[lotuseclat79]

10 Big Businesses That Have Moved Their Headquarters Abroad to Pay Less U.S. Taxes.

If the intent of a business by virtue of moving out of the USA is to avoid taxes, then is there a cure that would incentivize them to move back into the USA and pay their fair share of the tax burden we all share?

What with the wall-streeters and CEOs ripping off investors (by risking the investors $$$) playing a game that amounts to nothing more than gambling against the odds - and now the new game on the block is with life insurance where if you die they win - do we need to regulate USA corporate America in from the current lack of regulations particularly in the financial industry?

-- Tom

[wacor]

Must mean Bermuda is a business friendly environment. How is it that Bermuda is content with the taxes it gets???

[iltos]

Originally Posted by wacor

Must mean Bermuda is a business friendly environment. How is it that Bermuda is content with the taxes it gets???

don't know about content, but here's its structure
http://www.lowtax.net/lowtax/html/bermuda/jbrtax.html

interesting editorial here

The fault lies in the U.S. tax system. Any tax that can be escaped by moving is a bad tax. It creates an incentive to move away, and those who don't move are put at a disadvantage. If you have a pond in your back yard, and you keep shooting at the ducks, is it surprising that the ducks will fly away? Stop shooting the ducks!

if you google bermuda tax, you'll find that a number of nations have wised up and entered into agreements with Bermuda to close the loophole.

[SlackAli]

All tax havens seem to share characteristics: small in size, affluent resident population of citizens (rather than guest workers), make money primarily from tourism and financial services, and operate extremely selective criteria for long-term residency. Try obtaining residency in Bermuda, the Isle of Man, or Jersey without a bank balance in at least seven figures

[Paquadez]

Much of my professional work in the 1970s was on devising offshore tax strategies for corporate clients. By careful selection of tax jurisdications and corporate structure it was possible to achieve corporate taxe rates of 0%.

There are a number of cogent reasons why major corporations seek to move their profit centre and thus fiscal residence offshore: one is quite obviously to reduce the impact of evermore greedy politicians and their ideological taxes.

However consider this: most US Shipping lines changed their registrations to "Flags of Convenience": to escape the insane demands of unions. Without such strategic moves then they would have become insolvent.

A greater concern is simply that major corporations enjoy annual revenues far larger than all but the largest nation states: yet no one is empowered to vote on how they apply their awesome financial muscle, market and social influence and political pressures.

If politicians were not so profligate, wasteful, egoistical and self-focused, then businesses would not have to bother relocating their fiscal domain.

Exactly the same for wealthy individuals too.

[LANMaster]

GM Sends Bailout Money Overseas while Planning American Layoffs


Remember that $50.2 bazillion bailout that GM received earlier this year, turning it into Government Motors (a federally supported subsidiary of the UAW)? And how that bailout was supposed to ultimately save American jobs and keep that vital automotive sector alive?

Fast forward about half a year to this, your tax dollars at work in Latin America:

For example, "Government Motors" is spending your tax dollars in Brazil. According to the president of GM Brazil-Mercosur, Jaime Ardila, the $1 billion to "complete the renovation of the line of products up to 2012" will come from the $50.2 billion bailout GM received earlier this year. Yet at the same time, GM says it intends to eliminate 21,000 U.S. jobs by the end of 2010.

I'm sure they'll only be firing marketing and publicity personnel, since they'll have the Obama Administration to handle all of that now. But wait, let's not forget our bailout-worthy friends just across the border:

GM plans new investments in Mexico of $1.2 billion through 2011.

...and don't even think about forgetting our environmentally sensitive friends half way around the globe:

[GM] has promised to "continue to invest heavily" in China and to roll out at least five new brands there before the end of the year.

But wait: What about our European allies, most of which just love our new New Dear Leader so very much? OK, why not:

And last Thursday, General Motors Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson said the company could tap some U.S. government aid to help restructure the company's European Opel unit. According to GM statements, "as a matter of principle, [the U.S. authorities] are not opposed to GM making investments in its foreign operations."

When "a matter of principle" stands in apparent contradiction to the whole presumed point of the government takeover of GM -- to save American jobs, prop up a (decaying but yet somehow vitally important) American industry, and thereby boost the American economy -- then foreign investment seems a little counterproductive.

The "Free Market" isn't "Free" if federal funds are involved. In this perverse scheme, all tax-paying Americans -- from the loopiest vegan moonbat to the most free-market conservative business owner -- are now stockholders in GM. That is, non-voting stockholders with absolutely no choice to NOT buy into the stock, which offers no dividends, just feel-good vibes about a more prosperous nation, if only we save just this one industry over here, for the sake of America's workers.

Multinational corporation or not, Government Motors has no business spreading our wealth around the globe.

[iltos]

Originally Posted by LANMaster

Multinational corporation or not, Government Motors has no business spreading our wealth around the globe.

score one more for the dingbats
this is incendiary, particularly if you never agreed with bailing out GM
but even if you did, the fact that there was no provision in the monies given limiting their use to GM america is a disgrace.

[LANMaster]

Agreed on all levels.


Lets hurry up and put them in charge of our healthcare, shall we?

[thingamajig]

Originally Posted by LANMaster

Agreed on all levels.


Lets hurry up and put them in charge of our healthcare, shall we?

You are reaching on this one LAN. How can you outsource health-care?

However, I agree that there should have more been stipulations that all public stimulus funds be spent within the US within all reason (some products aren't produced in the US anymore). Don't get all neocon about it either because the previous administration spent as much on TARP as the current administration but TARP 1 had fewer limitations.

Oh wait, you will call such restrictions "socialism", "communism", or some other ill-appropriated term as it is an attempt by government to control how private companies spend money. You would then argue that such stipulations were just too much for our esquire legislatures to read.

So, companies are taking public funds and spending overseas. Meanwhile, they are choosing there corporate base in countries that can afford lower taxes because their isn't anything there to spend public money on with the exception of minimal services. You want a strong defense, a huge prison population, and aid to Israel but you don't want a tax to support it. Fortunately, countries like Bermuda and the Caymans don't have to worry so much about Iran's nuclear ambitions because they have chosen not to play that game.

Make up your mind. If you want this so-called "free market" than why wouldn't these companies choose to operate from Bermuda? Either the US government seizes more control over how corporate funds are taxed or not. You can't have it both ways because these small island tourist hot-spots don't have our self-proclaimed and NATO-proclaimed responsibilities. They want us to defend them so they can rake in tax revenue that is earned in the US. Let AQ have at them then and see where that takes us...

Such inequalities in services offered or required must be addressed and it will take government to address it. The share-holders don't give a darn where they earn their money as long as it pads their portfolio. Can't you understand the trap you are walking into here?

[wacor]

Originally Posted by iltos

score one more for the dingbats
this is incendiary, particularly if you never agreed with bailing out GM
but even if you did, the fact that there was no provision in the monies given limiting their use to GM america is a disgrace.

I am a bit surprised you would feel this way given your comments about a global economy. I do not know the particulars and you and Lan may well be right but GM needs to succeed on a global level. They will not succeed just by the US market. So the question is whether a healthy global GM is good or not. Seems like the answer should be yes. I don't know if it is really all that simple though

[iltos]

Originally Posted by wacor

I am a bit surprised you would feel this way given your comments about a global economy. I do not know the particulars and you and Lan may well be right but GM needs to succeed on a global level.

according to GM, it is...the american market is the only one that is seriously tanking....
that's one of the reasons i'm so outraged by the article.....

So the question is whether a healthy global GM is good or not. Seems like the answer should be yes.

well, sure.....for GM
and that brings us back to my comments on global capitalism, and is also the other thing this article demonstrates....a multi-national is happy to take money from any government that will hand it over....and using it globally will probably help them pay it back, too.....
that's the plus side
the down side is it's a multi-national.....it has no allegiance to american society, beyond it being another market place....taking american dollars and laying off american workers is great for GM, the global captialist
but it leaves the american people out in the cold.
and it's that reality that governments need to come to grips with wrt to the 21st century, imo

[ekim68]

Originally Posted by iltos

the down side is it's a multi-national.....it has no allegiance to american society, beyond it being another market place....taking american dollars and laying off american workers is great for GM, the global captialist
but it leaves the american people out in the cold.
and it's that reality that governments need to come to grips with wrt to the 21st century, imo

Needs repeating....And, where did those trans-nationals start out from? Probably the good old USA... So much for patriotism from them, eh?

[paisanol69]

Originally Posted by iltos

according to GM, it is...the american market is the only one that is seriously tanking....
that's one of the reasons i'm so outraged by the article.....

well, sure.....for GM
and that brings us back to my comments on global capitalism, and is also the other thing this article demonstrates....a multi-national is happy to take money from any government that will hand it over....and using it globally will probably help them pay it back, too.....
that's the plus side
the down side is it's a multi-national.....it has no allegiance to american society, beyond it being another market place....taking american dollars and laying off american workers is great for GM, the global captialist
but it leaves the american people out in the cold.
and it's that reality that governments need to come to grips with wrt to the 21st century, imo

....american people by chance be the american union workers, that were as responsable as the GM management for the U.S. operations needing a bailout?

I think yes, and if many of them need to lose their jobs, after being fat greedy cats, then let them go on unemployment. They have worked themselves out of a job, IMO.

They shoulda saved some of that money they were making.

[iltos]

Originally Posted by ekim68

Needs repeating....And, where did those trans-nationals start out from? Probably the good old USA... So much for patriotism from them, eh?

it's one of the ironies of those on the right who tout patriotism and captialism in the same breath....
it's gonna be tough for them to come to grips with the fact that governments are not, in fact, arms of an economic system, and that their first allegiance must be to the culture and society they are charged to govern.......and the more free and individualistic a society, the more difficult it will be to balance the equation between "quality of life" and "economic growth"

if our government, and our people, fail to "take care of our own" in terms of prudent insight and corresponding responsiblity wrt to energy, equality/tolerance, health care, and cottage industry/entrepenurism, we will become the first wholly owned consumer society of the global economy, manipulated by our own divisivness into puppets of multi-national profit.

[iltos]

Originally Posted by paisanol69

....american people by chance be the american union workers, that were as responsable as the GM management for the U.S. operations needing a bailout?

I think yes, and if many of them need to lose their jobs, after being fat greedy cats, then let them go on unemployment. They have worked themselves out of a job, IMO.

They shoulda saved some of that money they were making.

actually, paisan....no, i wasn't even thinking about the unions
tho now that you mention it, this slap in the face by GM, the multi-national, should be considered yet another wake up call for those who pay their dues, expecting something from Big Labor.

you'll notice that the GM bailout not only didn't set limitations on where the money could be spent, it didn't even include Big Labor......so much for the union/management "balance"