Disinformation » Taxes

Seven Big Economic Lies

JacobSloan — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:49:55 +0000

Do tax cuts for the rich trickle down to the rest of us? And does taxing the rich hurt the economy? Is Social security a Ponzi scheme? Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, presents his list of seven popular-wisdom economic claims that are untrue. Feel free to debate.

Large US Corporations Have Tax Rates As Low As -58%

majestic — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:35:39 +0000

And the media wonders why the 99% are angry? From MarketWatch:

The official federal corporate income tax rate in the U.S. is 35%, but plenty of the nation’s largest publicly traded companies are paying no taxes — even getting money back from the government in some cases — in years when they reap big profits, according to a new report.

Thirty of the 280 Fortune 500 companies studied paid zero in federal income taxes or enjoyed tax rebates in 2008, 2009 and 2010, according to the study by the left-leaning Citizens for Tax Justice, a Washington-based nonprofit research and advocacy group, and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group.

And 78 of the 280 companies paid nothing in federal income taxes or enjoyed a tax rebate in at least one of those years. Those 78 companies, including General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE) and Pepco Holdings Inc. (NYSE:POM) , earned a total of $156 billion in pretax U.S. profits in the years they paid no income tax, yet received so many tax breaks that they reported negative taxes — a total of negative $22 billion, the study said…

For the three-year period, the average effective tax rate for all 280 companies was about 19%, but rates varied widely by company, from a low of negative 58% for Pepco Holdings to a high of 41% for Coventry Health Care Inc. (NYSE:CVH) , the study said. GE’s effective tax rate for that period was negative 45.%. Read the full report here

For the 30 companies that paid no taxes or got rebates, their effective tax rate averaged negative 7% in that period. At the other end of the spectrum, 71 companies paid an average effective rate of 32%. Another 67 companies paid an average effective tax rate of zero, the study said…

[continues at MarketWatch]

Denmark Becomes First Nation With Tax On Fat In Food

JacobSloan — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:00:42 +0000

Is Denmark’s new fat tax a just response to the societal problems caused by obesity? Or is it sweet, buttery tyranny? Via the BBC:

Denmark has introduced what is believed to be the world’s first fat tax – a surcharge on foods that are high in saturated fat. Butter, milk, cheese, pizza, meat, oil and processed food are now subject to the tax if they contain more than 2.3% saturated fat.

Some consumers began hoarding to beat the price rise, while some producers call the tax a bureaucratic nightmare.

Danish officials say they hope the new tax will help limit the population’s intake of fatty foods.

However, some scientists think saturated fat may be the wrong target. They say salt, sugar and refined carbohydrates are more detrimental to health and should be tackled instead.

Warren Buffett: ‘Stop Coddling the Super-Rich’

majestic — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:36:43 +0000

Photo: Mark Hirschey (CC)

Billionaire Buffett sounds off in the New York Times:

Our leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.

These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot…

[continues in the New York Times]

A Tax On Unhealthy Foods?

majestic — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:49:24 +0000

Source: New York Times

The New York Times‘ Mark Bittman proposes a tax on junk food. What do you think – is he right?

What will it take to get Americans to change our eating habits? The need is indisputable, since heart disease, diabetes and cancer are all in large part caused by the Standard American Diet. (Yes, it’s SAD.)

Though experts increasingly recommend a diet high in plants and low in animal products and processed foods, ours is quite the opposite, and there’s little disagreement that changing it could improve our health and save tens of millions of lives.

And — not inconsequential during the current struggle over deficits and spending — a sane diet could save tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars in health care costs.

Yet the food industry appears incapable of marketing healthier foods. And whether its leaders are confused or just stalling doesn’t matter, because the fixes are not really their problem. Their mission is not public health but profit, so they’ll continue to sell the health-damaging food that’s most profitable, until the market or another force skews things otherwise. That “other force” should be the federal government, fulfilling its role as an agent of the public good and establishing a bold national fix…

Simply put: taxes would reduce consumption of unhealthful foods and generate billions of dollars annually. That money could be used to subsidize the purchase of staple foods like seasonal greens, vegetables, whole grains, dried legumes and fruit…

[continues in the New York Times]

Secret CIA Prisons And Counterterrorism Sites In Somalia

Pelliciari — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:15:22 +0000

There has been news recently of CIA operated secret prisons in Somalia, as well as sites with counterterrorism training for Somali intelligence agencies. Have these secret sites been funded by US tax payers? Via AlterNet:

Nestled in a back corner of Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport is a sprawling walled compound run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Set on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the facility looks like a small gated community, with more than a dozen buildings behind large protective walls and secured by guard towers at each of its four corners. Adjacent to the compound are eight large metal hangars, and the CIA has its own aircraft at the airport. The site, which airport officials and Somali intelligence sources say was completed four months ago, is guarded by Somali soldiers, but the Americans control access. At the facility, the CIA runs a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives aimed at building an indigenous strike force capable of snatch operations and targeted “combat” operations against members of Al Shabab, an Islamic militant group with close ties to Al Qaeda.

[Continues at AlterNet]

The Final Nail In The Supply Side Coffin

JacobSloan — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:00:59 +0000

Taxes are low and corporate profits are high, but nothing is trickling down to the American worker.

If politicians are going to continue kowtowing to every whim of the rich, can they at least think of a new excuse? Via Salon:

The theory of supply-side economics tells us that if you cut taxes on rich people and corporations, the moguls and businessmen will take their windfall and invest it, creating jobs and accelerating the rate of economic growth. The benefits of a light hand on the upper class, therefore, will “trickle down” to the working man and woman.

Ever since Ronald Reagan first attempted to make supply-side economics a reality and proceeded to inaugurate an era of persistent government deficits and growing income inequality, it has become harder and harder to make the trickle-down argument with a straight face. But we’ve never seen anything quite like the disaster that’s playing out right now.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that corporate profits are looking quite strong for the second quarter of 2011. Even the Journal can’t sugarcoat the basic facts:

While the U.S. economy staggers through one of its slowest recoveries since the Great Depression, American companies are poised to report strong earnings for the second quarter — exposing a dichotomy between corporate performance and the overall health of the economy.

What makes this “recovery” so different? Perhaps the simplest answer is that labor has been broken as a force that can put pressure on management, so there’s little incentive for employers to turn profits into wage hikes or new jobs. Instead, employers are squeezing more out of the workers that they’ve got, and investing in equipment upgrades and new technology instead of human assets — labor productivity has risen sharply since the end of the recession.

Wages are moribund, unemployment is stuck at 9 percent, and the corporate bottom line is doing just fine. You could be excused for thinking that if ever there was time to put the stake through supply-side economics, it would be now. Wall Street and big corporations are doing just fine, but absolutely nothing is trickling down. And yet Republicans are still pushing the same old song and dance, passionately holding the entire creditworthiness of the United States hostage in return for even lower taxes on corporations, adamantly refusing to countenance even the slightest revenue increase to help cushion the hard times for the Americans who are getting a raw deal out of the current recovery.

Democrats come in for their share of the blame, too. The worst economic recovery for American workers in history has happened on Obama’s watch, and he appears remarkably oblivious to it. He may live to regret this oversight.

Bernie Sanders Reveals The Top Corporate Tax Avoiders

JacobSloan — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:35:22 +0000

Why is Congress giving tax cuts and refunds to America’s wealthiest corporations, whilst welfare families, low-income and middle class communities, teachers, children and the elderly are being asked to sacrifice basic rights and access to resources like education and medicaid?

Did you get your tax refund? These companies certainly did. On the Senate floor, Bernie Sanders tears into the ten worst corporate tax avoiders, including Bank of America, Exxon Mobil, Citibank, and Goldman Sachs. The numbers are simply staggering.

The Rise of ‘Sovereign Citizens’ (Video)

BananaFamine — Sat, 21 May 2011 16:18:39 +0000

A slanted, but interesting story from CBS’ 60 Minutes:

This is a story about a group of Americans you’ve likely never heard of: they’re called “sovereign citizens.” Many don’t pay taxes, carry a driver’s license or hold a Social Security card. They have little regard for the police or the courts, and some have become violent.

The FBI lists them among the nation’s top domestic terror threats.

By some estimates, there are as many as 300,000 sovereign citizens in the U.S. And with the sluggish economy and mortgage mess, their ranks are growing.

U.S. Government Considering Taxing Cars By The Mile

BananaFamine — Fri, 06 May 2011 11:21:19 +0000

Photo: Skippy13 (CC)

Pete Kasperowicz writes for The Hill:

The Obama administration has floated a transportation authorization bill that would require the study and implementation of a plan to tax automobile drivers based on how many miles they drive.

The plan is a part of the administration’s Transportation Opportunities Act, an undated draft of which was obtained this week by Transportation Weekly.

The White House, however, said the bill is only an early draft that was not formally circulated within the administration.

“This is not an administration proposal,” White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said. “This is not a bill supported by the administration. This was an early working draft proposal that was never formally circulated within the administration, does not taken into account the advice of the president’s senior advisers, economic team or Cabinet officials, and does not represent the views of the president.”

News of the draft follows a March Congressional Budget Office report that supported the idea of taxing drivers based on miles driven.

Among other things, CBO suggested that a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax could be tracked by installing electronic equipment on each car to determine how many miles were driven; payment could take place electronically at filling stations…

For more information, see original article.

The Bilderberg Group’s Tax Returns

JacobSloan — Thu, 05 May 2011 15:52:39 +0000

As a rule of thumb, when Henry Kissinger and Coca Cola are involved with something behind closed doors, it’s probably not good. Parapolitical notes:

Document sharing site Public Intelligence has posted the 2008 and 2009 tax returns of the American Friends of Bilderberg, the U.S. fundraising arm of The Bilderberg Group.

According to the returns, the group received $775,500 in contributions from U.S. sources during 2008 and 2009 to help cover the expenses of the organization’s once-per-year meeting for 150 invitees. Donors included Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs, the Washington Post Company, PayPal founder Peter Thiel and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

NYC Bill Would Criminalize Buying Knockoff Goods

BananaFamine — Tue, 03 May 2011 02:04:21 +0000

The Wall Street Journal reports:

NEW YORK — A city lawmaker said Tuesday she’ll introduce a bill to criminalize the purchase of counterfeit designer goods including handbags and watches.

The bill proposed by City Councilwoman Margaret Chin would impose penalties of up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine for buying knockoffs.

“I urge visitors that come to New York to come for the authenticity, not to buy these fake bags or electronics,” Chin said. “We have local designers that create unique items at affordable prices, and they’re available. So don’t just come here for the knockoffs.”

A 2004 report by then-city Comptroller William Thompson found that about 8 percent of the approximately $287 billion in counterfeit goods sold in the United States annually is sold in New York City, resulting in more than $1 billion in lost tax revenue.

It is already illegal to sell fake designer goods, but Susan Scafidic, head of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham University, said that if Chin’s bill passes New York would be the first U.S. city to criminalize their purchase…

For more information, see original article.

GE’s Fake Plan To Pay Taxes Causes Massive Stock Price Drop

majestic — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 00:08:59 +0000

Our friends the Yes Men are once again deftly mocking the shady practices of ethically-challenged business executives. Why large corporations and the mainstream media that cover them (sorry USA Today) keep falling for their ruses, I don’t know, but you gotta love it. Morgan Clendaniel reports on the activists’ latest shenanigans for Fast Company:

Today, GE appeared to put out a press release noting that it had decided to do the right thing and pay the $6.3 billion taxes that it owed for 2010. And all the thanks it got was a quick drop in its stock price. If GE’s paying the government, that’s less money for shareholders. We can’t have that.

Remember the story that GE paid no taxes last year–and in fact, got money back from the government–despite making $11 billion in revenues (though, as with all tax law, the story was maybe a little more complicated than that). Pick your jaw up off the floor, though–GE would never do the right thing. It was all a big hoax, even though you might have read about it in USA Today.

It was just another jab at corporate America from those culture-jamming rascals The Yes Men, who’ve made a career of afflicting the comfortable. They did it in partnership with US Uncut, who want the government to ban circumcision and/or to not cut the budget while corporations don’t pay the taxes they should owe (see, for instance, Google’s 2.4% corporate tax rate…

[continues in Fast Company]

More Americans Work For the Government Than In Manufacturing, Farming, Fishing, Forestry, Mining & Utilities Combined

BananaFamine — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 05:57:27 +0000

Stephen Moore writes in the Wall Street Journal:

If you want to understand better why so many states — from New York to Wisconsin to California — are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?

Every state in America today except for two — Indiana and Wisconsin — has more government workers on the payroll than people manufacturing industrial goods. Consider California, which has the highest budget deficit in the history of the states. The not-so Golden State now has an incredible 2.4 million government employees — twice as many as people at work in manufacturing. New Jersey has just under two-and-a-half as many government employees as manufacturers. Florida’s ratio is more than 3 to 1. So is New York’s.

For more information, see original article.

GE’s 2010 Tax Bill? A $3.2 Billion Credit

majestic — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:14:54 +0000

It’s absolutely scandalous that the United States’ largest companies pay almost no tax; the New York Times devotes a major story to showing how one of the best tax-dodging corporations, General Electric, does it:

General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.

Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E. The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.

Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm. Indeed, the company’s slogan “Imagination at Work” fits this department well. The team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.

While General Electric is one of the most skilled at reducing its tax burden, many other companies have become better at this as well. Although the top corporate tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, one of the highest in the world, companies have been increasingly using a maze of shelters, tax credits and subsidies to pay far less.

In a regulatory filing just a week before the Japanese disaster put a spotlight on the company’s nuclear reactor business, G.E. reported that its tax burden was 7.4 percent of its American profits, about a third of the average reported by other American multinationals. Even those figures are overstated, because they include taxes that will be paid only if the company brings its overseas profits back to the United States. With those profits still offshore, G.E. is effectively getting money back.

Such strategies, as well as changes in tax laws that encouraged some businesses and professionals to file as individuals, have pushed down the corporate share of the nation’s tax receipts — from 30 percent of all federal revenue in the mid-1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009…

[continues in the New York Times]

Treasure Islands: The Murky World Of Offshore Tax Shelters

JacobSloan — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 21:06:47 +0000

New Left Project sits down with author Nicholas Shaxson to talk tax havens — a mammoth system of quasi-legal money-laundering which has a far wider impact than we realize, with a large role in the global drug trade and financial crisis. As it turns out, the biggest “treasure islands” are not the Caymans or Monaco, but places such as the City of London and the U.S. state of Delaware:

There is no common definition of what a tax haven is. Everybody has a slightly different definition. Ultimately what a tax haven provides is escape from the rules and the laws of jurisdictions. Tax havens are also about ‘elsewhere’ – the laws of the Cayman Islands are not designed for the benefit of the 50,000-odd population of the Cayman Islands.

The traditional view is…palm-fringed tropical islands in the Caribbean, Monaco, Switzerland, Liechtenstein. Small states. But if you do the analysis of what a tax haven is and what they are selling, you will find that these small islands are generally sideshows to the big event. The biggest tax havens in the modern global economy are big OECD rich country economies – the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland.

The pervasiveness of this stereotype has been one of the great reasons why the offshore system has been invisible. People have always thought of tax havens as sideshows to the main event, whereas in fact they are central to the global economy.

The drug trade makes heavy use of the offshore system. The money now involved is so large that you can’t transport it in suitcases anymore. A suitcase can only hold around $1-2 million, and we are now talking about tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. In terms of the overall scale of what is happening offshore there are various different estimates.

U.S. Government Admits To Massive Waste Of Taxpayers’ Money

majestic — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:33:12 +0000

Just to get you even more excited about paying your taxes next month, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reports that billions of those tax dollars are wasted every year. Damian Paletta reports for the Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. government has 15 different agencies overseeing food-safety laws, more than 20 separate programs to help the homeless and 80 programs for economic development.

These are a few of the findings in a massive study of overlapping and duplicative programs that cost taxpayers billions of dollars each year, according to the Government Accountability Office.

A report from the nonpartisan GAO, to be released Tuesday, compiles a list of redundant and potentially ineffective federal programs, and it could serve as a template for lawmakers in both parties as they move to cut federal spending and consolidate programs to reduce the deficit. Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.), who pushed for the report, estimated it identifies between $100 billion and $200 billion in duplicative spending. The GAO didn’t put a specific figure on the spending overlap.

The GAO examined numerous federal agencies, including the departments of defense, agriculture and housing and urban development, and pointed to instances where different arms of the government should be coordinating or consolidating efforts to save taxpayers’ money.

The agency found 82 federal programs to improve teacher quality; 80 to help disadvantaged people with transportation; 47 for job training and employment; and 56 to help people understand finances, according to a draft of the report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Instances of ineffective and unfocused federal programs can lead to a mishmash of occasionally arbitrary policies and rules, the report said. It recommends merging or consolidating a number of programs to both save money and make the government more efficient…

[continues in the Wall Street Journal]

Swiss Banker Gives WikiLeaks Damning Data On Wealthy Tax Evaders

majestic — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:42:35 +0000

Another week, another round of WikiLeaks. Clearly there are no sacred cows and in fact it is the biggest targets who are going down fastest, from corrupt governments to cheating taxpayers. Playing the Bradley Manning role this time is ex-Bank Julius Baer executive Rudolf Elmer. AP/Yahoo News has the story:

A former Swiss banker on Monday supplied documents to WikiLeaks that he alleges detail attempts by wealthy business leaders and lawmakers to evade tax payments.

Rudolf Elmer, an ex-employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, said there were 2,000 account holders named in the documents, but refused to give details of the companies or individuals involved.

He has previously offered files to WikiLeaks on financial activities in the Cayman Islands and faces a court hearing in Zurich on Wednesday to answer charges of coercion and violating Switzerland’s strict banking secrecy laws.

“I do think as a banker I have the right to stand up if something is wrong,” said Elmer, who addressed reporters at London’s Frontline Club alongside WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

“I am against the system. I know how the system works and I know the day-to-day business. From that point of view, I wanted to let society know what I know. It is damaging our society,” Elmer said…

[continues at AP/Yahoo News]

Romania Legally Recognizes Witchcraft As A Profession

Pelliciari — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 22:22:31 +0000

The Romanian government has recognized jobs such as witches, embalmers and driving instructors, as professions. The interest was in gaining income tax as an effort to recover from the nation’s recession. From The Huffington Post:

Romania has changed its labor laws to officially recognize witchcraft as a profession, prompting one self-described witch to threaten retaliation.

The move, which went into effect Saturday, is part of the government’s drive to crack down on widespread tax evasion in a country that is in recession.

In addition to witches, astrologists, embalmers, valets and driving instructors are now considered by labor law to be working real jobs, making it harder for them to avoid income tax.

For months the measure had been debated, protested by witches and mocked by the media.

On Saturday, a witch called Bratara told Realitate.net, the website of a top TV station, that she plans to cast a spell using black pepper and yeast to create discord in the government.

Wealthy Americans Should Give Away Their Tax Cut

majestic — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:44:03 +0000

A group of Ivy League professors is urging wealthy Americans to donate their gains from the controversial Bush tax cuts that should have expired at the end of 2010, only for Republicans in Congress to force an extension. At their site Give It Back For Jobs they explain:

When the Bush administration took power in 2001, it enacted massive tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the wealthiest Americans. These beneficiaries represented the very segment of American society that had already seen their share of national income balloon over the prior generation.

The cuts were defended in the name of the unexpected budget surpluses produced by the growth of the Clinton years. Even so, President Bush could not convince enough of the Senate that the cuts were affordable to make them permanent, and so they were set to expire next year.

It is now clear that the budgetary consequences of these skewed tax cuts have been dire. At the same time, the anemic expansion of the 2000s produced dramatic growth for the richest but stagnant incomes for most Americans.

Nevertheless, the current Republican Party insists on extending these cuts and holds the working many hostage to the wealthy few. President Obama, unwilling to gamble on the middle class’s account, has acceded to Republican demands.

Quite possibly, the President had no good alternative. All the Bush tax cuts, not just those for the wealthy, were scheduled to expire at the end of this month, jeopardizing an already fragile economic recovery.

But we citizens need not abandon ourselves to this failure of government. Instead, ordinary Americans, acting together, can create shadow fiscal policy. By acting together, we can set the country moving toward a just prosperity. Here’s how.

Americans who have the means should refuse to surrender to Senate Republicans. We should act, together, to give back our Bush tax cuts, by making donations to organizations that promote fairness, economic growth, and a vibrant middle class. Give It Back for Jobs enables joint action, by all visitors to this site, to redirect our Bush tax cuts to the wise and just programs that our government would promote if it had not been hijacked. As more and more Americans do so, Give It Back for Jobs will begin to replicate good government policy, outside the government and free from the grip of Senate Republicans.

We can, in this way, begin to redeem candidate Obama’s promise that “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

So step up y’all and give back at Give It Back For Jobs

States Plan Taxes To Comprise Up To 21% Of E-Book Price

majestic — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:07:40 +0000

Kindle 2. Photo: Jon 'ShakataGaNai' Davis (CC)

Those of us hooked on $9.99 ebooks had better get used to the idea of paying more in 2011. Not only are publishers and authors realizing that they are not making enough money to stay in business at that price point, but now state governments want in on the fast-growing sales. SmartMoney reports:

Taxes on e-book downloads to an e-reader, like the iPad, Kindle or Nook, could add up to 21% of the total price, assuming multiple states apply taxes to the same transaction, according to MyWireless.org , a nonprofit consumer advocacy group.

Roughly 9 million e-reader users download books. (On average, that’s three e-books a month at an average of $9 per book, according to Marketing and Research Resources and CEA, respectively.) These consumers are increasingly at risk of being taxed on those purchases by their home state and by the state where the book is published, says a CTIA spokeswoman.

The number of times a consumer is taxed could be even higher. For example, a county may decide to impose its own tax on downloadable e-commerce products. These taxes typically pop up at checkout. These additional taxes could make buying an e-book much more costly than buying a hard copy of the book at a local retail store, where only the sales taxes would apply.

So load up on ebooks this Christmas — next year they are likely to cost considerably more!

The Economy of The Crow: Bird Brains Want to Throw Away $116 Billion A Year to Benefit The Richest 1.3% ‘Small’ Business Owners

Liam McGonagle — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 21:04:43 +0000

There is an old folk saying that comes down from the Irish tradition: “The economy of the crow”. It’s uttered whenever some old wag wishes to describe, in a dryly pithy manner, a short-sighted and foolish resource management strategy. It supposedly is derived from the habit of scavenger birds like crows who, upon noticing an unharvested bit of carrion ripe for the picking, tend to drop whatever goodies they may currently have in their clutches in order to go in pusuit. Basically the saying is a ridicule, a chastisement of stupid waste.

While that kind of bird-brained buffoonery may be understandable in a creature with the cranial capacity of a thimble, it’s not the type of responsible management practice we expect from our elected representatives. Certainly not from the members of the party that claim in one breath to be both the party of fiscal responsibility and the party of deep business savvy. Nonetheless that’s exactly what Republican’t douchebags like Paul Ryan (R-WI) and McConnell (R-KY) continue to parrot unashamedly when they urge for yet another tax cut for the wealthiest 2% of Americans. We’ve already estimated at Chart 2 of this post that tax cuts for elite income individuals as proposed by Ryan will likely add $116 BILLION* per year to the deficit.

And what, pray tell, do sirs Ryan and McConnell promise the American people will receive in return for the bankrupting of the national treasury? Jobs. Jobs they say will be created by pushing more capital into the economy. They’re kinda vague about just how many jobs, though. While the suspicious among us might be inclined to attribute this to fundamental dishonesty, the generous interpretation of their lack of clarity is because they don’t want to confuse what they regard as their constituency of simpletons with all sorts o’ complimicated numbers an’ stuff. ‘Cause numbers are for egg heads and nerds—not cool ‘down home folks’ like you an’ me, right?

Bullshit. I call fucking bullshit on Ryan and McConnell. And here’s why: LESS THAN 2% OF THE SMALL BUSINESSES THEY KEEP HARPING ON NET MORE THAN $200,000 A YEAR. And here’s the fucking proof drawn directly from the IRS’s most recent business survey.

More at Dystopia Diaries

Do Tax Cuts for the Richest 2% Help or Hurt You? Read the Surprising Answer Here

Liam McGonagle — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 22:29:01 +0000

Kudos once again to the fine team and readership at disinformation. Their comments continue to be extremely thought provoking. This article, chart and supporting calculation in the attached workbook are in resonse to their many insightful questions about inept Republican tax and economic policies.

I get pissed when some dipwad tries to pull a fast one on me, as should we all. The responsible conduct of business requires a level of trust that is decisively undermined when we’re lied to. And while there is a time and place for everything, the place for bullshit is the weekend pintfest at a local pub, not in debates about income tax policy. That’s why the fundamental dishonesty of Republican’t talking points has me so fired up.

The specific steaming pile that currently has me cheesed off is EGTRRA. No, it’s not some type of horrible fat-free egg substitute; it’s the ironically named Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. The bit that’s currently in play right now is the Republican hijacking of economic recovery effots in order to renew tax cuts for the country’s fattest 2%. And that just can’t be allowed to happen. ‘Cause not only will it not result in any improvement in the real economy, it’s been proven to actually steal from the middle class to benefit the uber-rich.

It’s ironic that faux populist, bankster-financed hangnails like Paul Ryan (R-WI) and senator elect Ron Johnson (R-WI) try to saddle Dems with the title of “Wealth Re-distributors” when the evidence to the contrary is all around. You don’t have to get into a pissing match over which cable news network talking head has the biggest gnarlies—just look at the data for yourself. Here’s how.

More at Dystopia Diaries

Google Tax Scandal

majestic — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 14:51:57 +0000

We all know that there are some genius-level minds at Google, and now it seems they’ve applied their high-powered IQs to working out how not to pay taxes. Guys, can you create an app for that — I’d like to pay 2.4% tax too! From Bloomberg News:

Google Inc. cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the last three years using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda.

Google’s income shifting — involving strategies known to lawyers as the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich” — helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries.

“It’s remarkable that Google’s effective rate is that low,” said Martin A. Sullivan, a tax economist who formerly worked for the U.S. Treasury Department. “We know this company operates throughout the world mostly in high-tax countries where the average corporate rate is well over 20 percent.”

The U.S. corporate income-tax rate is 35 percent. In the U.K., Google’s second-biggest market by revenue, it’s 28 percent.

Google, the owner of the world’s most popular search engine, uses a strategy that has gained favor among such companies as Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp. The method takes advantage of Irish tax law to legally shuttle profits into and out of subsidiaries there, largely escaping the country’s 12.5 percent income tax. (See an interactive graphic on Google’s tax strategy here.)

The earnings wind up in island havens that levy no corporate income taxes at all. Companies that use the Double Irish arrangement avoid taxes at home and abroad as the U.S. government struggles to close a projected $1.4 trillion budget gap and European Union countries face a collective projected deficit of 868 billion euros…

[continues at Bloomberg News]

Soak The Very, Very Rich

majestic — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 23:30:01 +0000

A sensible suggestion from the capable mind of The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki, but what are the chances that our government will implement it, one wonders (whilst thinking of all those campaign contributions made by the very rich):

The fight on Capitol Hill over whether to extend the Bush tax cuts is about many things: deficit reduction, economic stimulus, supply-side ideology. But at its core is a simple question: who counts as rich? The Obama Administration’s answer is that you’re rich if you make more than two hundred thousand dollars a year as an individual or two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year as a household, and therefore you should have your taxes raised. Conservatives suggest that this threshold is far too low, and argue that Obama would be taxing mostly small-business owners, or the people a Fox News host has referred to as “the so-called rich,” rather than fat plutocrats. You might think this isn’t really much of a debate. An annual income of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars puts you in the top three per cent of American households, and is more than four times the national median. You’re rich, and a small tax increase isn’t going to rock your world…

At the moment, we have a system of tax brackets well suited to nineteenth-century New Zealand. Our system sets the top bracket at three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, with a tax rate of thirty-five per cent. (People in the second-highest bracket, starting at a hundred and seventy-two thousand dollars for individuals, pay thirty-three per cent.) This means that someone making two hundred thousand dollars a year and someone making two hundred million dollars a year pay at similar tax rates. LeBron James and LeBron James’s dentist: same difference.

This makes no sense—there’s a yawning chasm between the professional and the plutocratic classes, and the tax system should reflect that. A better tax system would have more brackets, so that the super-rich pay higher rates. (The most obvious bracket to add would be a higher rate at a million dollars a year, but there’s no reason to stop there.) This would make the system fairer, since it would reflect the real stratification among high-income earners. A few extra brackets at the top could also bring in tens of billions of dollars in additional revenue…

[continues in The New Yorker]

A National Outrage: Our Tax Dollars Subsidize Foods That Make Us Fat And Unhealthy

phunkychic666 — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:34:47 +0000

Tony Isaacs for Natural News:

At the same time that our Surgeon General has declared we have an epidemic of obesity, our government is using our tax dollars to cater to special interests and to subsidize the very foods that are making us fat. Thanks to lobbying, Congress chooses to subsidize foods that we’re supposed to eat less of.

Take a look at these numbers which tell how the percentage of federal food subsidies spending is allocated:

* Meat/Dairy – 73.8 percent
* Grains – 13.2 percent
* Sugar/Oil/Starch/Alcohol – 10.7 percent
* Nuts/Legumes – 1.9 percent
* Vegetables/Fruits – 0.4 percent

Just 2.3 percent of subsidies go to nuts, legumes, fruits and vegetables while 84.5% goes to meat, dairy, sugar, oil, starch and alcohol. Is it any wonder that a salad often costs you more than a Big Mac?…

[continues at Natural News]

Pennsylvania Tax Amnesty/Big Brother TV Ad: “We Know Who You Are”

Aaron Dames — Sun, 02 May 2010 22:49:38 +0000

This Pennsylvania state government ad threatens people who choose not to pay income tax with big brother surveillance. It’s just a shame the feds cant use such tactics against people like Timothy Geithner and the myriad of other insiders who routinely evade taxes.

GE Files 7,000 Tax Returns Globally, Ends Up With A $0 U.S. Tax Bill

ralph — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 18:09:40 +0000

Annalyn Censky writes on CNNMoney:

General Electric filed more than 7,000 income tax returns in hundreds of global jurisdictions last year, but when push came to shove, the company owed the U.S. government a whopping bill of $0.

How’d it pull off that trick? By losing lots of money.

GE had plenty of earnings last year — just not in the United States. For tax purposes, the company’s U.S. operations lost $408 million, while its international businesses netted a $10.8 billion profit.

That left GE with no U.S. profit left for Uncle Sam to tax. Corporations typically face a 35% federal income tax on their earnings. Thanks to its deductions and adjustments, GE reported an actual U.S. federal income tax rate of negative 10.5%. It got to add a “tax benefit” of $1.1 billion back into its reported earnings.

“This is the first time in at least decades that GE has reported negative U.S. pretax income and it reflects the worst economy since the Great Depression,” Anne Eisele, GE’s director of financial communications, said via e-mail.

Where Do Your U.S. Tax Dollars Go? (Quiz)

ralph — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 23:14:48 +0000

This is the same quiz we created on Facebook (for those of you who have already seen it today).

This quiz was created using information from the National Priorities Project.


Enter In Your Questions and Answers
Enter In Your Questions and Answers
Enter In Your Questions and Answers
Enter In Your Questions and Answers
Enter In Your Questions and Answers

For more information go to the The National Priorities Project.

More Than 53% of Your Tax Payment Goes to the Military

ralph — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 17:12:11 +0000

I think this 53 percent number is debatable, but I don’t doubt that the U.S. government’s (i.e. the taxpayer’s) greatest expense is the military. Dave Lindorff writes on Common Dreams:

If you’re like me, now that we’re in the week that federal income taxes are due, you are finally starting to collect your records and prepare for the ordeal. Either way, whether you are a procrastinator like me, or have already finished and know how much you have paid to the government, it is a good time to stop and consider how much of your money goes to pay for our bloated and largely useless and pointless military.

The budget for the 2011 fiscal year, which has to be voted by Congress by this Oct. 1, looks to be about $3 trillion, not counting the funds collected for Social Security (since the Vietnam War, the government has included the Social Security Trust Fund in the budget as a way to make the cost of America’s imperial military adventures seem smaller in comparison to the total cost of government). Meanwhile, the military share of the budget works out to about $1.6 trillion.

That figure includes the Pentagon budget request of $708 billion, plus an estimated $200 billion in supplemental funding, called “overseas contingency funding” in euphemistic White House-speak), to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, some $40 billion or more in “black box” intelligence agency funding, $94 billion in non-DOD military spending, $100 billion in veterans benefits and health care spending, and $400 billion in interest on debt raised to pay for prior wars and the standing military.

The 2011 military budget, by the way, is the largest in history, not just in actual dollars, but in inflation adjusted dollars, exceeding even the spending in World War II, when the nation was on an all-out military footing.

Military spending in all its myriad forms works out to represent 53.3% of total US federal spending.