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 ...
He would not want to get a “contempt of Congress” charge on his (and Apples) record. However, he could (oh so politely) suggest that Apple could easily pull up stakes and move the whole operation to Ireland. Okay, so it wouldn’t be so easy but it could be done. I’d like to see Sen. Levins face (with the spectacles on the bridge of his nose) when faced with that bit of news. I watched part of the proceedings live and could not get over the arrogance of Sen. Levin.
Being founded by a largely Christian population, the US has historically not taxed Churches.
So, I’ll set aside any financial issues related to the Vatican City-State, it’s bank, and the Roman Catholic Church.
I only have the sparsest of information on it, and I hope and pray for good outcomes.
As far as the Red Cross, please research and you’ll find unsettling things. The big one that did it for me was the mission to the Bolshevik Revolution where it was used as a front to get Wall Street guys into Russia to make some deals.
Does it do vital work ? Yes. Trouble is, IMHO, such work should be managed by Church organizations and much more local organizations, instead of being managed largely by corporate types.
Short-haired hippie Levin should point his waggly finger at himself in the mirror and scream, “YOU are THE Man!”
Hey, I own a corporation, 100%.
If it has taxable income, it pays income tax.
I don’t pay tax on that income at that time.
But whenever I take money out of the corporation, in the form of salary, dividend or selling my stock, then I pay tax on that income.
The perspective you spoke of is from a consumer.
I’m pointing to the owner’s perspective.
Now, if my corporation rings up $100,000 in sales every year with $10,000 in taxable income, I’d pay tax on the $10,000.
Now, if my corporation sets up a subsidiary such that it owns 80% of its stock, and that subsidiary is established in China and the other 20% is owned by a Chinese citizen, my coporation would have to consolidate the subidiary’s results into its own for tax purposes. Say the subsid. sales were $50,000 with taxable income of $5,000. I’d have 80% of that income, $4,000, to add to the parent company’s taxable income, for a total of $14,000.
So my corp should pay tax on that $14,000 - and the IRS has strongly worded language about that.
The code allows me, however, to file a form stating that I do not foresee the capital I invested in that Chinese sub. ever coming back to the US. Presumably it will just continue to grow in sales and profit forever ?
Once I do that, I no longer have to consolidate that subsidiary. But if the capital does ever come back to the US, the code is very clear that any capital gains from selling my 80% interest, or if I don’t sell it, but I transfer cash unneeded in my Chinese sub back to my US parent company, then income tax is due on that money which is construed as profit. I can’t get anything out of the subsidiary unless I pay tax on it.
Unless, of course, Apple can join with all other big financial globalist interests - and get the rubes, the little people, etc., who pay taxes, to start a “grassroots” activist campaign to press Congress to change the tax code - so Apple and the others can repatriate profits - BUT GET AN EXEMPTION FROM PAYING TAX. Man, could they BRAG to their shareholders. But the US Treasury’s borrowing from the international money cartel would be kept firmly in place. We can’t have a globalist or a globalist-controlled corporation paying taxes. Everyone else has to, but not globalism. The little people don’t understand that almost every dollar they pay in tax winds up as income for one globalist firm or another, and globalists themselves make sure their own operations are as “tax efficient” as possible. GE for example; the love to sell to the government, but they can’t stand paying taxes to it.
This is what Apple has done and is doing, except they’ve gone one better. For much of their international sales, the entities are structured such that the sales are not considered taxable by ANY country. Neat trick.
Of course, I don’t care about other countries collecting tax, but if Apple wants to support globalist initiatives where the US gov’t is spending on these initiatives - and if Apple wants to sell ANYTHING to the government, meaning U.S. taxpayers, seems to me that Apple should itself at least be a taxpayer.
Consider this example of the impact of government spending benefitting Apple:
http://www.blueraster.com/blog/2012/12/03/on-the-go-dhs-data-available-in-new-mobile-app/
As the State Depts USAID and the CIA and other government agencies and NGOs partner with the central banking cartel to develop Africa, it only means more sales of Apple products. Except Apple is leveraging little people’s money to fund the US government operations.
Again, this is not just Apple; it’s most large or publicly-held US businesses.
Soviet show trials have come to DC.
Great column!
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... 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.
We’d be so much better off if Dr. Sowell had been the first black president instead of whatsisname - Hillary’s old man......
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."
When will someone stand up and call these self-righteous pompous hypocrites like Levin what they are to their face?
Take a breath, kook.
Congress puts thesae "gimmicks" in mainly for themselves and their friends.
” 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.”
Marxist Levin gives pond scum a good name.
| Contributor | Total | Indivs | PACs |
| Blue Cross/Blue Shield | $48,100 | $38,100 | $10,000 |
| Ford Motor Co | $46,119 | $37,250 | $8,869 |
| General Motors | $38,150 | $30,650 | $7,500 |
| Cerberus Capital Management | $35,650 | $25,650 | $10,000 |
| Guardsmark LLC | $32,500 | $32,500 | $0 |
” Seems so contradictory - capitalism supporting a marxist who graduated from Swarthmore and Harvard Law School. “
Levin in power since 1979.
” Ford Motor Co $46,119 $37,250 $8,869
General Motors $38,150 $30,650 $7,500
Cerberus Capital Management $35,650 $25,650 $10,000
Guardsmark LLC $32,500 $32,500 $0
My guess is they are afraid of him. Levin is a big labor union guy.
Labor unions are not funding his campaigns - this link shows the industries funding his campaigns:
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=2012&cid=n00001691&type=I&newmem=N
Here are the top 20 contributors, only 1 is a union, the operating engineers:
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2012&cid=n00001691&type=I&newmem=N
If big business was “afraid” of him they’d be more interested in seeing him replaced than funding most of his campaigns and “hoping” that he “took it easy on business”.
IMHO, that’s like paying your enemy to “take it easy on you”, which never works well for the payer.
IMHO, big business expects and gets what it wants from candidates that it supports. IMHO, I’m sure the CEOs of the companies whose employees are his top contributors are quite satisfied with the results they get from his office.
It’s very likely you could produce a similar graphic showing how much money organized crime gets from neighborhood businesses, proving, I suppose, that the various mafias are actually friends of business.
The mafia would either be extorting the money from the local businesses, making the business owners victims of extortion, protection schemes or loan sharking, or possibly the local businesses would be fronts for the mafia, making them part of criminal organizations, e.g., part of a money laundering operation.
I’m not trying to misrepresent data to make an untrue point, there’s just no way around “follow the money”.
If I ran for Congress, you can bet your bottom dollar that those who financed my campaign will be the folks I’m most apt to help out in any way that I can. If 19 businesses are my top contributors and 1 union is and it’s way down on the list, my election was financed for the most part by business, not union. I would then try to help all of them, including the union, since a lot of their support is simply in their votes - despite the fact that I’m actually also working legislatively on behalf of business management. Obamacare is a classic case: the bill was written by myriad lobbyists, most of which were employed by the healthcare or insurance industries, with the original goal of having government force used to increase the sales of their industries. The Dem Congressional leadership was simply given the task of passing the bill, not writing it. Unions - along with everyone else - were lied to as necessary to get them to support the bill.
It’s quite amazing, because most reasonably intelligent union members and Democrats realize that big money is backing their so-called “populist” party, that it’s all a sham, that it’s actually enriching the financial oligarchy and holding down the poor from having a decent life, since living the life touted by liberal agendas points one in the direction of ignorance, serfdom and misery. At this point most Democrats continue to vote Democrat because of tradition, corruption and the tradition of corruption.
Us poor conservatives who’ve held to the idea that somehow the financial oligarchy is somehow “on our side” are also blissfully ignorant of the fact that we’re also one of its targets.
The financial oligarchy sits atop the wealth pyramid and their perspective, wrong as it is, is to retain their relative wealth position. Thus they desire a flat pyramid, with a very few super wealthy and powerful folks managing a world of serfs. On the other hand, small business and people of some modest means, analogous to the bourgeoisie of historical France, live with the worldview that a far greater percentage of the population being members of the bourgeoisie and a continued effort to eliminate serfdom would be a much better economic situation. This worldview poses much too serious a threat to the comfortable monopolies of the financial oligarchy, so they use legislation and regulation to corral small business into either submitting to or joining their monopolies.
“The mafia would either be extorting the money from the local businesses, making the business owners victims of extortion, protection schemes or loan sharking, or possibly the local businesses would be fronts for the mafia, making them part of criminal organizations, e.g., part of a money laundering operation.”
Exactly my point. Businesses like those you cited like to get there first before the extortion demands, so it tends to look a little cleaner. And the gov is a practitioner of extortion, don’t doubt it. If the flow stops, where do you think businesses would end up??
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