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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums$1 Billion: That’s How Much Walmart Avoids Paying in Taxes Each Year Through Loopholes
11/24/2014
This Black Friday, legions of shoppers will throng to their local Walmart in frenzied pursuit of holiday deals. But it turns out that Walmart has saved the sweetest deals for itself.
In a recent analysis of Walmarts tax spending, Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) found that the company avoids $1 billion a year in taxes through federal loopholes, and various political shenanigans drive this always-low tax rate: the big-box giant is absorbing government subsidies both directly and indirectly, through its retail operations as well as its ingenious accounting methods. Overall, the retail giant can evade taxes through overseas accounts, on one hand, and raid the public trust on the other by capitalizing on the benefits system.
The losers in Walmarts tax scheme are the working-class consumers who think theyre getting a good deal by elbowing through the mob surrounding the Xbox floor display. Theyre being secretly robbed as the countrys pre-eminent retailer shields hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue from the tax system through creative, perfectly legal strategies to reduce its liability.
One major way Walmart and other multinationals skirt tax obligations, ATF explains, is to funnel the money to an overseas location where it can be subject to a gaping loophole known as deferral.? The ability to park assets in other countries gives corporations great incentive to earn profits offshore (or make it look like they are earned offshore)often by moving jobs overseas....
http://www.thenation.com/blog/191209/1-billion-thats-how-much-walmart-avoids-paying-taxes-each-year-through-loopholes
This is not Patriotism. This is not 'Support Our Troops". This is in-your-face F U America.
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)This needs to stop.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)the tax payers could all save money and many of the Walmart workers wouldn't need food stamps.
Elmergantry
(884 posts)I love math.
But anyway..Seems like competitor Aldi's pays much better with benes, and they make good profits. Why cant Wal-Mart?
progressoid
(49,991 posts)HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)Excused as 'just business' cheating the government is de rigueur for the elite.
Patriotism isn't stripping countrymen of their wealth.
Rhiannon12866
(205,467 posts)With all that food on their shelves, why have they never thought of providing some of that for their employees, at least for the holidays?! Where I worked, they gave us a turkey for Christmas every year - and I worked in an office. Wal-Mart has them right on site! It's inexcusable that their employees are going hungry!
Frustratedlady
(16,254 posts)welfare because they limit the hours and benefits their employees can get. We end up subsidizing the rest.
Criminal in my view.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)SomethingFishy
(4,876 posts)he said "When Americans see a big mansion on the hill they think "if I work hard and follow the rules one day I could own that mansion, where as the Irish see a Castle on a hill and they think "one day... I'm going to get that motherfucker"...
I think the Irish have it right.
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)That is good.
hugo_from_TN
(1,069 posts)Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,760 posts)I think his wife also got a manicure. Get your priorities straight!