Shuster and Joe Conason examine off-shore tax havens by unpatriotic corporations

[ProfessorPlum]

Run time: 03:59 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCu8UX1-_fw   Posted on YouTube: March 27, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: March 27, 2009 By DU Member: ProfessorPlum Views on DU: 828

 

[mod mom]

1. EXCELLENT! This must be addressed! rec'd

[tomm2thumbs]

2. Obama should announce the Cayman Islands as part of the Economic 'Axis of Evil'

Cut 'em off like Cuba and we'll see what happens.

[antimatter98]

3. Congress will never ever fix this, but they will lock down Americans (e.g., IRS).

Just try not sending in your 1040 even though you've had payroll deductions
for the entire year---IRS will eventually slap you with a certified threatening letter
and will take your bank account and more---just for not filing--even though your
payroll deduction was made every single month.

Or, just try owing the IRS money (you know, you got laid off, had to move money
around, got a severance check that your accountant said was not ordinary income,
). Same thing will happen.

But, IRS never ever goes after off shore corporate tax dodges.

My question: why are simple, ordinary, working Americans so locked down by
IRS, but the mega corporations (and their executives) dodge taxes and get away
with it? And Congress never does a thing. Try getting help from your Congressman
on a tax matter and they send you right to the IRS.

[slipslidingaway]

4. knr n/t

[al bupp]

5. This should become a meme /nt

[DirtyDawg]

6. I don't know what all these 'subs' are for...

...but I can guaran-damn-tee you that some of them are for housing and marketing the intellectual property (IP) of these corporations. On the surface this may seem a reasonable option but in reality it is perhaps the most deceitful of the scams that remain legal. Here's how it works. First the corporation establishes a separate sub to, as I said, market their IP products. Primary among them are the 'copyrighted names' of the goods and services of the Corporation, and primary among these is the damn name of the Corporation itself. All these bastards have to do is charge all their other subs a fee, say 5% of gross revenue, for simply being allowed to use the name of the company in commerce. That revenue is then raked off the top, thus saving both Federal and State Corporate Income Taxes on those dollars (remember how they did it in the movie 'Casino'?...same thing only it's note satchels of cash but wire transfers). Depending on the size of the company and the prevailing tax rates, you're talking about hundreds and hundreds of millions, perhaps billions (from a single Corporation), of lost taxes that would otherwise be available to help offset the cost of government across the US. Costs that have to be 'covered' by you and me...for nothing more than a tax dodge that allows them to 'shelter' income produced in the US from US residents that then flows to their bottom line - and to top management in the form of bonuses for thinking up such a 'brilliant' scheme.

[JDPriestly]

7. Great reporting! Thanks, David Schuster

[FailureToCommunicate]

8. "100 Billion in taxes owed" That would sure help the US coffers. Of course that

is, what, ONE FIFTH of the annual Pentagon budget...
( "165 million in bonuses for AIG!! Oh, the humanity!")