From the Washington Times:
President Barack Obama’s Treasury secretary says the administration will unveil a series of rules and measures in the coming months to limit the ability of international companies to avoid U.S. taxes.Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday that Obama will propose legislation to limit U.S. companies’ ability to shelter foreign earnings from taxation in the U.S. He also said the administration will try to limit wealthy Americans’ ability to use tax havens to avoid taxation.
He did not immediately provide details.
Aren’t we glad that the Obama Administration is being so tough on international corporations who don’t pay their taxes? Afterall, those companies that find less restrictive places to relocate business (aka places with lower corporate tax rates) are undermining the “fairness of the US tax code.” Why not just make it that much more fair by decreeing a crusade against these international corporations who skirt their tax obligations?
Such news may have gone unnoticed, except for new revelations of yet another Obama nominee with hefty tax problems. And this time, it is just “a $10,000 problem.”
From the LA Times:
Ron Kirk, the former mayor of Dallas who would be the White House chief trade representative if confirmed, didn’t pay taxes on some speaking fees he donated to his alma mater and he tried to write off the full $17,000 costs of his Dallas Mavericks season tickets.
The same post makes an interesting list of Obama’s closest “victims” of financial improprieties:
Ron Kirk
Timothy Geithner
Tom Daschle
Nancy Killefer
Bill Richardson
Hilda Solis
Wow, maybe before trying to tackle the “big issues” like global warming, universal healthcare, and poverty, he should get his own “house” in order and try vetting individuals without tax problems… oh, and that might just give Barry a little more legitimacy when he decides to declare war on international corporations like he has since the campaign trail.
But who am I kidding, the only greedy and dishonest people out there are white, wealthy Republicans (who are guilty of outsourcing jobs and not paying outrageously high corporate taxes). GO GET ‘EM BARRY!!
- Marc
Not going to try and defend the tax non-paying nominees, or the apparently not-thorough enough vetting process Obama seems to struggle with, but defending corporations who use tax loopholes to avoid billions in revenue owed in order to take a cheap shot at Obama seems not well thought out.
A handful of tax cheating Democrats aside, these companies should be paying their dues like the rest of us.
In any case, the social engineering hidden in the present tax code would be out in the open, for all to see. The public could vote at regular intervals as to the slope of the redistribution curve (or you could just set it if you would rather do it yourself). You could use the median income as the dividing line for who gives and who gets—that would even the score in the debate over ‘tax cuts for the rich’,