U.S. companies hid $2.1 trillion overseas to avoid taxes

U.S. companies hid $2.1 trillion overseas to avoid taxes - fair share?: The Question of the Day

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By John L. Micek | jmicek@pennlive.com
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on March 05, 2015 at 9:21 AM

So here's one for your snowy Thursday:
Bloomberg News reports that tech giants Apple, Microsoft and Google are part of a cartel of 304 companies that have stashed $2.1 trillion in profits overseas to dodge taxes.

The Big Three of tech, along with five other firms, account for more than a fifth of that tally,Bloomberg reported.

Bloomberg also reports that the cash flight has attracted the attention of the Obama administration and members of Congress who "see a chance to tap the funds for spending programs and to revamp the tax code," Bloomberg reported.

But, "that effort is stalled in Washington, and there are few signs that tech companies will bring the profits back to the U.S. until Congress gives them an incentive or a mandate,"

Bloomberg reported.
The last big U.S. company to depart for foreign climes was Burger King, which acquired Canadian coffee and doughnut stalwart Tim Horton's, largely as a way to shelter itself from American tax laws.

So what's your take? Are these companies justified in fleeing the U.S. to maximize profits? Or is there something fundamentally unfair -- nay, Un-American, about corporate America shedding its fair share while the average working stiff is asked to pay more? Is it time to chuck the tax code and start over? What reforms do you suggest?

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Are these companies justified in fleeing the U.S. to maximize profits? Or is there something fundamentally unfair -- nay, Un-American, about corporate America shedding its fair share while the average working stiff is asked to pay more? Is it time to chuck the tax code and start over? What reforms do you suggest?

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In a rare moment of complete corporate candor way back in the Depression era, Alfred P. Sloan, then the CEO of General Motors said, "The business of business is business." If we want corporations to behave responsibly, we will have to create conditions which make it extremely difficult for them to do anything else. We may even have to tell them exactly what they must do. This does not mean that corporate executives are bad people, it just means that they are corporate people who will do what is to the advantage of their corporation.

Follow the money, carry a big stick and a big flashlight, and be prepared to use them.

BTW in his private life, Sloan became quite the philanthropist, and to this day the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation makes grants for original research, primarily in the STEM fields.
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