Posted on 04/13/2015 11:18:38 AM PDT by Enlightened1
At least 15 Fortune 500 companies, many of them worth north of a $1 billion, paid zero income taxes in 2014, says a report out last week from the Citizens for Tax Justice.
According to the report, household names like CBS, General Electric and Mattel all successfully manipulated the U.S. tax code to avoid paying taxes on their massive profits.
Even more shocking: some of them even received tax rebates in the tens or even hundreds of millions
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Well, since you are the one proposing we change the laws so as to destroy those businesses that otherwise would be perfectly viable, it seems like, yes, it is you who is deciding this.
You are talking like a liberal, quoting things out of context.
You are overlooking my main reason to tax top line instead of bottom line. Let me repeat it again. We need more efficient businesses in the country. Because they are more competitive than losing money businesses. We can then compete better with other countries.
What is happening now is companies use tax loopholes to avoid taxes. ALl that goes away with top line taxation. There will be fewer 3 martini tax deductible lunches.
Also, the greatest benefit to efficient businesses will be that the tax rate on top line could be as low as 10% of current corporate tax rate.
The VAST majority of small businesses do not become what we would consider profitable for at least 3-4 years...building business, taking clientele from your competitors takes some doint....I have started, from scratch, 5 small business ventures and while ALL of them became profitable, all of them took a few years.
Want to open an auto repair business....have the mechanical experience...have the necessary tools, purchase an inventory, rent or purchase a building, turn on the heat, turn on the electricity, purchase the necessary insurance, buy some advertising, make, or have made some signage, pray for good weather, and then, maybe, open the door. Stand there and wait for your first customer.......
and you say that for the first year if you cannot make a profit that you should close?????
I have no idea of where you went to school....but they were VERY, VERY wrong.....only a coward would do as you suggest
Correct.
Until you die...then the liberal idiots want to tax your estate which you have already paid tax on as you earned it....pathetic.
Take an example of GM. It was losing money and had to be bailed out. Instead, they should have been allowed to go broke. That is how capitalism works. Then, other more efficient car producers would take over GM facilities and workers. Car demand was not going to go away because GM went bankrupt. The more efficient producers of cars would be eager to expand and meet the demand.
“You are overlooking my main reason to tax top line instead of bottom line.”
Indeed, because I’m trying to highlight the fact that your reasoning is going to run into the effects of the law of unintended consequences. It doesn’t matter what the goal is you want to achieve, the thing you are proposing will still have a negative side effect that you aren’t addressing.
” We need more efficient businesses in the country. Because they are more competitive than losing money businesses. We can then compete better with other countries.”
You keep saying “we”, but you’ve already conceded that these are all things for the market, not the government to decide. So, they are not things to be engineered by government fiat, via tax laws or otherwise.
“What is happening now is companies use tax loopholes to avoid taxes. ALl that goes away with top line taxation.”
And in your quest for squeezing more tax money out of the economy, you will kill businesses that add jobs to that economy, and make it less productive, reducing the tax base you are trying to squeeze to begin with.
“Also, the greatest benefit to efficient businesses will be that the tax rate on top line could be as low as 10% of current corporate tax rate.”
Now you’re the one talking like a liberal, as if we should just trust the good-heartedness of politicians to only take from us only what is needed. They’ll take everything that they can get their hands on, until we forcibly stop them.
You HAVE to be a liberal...no conservative would EVER come to the inane conclusions that you have.
Every small business starts with the plan and hope to be a profitable entity. Many fail, those who succeed turn into the Ford Motor company, J.C.Penney, Wal-Mart....
My businesses, Import Auto Repair specialists became quite profitable...with branches in Milwaukee, Indianapolis, and elsewhere in Indiana everyone did O.K..Some shops purchased by the employees, some by competitors....My other business venture, rebuilding brakes for semi tractors/trailers flourished and was bought by a MAJOR competitor.(TALK ABOUT EXPENSIVE LIABILITY INSURANCE....TRY THAT ONE)..
You seen to assume that when you open your doors, money just flows in...rest assured, it doesn't!!!
and to Obama...yess, I did start those businesses and yes, I did work untold hours to make them viable, and yes, I've probable given 200 people, over the years, VERY well paid and benefit laden jobs, and NO, I would have NEVER let a union in my shops...
I am retired now, play golf daily, vacation where and when I want, and regret NOTHING of what I've done.....both the good and the bad results were learning experiences...try it, stop depending on someone else to hand you a pay check. Who makes more, you or Tiger Woods.
The great irony is, though, that these taxes meant to impede “wealth transfer” only affect us peons. The rich hire lawyers to stash it all safely in trusts to avoid that kind of attrition. The ones who get hit the hardest are regular people, who may leave one good asset, like a farm, small business, or a home, and then that has to be sold just to pay the tax bill.
That’s not a proper example. You are conflating businesses with small margins of profitability with businesses that are losing money. The two are not synonymous.
Neither is it synonymous to say they are inefficient. There are entire industries where even with peak efficiency, the margin of profitability is relatively low. If the issue I raised is not problematic, then you should be able to show why that is without using these kinds of bad analogies.
Companies paying no current period income taxes are doing so under the existing tax laws, using techniques such as loss carry-forwards, completed contract method, deferral of offshore sourced net income until such funds are repatriated to the US, to name a few.
Congress made these laws. Some are general, and some are industry specific.
Depletion allowances for instance are thought to stimulate & provide an allowance against a wasting inventory, natural resource extraction businesses. Oil, gas, coal, mining and forestry are included.
Other industries get other “breaks” or considerations if you wish. Contract construction can defer taxation, until the project is finished.
That sounds about like the frequent FR assertion that new tariffs will magically bring manufacturing back to the US.
It's not the cost of the contractor vs. the cost of the employee. It's the fact that a tax on gross receipts would remove any incentive for me to make any investments to develop a long-term relationship between my company and my employees. Why would invest in any professional training, for example, if it cuts into my profit and I can't write off the cost as a legitimate business expense?
Okay, I’ll buy that.
[as long as you won’t be taxed on the gross receipt]
Good question. Requires some in depth thinking. Why do you want to give your employees professional training? To hang certificates of achievement on the office walls? NO! you do that in the hope you will get higher productivity and morale from them. If it is a beneficial thing to your business, then you will be wise to spend the money. If you do it just to get a tax write-off, it is a waste of resources.
If your nearest competitor is not as astute as you, and can’t make a profit, why do you want him to get tax loss carryovers? Why make the more efficient businesses carry the tax burden of the poorly run outfits? Tax on top line equalizes the playing field. It will help the better outfits to grow, produce products competitively and thus help compete with foreign outfits.
Completely wrong and opposite point. Tariffs INCREASE cost of goods and services to American consumers. Efficient producers REDUCE cost of products to American consumers. Instead of forcing the efficient producers with top profits to pay highest corporate tax rate of 35%, make them pay 3.5% tax rate on top line.
Senator Cruz is in favor of fair tax which is what this is.
Do you have any concrete examples of such industries with universal tight profit margins?
The only issue is whether they complied with the law. If so, good for them.
“Corporations should be taxed on gross sales instead of net profits. That will help the most efficient corporations prosper and grow, and punish the inefficient and corrupt corporations.”
Have you ever owned and run a business?
If so, I’m betting it failed.
At one time I had ownership in 64 businesses. I retired at 57.
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