Posted on 05/27/2013 10:01:32 AM PDT by jazusamo
We have truly entered the world of "Alice in Wonderland" when the CEO of a company that pays $16 million a day in taxes is hauled up before a Congressional subcommittee to be denounced on nationwide television for not paying more.
Apple CEO Tim Cook was denounced for contributing to "a worrisome federal deficit," according to Senator Carl Levin — one of the big-spending liberals in Congress who has had a lot more to do with creating that deficit than any private citizen has.
Because of "gimmicks" used by businesses to reduce their taxes, Senator Levin said, "children across the country won't get early education from Head Start. Needy seniors will go without meals. Fighter jets sit idle on tarmacs because our military lacks the funding to keep pilots trained."
The federal government already has ample powers to punish people who have broken the tax laws. It does not need additional powers to bully people who haven't.
What is a tax "loophole"? It is a provision in the law that allows an individual or an organization to pay less taxes than they would be required to pay otherwise. Since Congress puts these provisions in the law, it is a little much when members of Congress denounce people who use those provisions to reduce their taxes.
If such provisions are bad, then members of Congress should blame themselves and repeal the provisions. Yet words like "gimmicks" and "loopholes" suggest that people are doing something wrong when they don't pay any more taxes than the law requires.
Are people who are buying a home, who deduct the interest they pay on their mortgages when filing their tax returns, using a "gimmick" or a "loophole"? Or are only other people's deductions to be depicted as somehow wrong, while our own are OK?
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
I’m glad he quoted Hayek, “the road to serfdom.”
A loophole is when one person pays a Congresswhore for a "legitimate and productive deduction" and then other people have the nerve to use it without paying the toll.
You bet, he’s dead on target.
Thank you for the post and ping.
Dr. Sowell is right as rain again.
He’s a master at identifying the problem and shining the light of truth on the perpetrators of this
travesty that has been slowly dripped into our culture until we find ourselves living under a tyrant.
I just heard a replay of Michael Medved praising Rand Paul’s rousing defense of Apple. Both praised Apple as an example that should be revered and emulated, and warned that companies like Apple could move their operations offshore in an instant if they tired of such political persecution.
Congressmen are the minions of the global financial oligarchy, enacting the oligarchs’ laws at their behest.
I don’t think Congressmen are going to blame themselves.
Since this financial cabal has long ago, in effect, stealthily taken over the leadership our nation, the only ones to blame are the cabal.
Voters are not responsible if BOTH candidates on the ballot are minions of this cabal, Both parties are run by the cabal, who are we kidding.
It is absolute stupidity to support the idea of not consolidating income from ALL subsidiaries, both foreign and domestic.
I don’t care if it’s Apple or some tech company. Just because a company is an American tech company does not EXEMPT THE FROM INCOME TAX in the eyes of conservatives who’ve managed to figure out that new world order as THEM paying most of the TAX.
Tax exemptions INVARIABLY go to corrupt interests.
Since Congress overspends, spends more than it takes in, and produces deficits to infinity......instead of berating CEOs of successful companies they should be asking them for advice on how to make the government more efficient.
Oh, like the Catholic Church, the Red Cross etc. Oh, yea very corrupt.
Cook should’ve pulled a Howard Hughes on them and told them where to get off, then up and leave.
I'll believe Levin when he says the same thing to Warren Buffett.
Elderly, tired, and perenially overconfident and clueless fat-asses like Carl Levin have gradually become the face of Leftism in America-—no longer the rabid longhairs of OWS, no associations with the
images of “ revolutionary” anti-war protestors of the 1960s. No, now people like Carl Levin have inherited the mantle of Progressivism and all its spun-off attitudes and quasi-ideologies. From my perspective, it’s kind of funny—
they’re as entrenched as the people surrounding Khruschev and
Brezhnev ever were,and just as pathetic.For anyone who’s ever looked at all those party-line loyalists from the Soviet bloc and wondered “How could a society actually tolerate these idiots who DON’T EVEN BELIEVE what they’re telling the people? Who are there in top positions for no reason other than to protect their own power, the Status Quo, the Party Structure?” we have only to look no further than people like Carl Levin to realize that it has happened here also.
That idea presupposes that Congress has some interest in making the government more efficient. For the most part, they have no such interest. Bigger and more powerful - yes. Smaller and more efficient - not so much.
True. I was just stating what a logical person would do. Can’t assign being logical to any of them.
Ding-ding-ding!! You just hit the defining mantra of the Progressives. . .
Do you not realize that Apple (and ALL corporations) doesn’t pay any taxes. Apple (etc.) pass all their taxes through to the customer in the form of higher prices for their goods and services. <- Keep reading this until it sinks in.
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