SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
'Real Patriots Pay Their Taxes'
Aug 01, 2011
A headline in a recent issue of the Progressive Populist caught my eye: "Real patriots pay their taxes."
The story was written by two directors of an organization called "Business for Shared Prosperity," a group that bills itself as a network of "forward-thinking business owners, executives and investors committed to building enduring economic progress on a strong foundation of opportunity, equity and innovation." In other words, a group of businesses that believes being a good citizen has it own rewards.
I have always put retiring U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl in that category. He ran good businesses, paid his taxes, treated his employees well, gave back to the community, and still wound up a multi-millionaire.
There are other kinds of business leaders, though, as authors Scott Klinger and Holly Sklar point out in the Progressive Populist piece. Some of them who have been using loopholes and other gimmicks to hide their profits in tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands now are pushing Congress to pass a special tax holiday for "repatriating" their money back to the United States. They're calling their plan "Win America."
"There's nothing patriotic about this repatriation being pushed by Google, Cisco, Pfizer and other companies in the Win America campaign," the authors argue. "To sell the tax holiday, they claim it will produce a burst of jobs and investment. In fact, Congress passed a 'one-time-only' tax holiday in 2004 with similar promises. Instead, it produced a burst of shareholder dividends and stock buybacks, which goosed the pay of CEOs."
Klinger and Sklar explained that a favorite accounting trick of the giant corporations is transferring a patent from the U.S. parent company to a subsidiary -- often called a shell company -- in a tax haven.
"Profits from the patent go largely untaxed offshore while the costs of development, marketing and management remain in the U.S. where they are taken in tax deductions," the duo pointed out.
Consequently, a corporation like Pfizer, maker of Lipitor, Viagra and other hugely profitable drugs, reported $7.9 billion in U.S. losses while claiming $37.8 billion in profits in the rest of the world. And that doesn't even consider that Pfizer, like many of the pharmacy giants, is heavily subsidized by taxpayer-funded research at the National Institutes of Health.
"It should not be rewarded with another tax holiday," Klinger and Sklar argue.
But the real bottom line is that the taxes that these giants escape paying have to be made up by others.
"When powerful large U.S. corporations avoid their fair share of taxes, they undermine U.S. competitiveness, contribute to the national debt and shift more of the tax burden to domestic businesses, especially small businesses that create most of the new jobs," the authors note.
Their conclusion: "Real patriots pay their fair share of taxes. They don't run out on the bill."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
© 2023 The Capital Times
A headline in a recent issue of the Progressive Populist caught my eye: "Real patriots pay their taxes."
The story was written by two directors of an organization called "Business for Shared Prosperity," a group that bills itself as a network of "forward-thinking business owners, executives and investors committed to building enduring economic progress on a strong foundation of opportunity, equity and innovation." In other words, a group of businesses that believes being a good citizen has it own rewards.
I have always put retiring U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl in that category. He ran good businesses, paid his taxes, treated his employees well, gave back to the community, and still wound up a multi-millionaire.
There are other kinds of business leaders, though, as authors Scott Klinger and Holly Sklar point out in the Progressive Populist piece. Some of them who have been using loopholes and other gimmicks to hide their profits in tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands now are pushing Congress to pass a special tax holiday for "repatriating" their money back to the United States. They're calling their plan "Win America."
"There's nothing patriotic about this repatriation being pushed by Google, Cisco, Pfizer and other companies in the Win America campaign," the authors argue. "To sell the tax holiday, they claim it will produce a burst of jobs and investment. In fact, Congress passed a 'one-time-only' tax holiday in 2004 with similar promises. Instead, it produced a burst of shareholder dividends and stock buybacks, which goosed the pay of CEOs."
Klinger and Sklar explained that a favorite accounting trick of the giant corporations is transferring a patent from the U.S. parent company to a subsidiary -- often called a shell company -- in a tax haven.
"Profits from the patent go largely untaxed offshore while the costs of development, marketing and management remain in the U.S. where they are taken in tax deductions," the duo pointed out.
Consequently, a corporation like Pfizer, maker of Lipitor, Viagra and other hugely profitable drugs, reported $7.9 billion in U.S. losses while claiming $37.8 billion in profits in the rest of the world. And that doesn't even consider that Pfizer, like many of the pharmacy giants, is heavily subsidized by taxpayer-funded research at the National Institutes of Health.
"It should not be rewarded with another tax holiday," Klinger and Sklar argue.
But the real bottom line is that the taxes that these giants escape paying have to be made up by others.
"When powerful large U.S. corporations avoid their fair share of taxes, they undermine U.S. competitiveness, contribute to the national debt and shift more of the tax burden to domestic businesses, especially small businesses that create most of the new jobs," the authors note.
Their conclusion: "Real patriots pay their fair share of taxes. They don't run out on the bill."
A headline in a recent issue of the Progressive Populist caught my eye: "Real patriots pay their taxes."
The story was written by two directors of an organization called "Business for Shared Prosperity," a group that bills itself as a network of "forward-thinking business owners, executives and investors committed to building enduring economic progress on a strong foundation of opportunity, equity and innovation." In other words, a group of businesses that believes being a good citizen has it own rewards.
I have always put retiring U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl in that category. He ran good businesses, paid his taxes, treated his employees well, gave back to the community, and still wound up a multi-millionaire.
There are other kinds of business leaders, though, as authors Scott Klinger and Holly Sklar point out in the Progressive Populist piece. Some of them who have been using loopholes and other gimmicks to hide their profits in tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands now are pushing Congress to pass a special tax holiday for "repatriating" their money back to the United States. They're calling their plan "Win America."
"There's nothing patriotic about this repatriation being pushed by Google, Cisco, Pfizer and other companies in the Win America campaign," the authors argue. "To sell the tax holiday, they claim it will produce a burst of jobs and investment. In fact, Congress passed a 'one-time-only' tax holiday in 2004 with similar promises. Instead, it produced a burst of shareholder dividends and stock buybacks, which goosed the pay of CEOs."
Klinger and Sklar explained that a favorite accounting trick of the giant corporations is transferring a patent from the U.S. parent company to a subsidiary -- often called a shell company -- in a tax haven.
"Profits from the patent go largely untaxed offshore while the costs of development, marketing and management remain in the U.S. where they are taken in tax deductions," the duo pointed out.
Consequently, a corporation like Pfizer, maker of Lipitor, Viagra and other hugely profitable drugs, reported $7.9 billion in U.S. losses while claiming $37.8 billion in profits in the rest of the world. And that doesn't even consider that Pfizer, like many of the pharmacy giants, is heavily subsidized by taxpayer-funded research at the National Institutes of Health.
"It should not be rewarded with another tax holiday," Klinger and Sklar argue.
But the real bottom line is that the taxes that these giants escape paying have to be made up by others.
"When powerful large U.S. corporations avoid their fair share of taxes, they undermine U.S. competitiveness, contribute to the national debt and shift more of the tax burden to domestic businesses, especially small businesses that create most of the new jobs," the authors note.
Their conclusion: "Real patriots pay their fair share of taxes. They don't run out on the bill."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.