Free Republic

Update (1310ET): Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe (the current head of the Eurogroup assemblage of EU finance ministers) just issued a terse statement claiming that while Ireland supports the aims of the OECD's tax reform, it's wary of the 15% minimum global tax rate.130 nations, including China & India have signed the 15% global minimum tax plan sponsored by the US and OECD Except Ireland Ireland is smart to defend her advantage over China as a gateway to EuropeI am shocked any African Nation and UK will agree to 15% tax on FDI pic.twitter.com/vDsiea8anC — Kalu Aja (@FinPlanKaluAja1) July 1,...

LONDON - When U.S. President Joe Biden flies to Europe this week, he will find his hosts welcoming but wary. His predecessor Donald Trump may be gone, but he leaves a long shadow. Biden’s first foreign trip as president starts Wednesday and includes a gathering of the Group of Seven wealthy nations by the seaside in southwest England, a NATO summit, a meeting with European Union chiefs, and then a tete-a-tete in Geneva with his Russian counterpart and adversary, Vladimir Putin. For most of America’s allies, Biden is a relief. Trump often sowed chaos, accusing the NATO military alliance of...

The number of vaccine deaths jumped double digits in the latest US reporting. The Israeli political situation with Prime Minister Netanyahu saying 'people rightly feel cheated' with the new government being proposed but first... 27 arrests in Minneapolis Saturday night in a third night of protests over the killing of Winston Smith by a US Marshals Task Force... (Comment) Not such a big deal because Joe Biden is President mainstream media? Also feds not using body cams if local law enforcement uses them why not feds? The latest Centers for Disease Control data on vaccine side effects showing 759 new...

Finance ministers from the G7 group of leading economies are confident of striking a deal on taxing multinational companies at their meeting in London. The agreement is expected to include a global minimum rate of corporation tax. It would target tech giants such as Amazon and Microsoft. German finance minister Olaf Scholz said the deal would "change the world". He said a 15% rate would help pay back debts that have built up during the pandemic - and that he was "absolutely confident" there would be an agreement. "If we agree on the minimum taxation for corporates, this will help...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission backed on Tuesday a call from U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for a global minimum corporate tax, but said its rate should be decided in talks in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Yellen said on Monday she was working with G20 countries to agree on a global corporate minimum tax rate to end a "thirty-year race to the bottom on corporate tax rates".

America’s federal corporate tax rate is currently about 21%. The Biden administration proposes raising it to 28%. For some perspective, that’s a 33% increase in one fell swoop. If enacted, Biden’s corporate tax rate would exceed China’s corporate tax rate, which is around 25%. China is communist. The Biden administration’s argument for making America less tax-friendly than communist China is not an economic argument, that it would be good for jobs in a recovering economy. That’s an afterthought at the most. Team Biden is making a sort of moral argument. Council of Economic Advisers Chair Cecilia Rouse on Sunday said...

One of the ways in which President Biden intends to pay for his $2-trillion Green New Deal spending plan is to raise the corporate tax rate. When Biden returned to the White House after spending time with his family for Easter (something you're not allowed to do, according to Democrats), reporters asked him whether it was wise to raise the corporate tax rate, which is currently at 21%, to 28% (an amount greater than the corporate tax in China). According to Biden, not only will the tax rate not be a problem, but it will encourage corporations that haven't paid...

Dubbed the American Jobs Plan, the White House said the “once-in-a-century capital investment” in U.S. infrastructure will create “millions” of good-paying jobs and position America to “out-compete” China by spending about 1% of GDP per year over the course of 8 years. [snip] In order to pay for this legislation, Biden also proposed what he has called the Made in America Tax Plan, which would raise the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%. It would also increase the minimum tax on multinational corporations to 21% and “calculate it on a country-by-country basis so it hits profits in tax havens,”...

As further evidence that they have fully lost the plot, NY Times reporters make a clear case that Trump has no shot at being the next President of the European Union: U.S. Tax Bill May Inspire Cuts Globally, While Fueling Trade Tensions To President Trump and congressional Republicans, the overhaul of the tax code that became law on Friday will make the United States a better place to do business. To the rest of the world, it has the potential to challenge the global economic order, creating an uneven playing field and setting off a race among countries to cut...

Congress is finally tackling the tax code, which is good news because reform is badly needed. Our outdated code is complicated by thousands of credits, deductions, and exemptions to individual and corporate interests -- and it imposes high rates that inhibit economic growth. However, as we've seen with the failed efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, getting a consensus among Republican members is easier said than done. It should boil down to three priorities. First, though overhauling the whole tax code would be great, if the goal is economic growth, reforming the corporate side is the most pressing priority. Everyone...

Congress recently passed another short-term continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown and fund the government until Dec. 9. It was a small victory for those of us who fight against cronyism, as the cronies failed to use the bill as a way to restore the full lending authority of the Export-Import Bank, whose charter expired for a short time last year. Sadly, it is opening the way for the mother of all crony legislation: an omnibus bill during the lame-duck session. Congress will once again have to consider a massive and unaccountable 2017 spending bill during that post-election twilight...

Economists and financial commentators scoffed this month when Ireland officials announced that the country's gross domestic product had increased by 26% in 2015. They rightly pointed out that the arrival of numerous new multinational companies, which conduct the vast majority of their business abroad, had juiced this number. What was largely overlooked, however, was that Ireland's gross national product, the income produced in the country itself, had also grown by 19%. Growth in personal consumption, exports and imports also grew at impressive rates. Meanwhile the rest of Europe is experiencing virtually zero growth. And the U.S.'s average growth of 2%...

Tax Reform: The left is aghast that more than 20% of large, profitable corporations paid zero income taxes. But it’s the Democrats’ own tax policies that have created this odd situation.

Both the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump, and Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, lost this week's Wisconsin primary to challengers Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders, respectively. While the potential nominees of both parties focused on gathering momentum and delegates to win the nomination, President Barack Obama focused on fending off both Trump and Cruz ... opening a front against both contenders from the opposing party. Obama focused his presidential address on the economy and, in particular, on corporate inversions. What are they? "Simply put, in layman's terms, it's when big corporations acquire small companies, and then change their address to another country...

The Donald Trump presidential phenomenon rolls on. Higher and higher his primary polls climb. He’s caught the irretrievably corrupt Hillary Clinton in a prospective general election matchup. The DC Establishment - made up of both Democrats and Republicans - for decades ignored our immigration laws. And dismissed and impugned, misunderstood or altogether missed the growing fervor for someone who would simply enforce our laws - and not slander those who want them enforced. Trump correctly identified all of this - and embraced it. How high and far can Trump go? Where he stops - no one yet knows. We do...

YOU probably haven’t heard of the BEPS project — but you soon will. Short for Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, the BEPS Project is the focus of a rapidly moving effort by the Group of 20 countries to create a new set of international tax principles designed to better capture tax revenue from multinational companies like Apple, Google and Starbucks. The Obama administration signed on to the BEPS Project in the expectation that it would strengthen the American tax base and enable Washington to hold on to more corporate tax revenues. But as the project heads for its end-of-year...

President Barack Obama's fiscal 2016 budget will seek new taxes on trillions of dollars in profits accumulated overseas by U.S. companies, and a new approach to taxing foreign profits in the future, but Republicans were skeptical of the plan on Sunday. Reviving a long-running debate about corporate tax avoidance, Obama will target a loophole that lets companies pay no tax on earnings held abroad, the White House said. But his proposal was certain to encounter stiff resistance from Republicans. In his budget plan to be unveiled on Monday, Obama will call for a one-time, 14 percent tax on an estimated...

Why would Apple — a company with $178 billion in cash — need a loan? In short: taxes. The vast majority of Apple's cash hoard is held offshore. Apple can defer taxes on that cash until it decides to bring it back to the U.S. Apple doesn't want to bring the money home, though. It could pay up to 35% of whatever it brings back to Uncle Sam, which could easily be a multi-billion dollar tax bill. Apple wants a tax repatriation holiday, like the one recently proposed by Senators Barbara Boxer and Rand Paul. But the prospects for the Boxer-Paul plan aren't...

Important Questions on the ballot, next Tuesday, November 4 There are two State questions that are proposed constitutional amendments. One relates to your right to bail and pretrial release, and the other is on Open Space. If you are in Morris County, there is a third question that is also about Open Space.   Please use this information to inform your friends and family, and tell them it is critical for them to get out to vote! Public question No. 1 - End the Right to Bail !!!! A “yes” vote on this constitutional amendment would END your current right...

U.S. companies face a kind of double taxation--taxing both domestic and foreign earned corporate income--and we are the only major industrial nation to do this to our businesses New Inversion Rules Seek to Punish Businesses, Not Raise Revenue The Department of the Treasury announced last night that it has implemented new rules aimed at making it more difficult for U.S. companies to move their headquarters abroad, which is known as an “inversion”. The rules take immediate effect. Interestingly enough, when Obama began his crusade against inversions earlier this summer, Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew was adamant enough that rules...