08.02.13
Blew the top off the outrage guage awhile back
Another end of the week, another report on corporate American offshore tax evasion/money laundering. $1.2 trillion hidden, 80-90 percent of the 100 largest firms doing it — Apple, Google, Band of America, GE — only a few days after the President offers them a “bargain” reduction of the corporate tax rate in return for something called “middle class jobs.”
Don’t people know that investigative reports about US corporate tax evasion over and over with the same result every time are the definition of insanity?
No links. Why? The Congressional Research Service published a report a year ago on US corporate “profit-shifting” through shell companies in small countries which have set up their economies exclusively for money-laundering.
And this song is now two years old.
And, from across the pond in the Daily Telegraph:
In the wake of the outcry over the tax-dodging schemes of Starbucks, Google and Amazon, the House of Lords Committee on Economic Affairs will today call for penalties for aggressive tax avoiders and more expertise at HM Revenue & Customs, so that it can stand up to powerful multinationals.
The committee, which is chaired by former education secretary Lord MacGregor and includes ex-Chancellor Lord Lawson, highlights how big international companies can “manipulate the system… to reduce or avoid corporation tax by shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions???.
The upshot is that UK corporation tax has become “largely voluntary??? for multinationals …
Bomb Ireland, then.