Playinghardball
Playinghardball's Journal
Sanders Asks Obama to Close Six Egregious Corporate Tax Loopholes
WASHINGTON, March 2 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said President Obama could act on his own to raise over $100 billion over a decade by closing the worst corporate tax loopholes.
Sanders identified several actions that the White House could take to prevent corporations from using offshore tax havens and other tax dodges and to prevent wealthy individuals from avoiding income and estate taxes.
“Since the Republican-led Congress has refused to raise revenue by asking the most profitable corporations to pay their fair share, I would hope that the president could take executive action to remedy some of the most egregious loopholes,” Sanders said. “We have got to demand that companies like Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and General Electric stop engaging in legalized tax fraud that limits our ability to invest in the future.”
“At a time when this country has a $18 trillion national debt and a huge amount of infrastructure and social needs it is absurd that major profitable corporations pay nothing in federal taxes,” added Sanders, who last week issued a new detailed report on the extent of offshore tax havens by major American companies that have been most engaged in lobbying for new tax breaks and cuts to important programs for middle class families, such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
The six tax breaks that Sanders wants Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to eliminate are:
•The check-the-box loophole allows multinational companies to characterize their offshore subsidiaries in different ways to different governments so that their profits are untaxed.
•The Hewlett-Packard loophole allows American corporations to use short-term loans from their subsidiaries circumvent the requirement that they pay U.S. taxes on their offshore profits when those profits are brought to the U.S.
•The corporate inversions loophole allows an American corporation to merge with a (usually much smaller) foreign corporation and then reincorporate as a foreign company to avoid U.S. taxes even as it continues to operate and be managed in the U.S.
•The carried interest loophole allows hedge fund managers to characterize their compensation (which they earn for managing other people’s money) as capital gains, which is subject to lower personal income tax rates than other types of income. Tax experts have pointed out that the Treasury Department has the authority under existing law to determine how this income is taxed.
•Valuation discounts are restrictions placed on small business property given to family members (to keep the business in the family, for example) which are often meaningless but are claimed to dramatically reduce their value for estate and gift tax purposes.
•The real estate investment trust (REIT) loophole allows private prisons, billboard companies, casinos and other companies claim that they are making money from rents to avoid paying the corporate income tax.
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-asks-obama-to-close-six-egregious-corporate-tax-loopholes
John Oliver: Even a ‘total idiot’ like Donald Trump knows we need to rebuild our infrastructure
On HBO’s Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver addressed America’s crumbling infrastructure, describing it as something politicians, labor, business, and “even a total idiot” like Donald Trump agree must be replaced
Oliver began by defining our infrastructure as “Our roads, bridges, dams, levees, airports, power grids — basically anything that can be destroyed in an action movie.”
Taking up the case for dams, Oliver called them ” the most powerful device we have for holding back liquid, aside from the idea of using a porta-potty.”
He pointed out that many of the dams in the U.S. are in serious disrepair – with the average age of America’s 84,000 dams at 52 years old — with problems dating back to when they were first built.
“Much like most botox recipients and competitive cloggers,” Oliver explained. “The average dam is 52-years-old and has probably something deeply broken inside of it.”
With the American Society of Civil Engineers giving the government a D+ for infrastructure maintenance, Oliver called it “The same grade that a 10th grade teacher gives a nightmare kid so she doesn’t have to deal with him for another year.”
More here: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/john-oliver-even-a-total-idiot-like-donald-trump-knows-we-need-to-rebuild-our-infrastructure/
To those who want to impede equality, your time is running out...
Meet Madison Kimrey, 12-year-old voting rights activist
Twelve-year-old Madison Kimrey may not be old enough to vote, but she is determined that North Carolinians should be able to do so without any kind of suppression.
A participant in “Moral Monday” protests and writer of her own blog about politics, Madison has started a MoveOn petition to meet with Governor Pat McCrory, as she calls it, “citizen to Governor.” She has also started a youth organization, North Carolina Youth Rock, that is advocating for the reintroduction of a voter preregistration bill for 16- and 17-year-olds. I spoke with Madison this week about how she got involved in political activism and her demands for the accountability of politicians to the citizens who elect them.
More here: http://www.msnbc.com/melissa-harris-perry/meet-madison-kimrey-12-year-old-voting
