets Hammered

The federal income tax is a bad joke and it needs to be abolished.  All over the nation, hard working American families are being absolutely crushed by oppressive levels of taxation, and our politicians are constantly coming up with new ways to extract money from all of us every single year.  Meanwhile, many ultra-wealthy Americans and many of the most profitable corporations in the country pay little to nothing in taxes.  In fact, as you will see below, there are dozens of very prominent corporations that make billions of dollars in profits and yet don’t pay a dime in taxes.  Tax avoidance has become a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States.  Those that have the resources to “play the game” use shell companies, offshore tax havens and the thousands of loopholes in our tax code to minimize their tax burdens as much as possible.  Meanwhile, the rest of us get absolutely hammered.  This is fundamentally unfair.  The federal income tax system is irreversibly broken at this point, and it is time to abolish it.  If you think that the federal income tax system can be “fixed”, then you probably have never studied it.  Our tax code is nearly 4 million words long and it is absolutely riddled with thousands of loopholes that favor big corporations and the ultra-wealthy.  We should come up with a better, fairer way to fund the government.  The United States once prospered greatly without a federal income tax, and it could do so again.

Many people simply do not believe that it is possible for corporations inside the United States to make billions of dollars in profits each year and not pay a dime in income taxes.

Well, according to a report put out by Public Campaign, that is exactly what is happening.  Posted below are numbers that come directly from their report.  30 large corporations are listed, and 29 of them had a tax burden for 2008 through 2010 that was less than zero even though they all made enormous profits.  And all 30 of them spent more on lobbying than they did on taxes.

The numbers that you are about to see are for 2008, 2009 and 2010 combined.  For “taxes paid”, please note that for 29 of the corporations a negative number is given.  That means that the net tax liability for 2008 through 2010 was actually less than zero.

After seeing these numbers, is there anyone out there that is still willing to claim that our tax system is “fair”?…

General Electric
U.S. Profits: $10,460,000,000
Taxes Paid: ‐$4,737,000,000

PG&E Corp.
U.S. Profits: $4,855,000,000
Taxes Paid: ‐$1,027,000,000 Continue reading →

Michael Tennant ~ IRS To Employers: There’s No Escaping ObamaCare

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The New American | January 14 2013

cartoon_irsObamacareThe Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has fired a shot across the bow of employers hoping to remain free of ObamaCare’s employer mandate by adhering to the letter, but not the spirit, of the law. The agency’s message: Don’t even think about it.

The IRS recently issued a 144-page notice of “proposed regulations providing guidance under section 4980H of the Internal Revenue Code … with respect to the shared responsibility for employers regarding employee health coverage.” That is, the agency is notifying the public that it will be promulgating rules as to how it interprets the employer mandate and how it intends to enforce it.

And as Merrill Matthews observes at Forbes: “Don’t you love that ‘shared responsibility’ reference? It’s as if President Obama’s campaign speeches have morphed into IRS reg[ulation]s.”

The employer mandate requires employers with 50 or more full-time employees to offer “affordable” health insurance coverage to those employees, with “affordable” defined as costing an employee no more than 9.5 percent of his total household income. For every full-time employee who opts out of “unaffordable” employer-sponsored coverage and obtains insurance on a state exchange, often with a taxpayer subsidy, the employer will be fined up to $2,000.

“The Treasury Department and the IRS are aware of various structures being considered under which employers might use temporary staffing agencies (or other staffing agencies) purporting to be the common law employer to evade application of section 4980H,” the IRS notice states.

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Stressed Out Managing Payroll For Your Small Business?

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Shift Frequency | January 10 2013

If you’re a small business owner and unable to hire a full-time accountant you’ve either experienced considerable frustration preparing payroll taxes, or exhausted yourself trying to figure out the software you bought to assist you. The solution lies in finding an easy-to-use payroll software product that can manage business details and streamline routine tasks.

It’s important you invest in a product that facilitates quick input of required information (e.g., employee address, salary, deductions, marital status), issues checks, runs reports and automatically tallies taxes and withholding. In addition, check to ensure any product you buy seamlessly converts financial information into a check format that looks exactly like what you’d expect to see in a traditional paycheck.

At minimum, get something that offers:

  • Instant paychecks
  • Free direct deposit
  • Automatic tax calculations
  • Federal and State tax forms completed
  • Ability to file and pay taxes online
  • Run payroll anytime, anywhere
  • Get reminders when taxes and forms are due
  • Offer free live support from payroll experts
  • Provides free year-end W-2s
  • Handles both regular employees and contractors
  • Allows you to test drive for at least 30 days at no charge
  • Is affordable

Make sure whatever payroll tax product you get comes packaged with quality customer service and no onerous strings attached that prohibit you from moving your data elsewhere should the need arise.

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Paul Buchheit ~ Tax Avoidance On The Rise: It’s Twice The Amount Of Social Security And Medicare

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Nation Of Change | January 7 2012

cartoon_taxtherichThree trillion dollars a year—that’s how much the wealthiest Americans avoid through the system of subsidies and schemes and sweet deals that deprive middle-class workers of their earned benefits. That’s three times more than the deficit. That’s enough for a full-time job for every middle-class household in America. Here are the distressing details:

1. Tax Expenditures: $1.25 trillion

These subsidies from special deductions, exemptions, exclusions, credits, capital gains, and loopholes are estimated to be worth 7.4 percent of the GDP or about $1.1 trillion. They largely benefit the richest taxpayers. Business subsidies bring the total to $1.25 trillion.

That alone is almost enough to pay for Social Security ($884 billion) and Medicare ($524 billion).

But there’s so much more.

2. Tax Underpayments: $450 billion

According to the IRS, 17 percent of taxes owed were not paid in 2006, leaving an underpayment of $450 billion. The largest share of that came from underreporting of income.

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Simon Black ~ Tell Me Again… Which Of These Nations Is Communist?

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Sovereignman.com | November 20 2012

Tax policy really tells you a lot about a government… what politicians’ values and priorities are. People can SAY anything, but in a way, tax policy is putting their money where their mouths are.

For example, politicians like to talk about technology, efficiency and transparency. But just take a look at the tax code to see where they really stand. Estonia’s Taxation Act of 2002, which form the preponderance of that country’s tax code, is 43,370 words.

In Canada, the tax code is close to 1 million words. And in the US, the tax code is so daunting that simply the INSTRUCTIONS for form 1040 shatter the record books at 178,096 words… over four times the entirety of Estonia’s tax code.

US tax code is so massive, in fact, that the Government Printing Office charges $1,028 just to print a copy of it!

And for most taxpayers, it’s still virtually impossible to file online. It’s 2012 already, yet taxpayers in most ‘advanced’ western nations still have to carry around reams of paper as if we’re still using the telegraph.

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Paul Buchheit ~ Ten Numbers the Rich Would Like Fudged

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Common Dreams | November 19 2012

The numbers reveal the deadening effects of inequality in our country, and confirm that tax avoidance, rather than a lack of middle-class initiative, is the cause.

1. Only THREE PERCENT of the very rich are entrepreneurs.

According to both Marketwatch and economist Edward Wolff, over 90 percent of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), personal business accounts, the stock market, and real estate. Only 3.6 percent of taxpayers in the top .1% were classified as entrepreneurs based on 2004 tax returns. A 2009 Kauffman Foundation study found that the great majority of entrepreneurs come from middle-class backgrounds, with less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs coming from very rich or very poor backgrounds.photo: withayou via flickr

2. Only FOUR OUT OF 150 countries have more wealth inequality than us.

In a world listing compiled by a reputable research team (which nevertheless prompted double-checking), the U.S. has greater wealth inequality than every measured country in the world except for Namibia, Zimbabwe, Denmark, and Switzerland.

3. An amount equal to ONE-HALF the GDP is held untaxed overseas by rich Americans.

The Tax Justice Network estimated that between $21 and $32 trillion is hidden offshore, untaxed. With Americans making up 40% of the world’s Ultra High Net Worth Individuals, that’s $8 to $12 trillion in U.S. money stashed in far-off hiding places.

Based on a historical stock market return of 6%, up to $750 billion of income is lost to the U.S. every year, resulting in a tax loss of about $260 billion.

4. Corporations stopped paying HALF OF THEIR TAXES after the recession.

After paying an average of 22.5% from 1987 to 2008, corporations have paid an annual rate of 10% since. This represents a sudden $250 billion annual loss in taxes.

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Common Dreams staff ~ S’il Vous Plaît: France To Tax Corporations And Wealthiest To Address Budget Gap

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Common Dreams | July 4 2012

As he promised throughout his presidential campaign, Francois Hollande on Wednesday introduced a new 2012 corrective budget that calls for, among other measures, a one-off tax levy on the nation’s wealthiest individuals and large corporations to help address the nation’s current financial woes.

France’s President Francois Hollande outside the Elysee Palace in Paris on July 4, 2012. (REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer) “We face an extremely difficult financial and economic situation,” Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said at a press conference in Paris. “The wealthiest households, the big companies, will be asked to contribute. In 2012 and 2013, the effort will be particularly large.”

According to Reuters, the taxes on individuals will target those with net wealth of more than 1.3 million euros (or $1.63 million) and aim to raise nearly 2.3 billion euros ($2.90 billion) in this budget cycle alone. The levy focused on large banks and oil-related energy firms is designed to bring an additional 1.1 billion euros. Both increases are part of a scheme to close what the nation’s state auditor says is a 6-10 billion euro budget gap in 2012. Other measures include the lifting of a payroll tax holiday and a levy on dividends and stock options.

The tax rate for those making over $1 million (1.3 million euro) will be 75% come 2013

Hollande, according to a Bloomberg report, has said the 2013 budget will restore the pre-Sarkozy wealth tax rates on people with assets of more than 1.3 million euros. That will return the rate to 75% for those making over $1 million.

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Tax Or Penalty? Obamacare And Agenda 21 – Inventory & Control

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Democrats Against UN Agenda 21 | July 1 2012

Now that the IRS will be the watchdog collecting the tax/penalty, those Americans who either don’t go to traditional medicine doctors, or pay as they go, will be paying for something that they don’t use , don’t need, and don’t want.

Everyone will be in the system. Inventory and control. You will be forced into a healthcare system that you may not wish to be a part of, or will pay a ‘tax.’ No one knew this would be a tax but now, in the old switcheroo, we have a penalty morphing into a tax.

Your income level will be examined. Your finances will be examined. Your life will be open to bureaucratic review. This so-called tax will not be appealable. This punishment, this penalty, will not be open to challenge. People who didn’t make enough money to file income tax, who were flying under the radar, now will have to file simply to avoid the tax. See? Data collection. No one slips under the line. Inventory. And. Control.

The Internal Revenue Service, the most feared and hated of all federal agencies, with the power to jail us and confiscate our assets will be in control. Of your healthcare decisions.

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Sartre ~ Time For The Second American Revolution?

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theintelhub.com | July 2 2012

For well over the last decade BATR has argued that the Republic is dead. Now that the Supreme Court has rendered their decision on Obamacare, there can be no doubt that the funeral for a nation, born out of a revolution for liberty, is over.

The country, buried in the ashes of totalitarian despotism, is now history.

The plurality of citizens naively accepts that the national government has legitimacy. Such a claim is erroneous. What more proof does one need that slavery is the official status for the American public.

The implication of affirming the health insurance mandate sets the precedent for and escalates an unlimited federal tyranny.

The twisted interpretation that a forced and binding purchase of medical coverage is justified because the government can tax its citizens is demonic in its inception. Coercion as a mean for compliance is like whipping your indentured servant for the privilege of serving the master.

By opening the flood-gate of unlimited federal taxation authority to compel behavior, guarantees punitive submission for a limitless concoction of social engineering. It is a short leap to require ID chip implants and compulsory designated conduct.

The hijacking of health care by a mandatory federal oppression pushes citizens to renounce their fidelity to a constitutional framework, already abandoned by the political power elite. Constrains and separation of the “Federalism” system of shared authority, is now eliminated.

The central government is all-supreme in the gulag version of benevolent dependency.

The Supreme Court is a pitiful tool of the executive autocrat that wheels administrative regulation like a crazed beast. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is a disgrace. Whether his decision reflects intimidation or legacy hubris, the net effect is that he shoveled dirt on the tombstone of the constitution.

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Five Reasons Why The Very Rich Have NOT Earned Their Money

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Paul Buchheit | Common Dreams | April 16 2012

(Image: Flickr by IronRodArt)

The wealthiest Americans believe they’ve earned their money through hard work and innovation, and that they’re the most productive members of society. For the most part they’re wrong. As the facts below will show, they’re not nearly as productive as middle-class workers. Yet they’ve taken almost all the new income over the past 30 years.

Any one of these five reasons should reinforce the belief that the rich should be paying a LOT more in taxes.

1. They’ve Taken All the Middle Class Wage Increases

In 1980 the richest 1% of America took one of every fifteen post-tax income dollars. Now, according to IRS figures, they take THREE of every fifteen (doc) post-tax income dollars. They’ve tripled their cut of America’s income pie. That’s a trillion extra dollars a year.

For every dollar the richest 1% earned in 1980, they’ve added three more dollars. The poorest 90% have added ONE CENT.

Yet the average American factory worker, according to Berkeley economist Enrico Moretti, produces $180,000 worth of goods a year, more than three times what he or she produced in 1978, in inflation-adjusted dollars.

So workers have TRIPLED their productivity over 30 years while the richest 1% have TRIPLED their share of income. Worker pay remained flat as the top 10% took almost all the productivity gains since 1980.

2. They’ve Mismanaged Key American Industries

We have the most expensive health care system in the world. Failing banks have survived because of taxpayer bailouts. Management-approved shortcuts have led to workplace deaths and chemical leak disasters. Companies lobby for cap and trade laws so their profits can pay for their pollution.

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Wealthy Corporations with a Trillion Dollars Stashed Offshore Lobby for a ‘Holiday’ from US Taxes

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by John Aloysius Farrell & Aaron Mehta (iWatchNews) | Common Dreams
October 24 2011

Goaded by battalions of corporate lobbyists, members of Congress are working to give a select group of U.S. multinational firms like Apple, Oracle and Pfizer a lavish tax break on a trillion dollars stashed offshore.

With today’s high unemployment, and soaring costs for college, health care and other family essentials, critics are asking why an elite class of corporations and their shareholders should get a huge tax break on overseas profits.

The proposed tax holiday could cost the Treasury from $40 billion to $80 billion [3] over the next decade, and the high cost of the measure is one reason that its prospects for passage are mixed.

But 73 members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, have signed up as co-sponsors. And cash-rich mega corporations are pushing hard for the tax break.

A number of trade groups and corporations that would benefit have joined in a coalition called WIN America [4]. New lobbying disclosure reports show that the group and its member firms have spent millions of dollars, and employed dozens of lobbyists, to press for the tax break, according to an analysis by iWatch News.

The current rules for tax repatriation, as the process is called, are a thorn for U.S. firms that make money overseas. American companies face a 35 percent corporate income tax. Money earned offshore is taxed only by the country of origin until it is “repatriated” to the U.S., at which time an additional tax is levied to make up any difference and bring the rate to 35 percent.

The 2004 holiday allowed U.S. firms to bring their offshore profits back and pay a rate of only 5.25 percent.

“The repatriation tax break created a competitive disadvantage for domestic businesses that chose not to engage in offshore operations or investments and provided a windfall for multinationals in a few industries without benefiting the U.S. economy as a whole,” said the Democratic staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in its Oct. 11, 2011 report [5], done in response to the new push for another tax holiday.

“I want them to pay their taxes like the rest of us,” said Sen. Carl Levin, the Democrat from Michigan whose committee compiled the report. Michigan’s unemployment remains among the highest in the country. “The rest of us don’t get a tax holiday.”

Benefiting the Few

There are 27 million businesses in America, and almost 10,000 have foreign subsidiaries and could qualify for the tax break. Yet only 843 of these firms took advantage of the bargain tax rates set by the 2004 law, the IRS says [6].

Those 843 companies brought around $362 billion home from overseas. More than half the benefits went to only 15 firms. And just five — Pfizer, Merck, Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson and IBM — retrieved $88 billion, a fourth of the funds returned.

Two sectors profited disproportionately. Drug companies brought home some 29 percent of the repatriated funds; the computer and electronics industry another 19 percent, according to an IRS analysis.

The holiday also rewarded those who were using offshore funds to dodge taxes in the first place. Among the firms most likely to participate in the tax holiday were many that regularly stash their earnings in tax havens. The countries of incorporation with the largest percentage of repatriated funds under the 2004 law included the Netherlands, Switzerland, Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands.

In many cases, the money was moved through shell companies, often just mailbox drops, that had no employees or physical assets.

Intel and Coca-Cola, the Senate inquiry determined, used shell companies in the Cayman Islands. Proctor & Gamble used a holding company in Bermuda that had no physical office and no full-time employees. Eli Lilly used Switzerland and the British Virgin Islands. Oracle employed an Irish subsidiary.

Many firms used the “repatriated” money, as it is known, to launch stock buy-back efforts, boosting the value of their shares and — via stock awards to senior managers — hiking executive compensation rather than investing the money in new jobs or research and development, as the bill intended.

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