Sen. Hatch: Closing Corporate Tax Loopholes Is A ‘Stupid, Dumb-Ass’ Idea
Sen. Hatch: Closing Corporate Tax Loopholes Is A ‘Stupid, Dumb-Ass’ Idea
America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) — the insurance industry’s lobbying arm — is hosting a health care policy forum in Washington D.C. This is the third of a series of posts from inside the conference.
At the AHIP conference today, ThinkProgress asked Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) about some issues other than health care, and Hatch wound up expressing his distaste for the Obama administration’s tax policy. In particular, Hatch railed against Obama’s tentative proposal to no longer allow U.S.-based companies to defer paying taxes on profits made overseas:
The Obama approach is to tax the profits of domestic corporations overseas. I can’t tell you — companies are going to leave. I had one of the leading pharmaceutical company’s leaders tell me, he said, if that goes through we’re moving to Switzerland, we’re moving the whole company. We’ve lost a lot of our Fortune 500 companies because of these stupid, dumb-ass tax laws. And they are really stupid.
Watch it:
Actually, by only taxing these profits when they are repatriated to the U.S. — but leaving them untaxed overseas — the government is encouraging overseas investment and the exporting of jobs. As James Kvaal explained:
The United States does not tax foreign profits unless they are returned to the United States. Alongside low tax rates in some foreign countries, the result is a strong incentive to invest overseas. As many as 3 million American jobs have been moved offshore, and the U.S. Treasury loses tens of billions of dollars a year in offshore tax evasion.
The Joint Committee on Taxation has found that the failure to tax foreign income of U.S. controlled corporations will cost the government $56.4 billion in lost tax revenues between 2008 and 2012.
Closing these offshore loopholes can’t be done on a unilateral basis, however. The U.S. needs to work with its allies abroad to confront tax havens and prevent harmful tax competition, as “we all have an interest in protecting our economy, collecting the taxes that are owed, and maintaining the progressive nature of our tax codes.” In any case, the status quo, which costs the U.S. tax revenue and jobs, is unacceptable.
8 Responses to “Sen. Hatch: Closing Corporate Tax Loopholes Is A ‘Stupid, Dumb-Ass’ Idea”
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The race to the lowest global common denominator on taxes and worker pay/benefits continues.
March 11th, 2009 at 7:24 pmIf UBS harbored 18,000 tax cheats for 6-7 years, how many is the Carlyle Group hiding with all their international funds?
http://peureport.blogspot.com/2009/02/carlyle-groups-micro-office-in-cayman.html
March 11th, 2009 at 7:29 pmIf UBS harbored 18,000 tax cheats for 6-7 years, how many is the Carlyle Group hiding with all their international funds?
March 11th, 2009 at 7:41 pm“Jeepers!”
March 11th, 2009 at 8:59 pmI wonder if a corp could buy or lease a really big cruise ship and put its corp headquarters on that ship and anchor it in intl waters off the coast of Mexico. They could use a commercial bank located on a friendly island like Aruba or maybe even Cuba someday. Some of these ship could easily accomodate 5,000 workers.
When it comes time to distribute divendeds to the share holders, they send bank drafts via FedEx or UPS. They could also run a casino and rake in lots of free cash from the high rollers!
March 11th, 2009 at 9:54 pmMany corporations have moved to almost Cruise ships already. Accenture (the giant consulting firm) is a Bermuda corporation, that’s not much larger then a modern cruse ship.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:23 pmHarold Pierce Jr, & Jim Louis mention cruise ships as a place for large corporations to run their business’ off shore.
A cruise ship would be small potatoes compared with the size of the Japanese factory ships that work the Bering Sea harvesting the ocean.
They have entire fleets of boats bringing sea life to them for harvest, and all they leave behind is a stream of milky fluid.
I commercial fished the Bering Sea in 1975, and it took my boat; a 140 foot crab boat nearly 45 minutes to sail from stem to stern of one of those factory ships.
So If a Corporation wanted to go off shore, and hold allegiance to no one but them selves, there are ships large enough to house a complete manufacturing business and all the workers needed.
At that point, to whom would they be required to pay taxes?
March 12th, 2009 at 2:25 pmhttp://www.euronext.com/editorial/wide/editorial-43618-EN.html
The following two revenue share schemes are in place for Liffe CDS contracts:
CDS Reporting Scheme rewards those registered Members who submit CDS transactions to Bclear
CDS Clearing Scheme rewards those registered Clearing Members who clear CDS contracts
Both schemes allocate a total of 20% of net revenues derived from Liffe CDS contracts.
Please refer to London Notice No.3098 for further information.
Approved registered members on these schemes:
Banca IMI SPA
March 12th, 2009 at 10:11 pmBanco Santander S.A.
Bayerische Hypo- und Vereinsbank AG
BGC Brokers LP
Calyon SA
Citigroup Markets Ltd
Credit Suisse Securities Europe Ltd
Deutsche Bank AG
Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank
Dresdner Bank AG
GFI Securities Limited
Goldman Sachs International
HSBC Bank PLC
ICAP Securities Ltd
J P Morgan Securities Limited
Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg
Liquid Capital Securities
Merrill Lynch International
MF Global UK Limited
Natixis
Newedge Group SA
Nomura International PLC
Rabobank International
Royal Bank of Canada Europe Limited
Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (publ)
Société Générale
The Royal Bank of Scotland
Tradition Securities And Futures
Tullet Prebon (Securities) Limited
UBS Clearing & Execution Services Limited
UBS Limited
( Do you notice the presence of SOME OF THE FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS THAT HAVE RECEIVED MEDIA ATTENTION FOR THEIR PART IN THE CURRENT ECONOMIC $$$#**&! sorry, was I shouting, again?…uncletumbleweed)and are these CDS contracts the mortgages (and deeds) to American homes? sold to “anonymity guaranteed” buyers?
Is Citi in a good financial position because this trading began on 3/9/09, with the blessing of the NYSE? the dysfunctional SEC and CFTC? while the White House makes wisecracks about Rush whatever-his-name-is to distract America? Just like Slick Willie did with his scandal while the FMA of 1999 and the CFMA of 2000 were being passed? When the media gets sidetracked by something really stupid…start reading… something is going on!