Wake up?

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-16-2007
Wake up?
77
Mon, 09-22-2008 - 11:35pm

I keep returning to this board in the hopes that there will be some intellectual, thoughtful dialogue going on...And I am always so disappointed.


I think so many of you who post here are really smart and insightful, and have a lot of great things to say...But I'm just wondering when an intelligent conversation is going to take place.


I'm really not trying to be offensive, but it just seems that someone poses a question or a thought, and then it's off to the races about how much op-ed 'evidence' and partisan subjectivity one can possibly squeeze into a post.


Is there no one here, besides me, who believes in analyzing BOTH candidates with the same critical eye, and then moving forward with discussion that leads to some kind of thoughtful debate?


I keep saying this, and no one replies to me.  But I believe it's important enough to keep nagging about....And so, I will.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-22-2008
In reply to: kalielu
Tue, 09-23-2008 - 1:06pm

No comment - just interesting....


August 19, 2008

"The Greek Menace"


Some responses to the Tax Foundation's announcement of a new campaign called Compete USA which claims high corporate tax rates are hurting US competitiveness. First, Paul Krugman:



The Greek menace, by Paul Krugman: ...All our corporate investment are belong to … Greece?


Run for the hills! Excessive taxes on corporations are threatening American prosperity, because we can’t match the low, low taxes of other advanced countries. Or so says the Tax Foundation, which is rolling out a new campaign called Compete USA. John McCain has already made big cuts in corporate taxes a big part of his agenda.


There’s a lot to say about this stuff, but right now I’d just like to mention one aspect. The Tax Foundation people start off with a graph that’s supposed to be terrifying, with the headline “Europe cuts rates while U.S. stands still”; the graph shows European tax rates dropping far below the US rate.


What they don’t make clear is that:


1. The graph shows the “statutory” tax rate, which is the maximum rate a corporation can pay in principle. But because corporate tax rules allow all kinds of deductions and exclusions, the statutory rate is a poor guide to the actual disincentives the corporate tax creates.


2. Even more important, while they don’t explain how they calculate the “average” tax rate, the fact that their own data show that all the big economies have tax rates above 30%, while their graph shows an average rate of about 27%, seems to indicated that they’re showing us an unweighted average — that is, one that makes small economies like Ireland and Greece seem as important as big economies like Japan and Germany. And whaddya know, corporate taxes in big economies tend to be similar to those in the United States, a point made by the Congressional Budget Office in the study from which the chart above is drawn. (Yes Germany cut rates this year. Big deal.)


So basically, the Tax Foundation wants us to be frightened of the Greek menace. How can American business survive in a world in which Greek corporations have a big tax advantage?


Next, from Linda Beale:



Tax Foundation and Competitive Environments: more bunk!, by ataxingmatter: The Tax Foundation is busy again pushing its latest propaganda idea--that the US has such high corporate taxes that it stifles competition and hurts our economy--with a new "competeusa.com" organization.


Wrong. Fact is, though our tax laws include statutory rates that are fairly high (35% for corporations earning about $18 million or more annually) but generally in the same ballpark as those of other developed western nations, the actual tax rates paid by US corporations are extraordinarily low, around 6%. Remember the latest GAO report (reported elsewhere on ataxingmatter) that shows that two-thirds of US corporations pay no federal income tax. That's not just the ones that are losing money, but also many corporations that have record high profits (including some Big Oil companies) that end up paying next to nothing in taxes.


That's because the statutory rate of 35% is only on paper. Corporations engage in aggressive tax planning that cheats the system, and they take advantage of a bountiful number of lucrative loopholes built into the system under the four decades of Reagan-style corporate favoritism and deregulation, including items such as accelerated depreciation, various expensing provisions that let corporations deduct before they really have an economic cost, and the lucrative research & development credit that lowers taxes dollar-for-dollar for R&D expenditures that corporations have to do anyway (so they do not serve as an incentive to greater development) and that corporations have often already done prior to the enactment of the one-year "extensions" of the credit that have been taking place as transitions to no-credit for years.


As a result, the US is actually a corporate tax haven, with the lowest effective corporate tax rates of almost all the countries that participate in the OECD. That's a little fact that the Tax Foundation apparently doesn't want the American public to understand, since all its hype is in terms of statutory rates and not in terms of effective tax rates.





Now, the Tax Foundation does put out a figure for the amount of corporate taxes collected--a little more than $300 billion. But it doesn't provide the historical context--the share of federal revenues paid by corporate taxes has decreased substantially, while the share of overall revenues provided by everybody else (including the little guys through payroll taxes, among other means) has increased. ...


The Tax Foundation wants employees to believe that they are the ones who "really" pay corporate taxes come. But we don't know the incidence of the corporate tax, and there are a number of conflicting studies. Even the studies that exist make a number of assumptions that may bring their conclusions into doubt. Many experts think it is primarily the shareholders (of course, that's also the claim of many of the right-leaning organizations like the Tax Foundation when they are arguing for eliminating corporate taxation because, they claim, it amounts to "double taxation" of the same earnings when shareholders are taxed on their investments). But it may be predominantly consumers, or workers, or creditors, or so diffuse that it isn't borne by any one segment of the economy. What we do know is that many corporations have been making very high profits and paying low taxes, and that the corporate contribution to the fisc is considerably less as a percentage of GDP than it used to be, at the same time that wealthy US taxpayers are paying astoundingly low overall effective tax rates on their income, including very low rates on their income from capital, while they are garnering an ever larger share of the income pie. ...


Isn't this just another one of those straw-man arguments claiming a "need" to reduce US taxes for the "public" good, when the real goal is to eliminate taxes on corporations and on income from capital, so that wealthy corporate owners and managers can continue to garner a larger and larger share of the nation's income? ...


I hope Americans are too smart to buy more of this propaganda that is part and parcel of the deceptive marketing of the corporatist state. It's time to recognize the power that corporatism gives to wealthy owners and managers of corporations and set the rules to benefit the public good, rather than the wealthy few.


As Dean Baker notes, the Washington Post has been pushing the same line:



Washington Post Misleads Readers to Push for Lower Corporate Tax Rates, Beat the Press: The Washington Post editorial page has no qualms about making up data to further its agenda. ... Most newspapers might feel embarrassment about using such a blatant misrepresentation to push its preferred policies, but not the Post.


Today, the preferred policy is further reductions in corporate income taxes. To advance this agenda the Post tells readers that, "U.S. companies operating abroad already labor under a bigger tax burden than most foreign competitors."


That's not what the OECD says. Data from the OECD show that in the average member country corporate taxes are equal to about 3.5 percent of GDP. In the United States, corporate taxes have generally been between and 1.5 percent and 2.5 percent of GDP over the last two decades, according to the Congressional Budget Office (Table F-4).

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2008
In reply to: kalielu
Tue, 09-23-2008 - 1:36pm
Sorry for dragging you into this Djie and thank you for clearing this up.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2008
In reply to: kalielu
Tue, 09-23-2008 - 1:48pm

"but what I DON'T think it shows is someone who's not "walking the walk." I think the most you've got on whoever this is - potentially - is a lack of consistency in their positions. But you haven't got someone who's acting or posting in bad faith, just because they come to a different conclusion than you do (and come to it organically, I assume - without knowing you disagree or object)."


iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2008
In reply to: kalielu
Tue, 09-23-2008 - 2:01pm

"I asserted that the information obtained by the IRS did indeed come from a violation of trust and probably a violation of Liechtenstein law, but that it was information of illegal activity and should be pursued."


iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2008
In reply to: kalielu
Tue, 09-23-2008 - 2:06pm

Right.....but (and again, I'm not asking here, because I'm pretty sure that getting too deep into the weeds would be an outright TOS violation) from what I could see, the scenario you posted as an example didn't necessarily indicate that. I make assessments of people based upon the largest data-sample I have of their overall behavior. If someone's brand new, I wonder if they're a reincarnated previous-poster, whereas that's something I think of a lot less (or not at all) with people who've been around for a while. If someone has a history of hypocrisy on issues, then I'd probably agree with you that the little bit you posted is likely evidence of more of the same. If that person's been around for a while and showed exactly the OPPOSITE tendency - i.e., NO proclivity towards that sort of ideologically partisan hypocrisy - then I'd probably be inclined to wonder further about whether there might have been instance-specific factors at work in this one case, which made it different from the norm, just on the general theory that people don't tend to start behaving completely differently than their history shows, on the spur of the moment, for no reason.

I also think there's often an unreasonably partisan sense of expectation regarding equivalence with regard to these sorts of issues. If someone has a record of excoriating the Republican culture of corruption, and they're confronted with a GOP partisan who brings up William Jefferson, I think it would be hypocritical of the person to try to minimize or ignore the effects and damage of Jefferson's actions and illegalities. But I DON'T THINK it would be hypocritical of that person to maintain that, for the most part, over the last eight years or so, the vast majority of corruption, both in frequency and severity, has been on the GOP side. Yet that is the very expectation that I think some people have: they bring forth one or two examples in an attempt to demonstrate equivalency with a virtual TIDE of counter-evidence, and then are shocked (SHOCKED!) that the people they're debating still maintain that things are far more one way than the other. This is where we get into issues of false equivalency vs. shades of gray. I doubt seriously that anyone would argue that any one party, for example, has a complete monopoly on corruption or poor behavior. So obviously, there's enough to go around to every party; no one's hands are 100% clean. But recognizing that fact IS NOT the same thing as being able to credibly say that "it's all the same." And yet that seems to be the argument - or at least the among-friends discussion which I've witnessed (on the order of "can you BELIEVE these Democrats? They're crazy - you provide them with EVIDENCE of how both sides do it, and they STILL go on about how it's mostly Republicans' fault!"). That's what I find either disingenuous or simply false, depending upon the intent behind it: just because ONE counterexample can almost always be found of something, it doesn't negate the larger point being made - just on the "it's the exception which proves the rule" theory. If there are MANY credible examples both ways, then I'd think it's fair to say "it's universal/endemic"....but that's just simply not always the case. And when it isn't the case, I find it annoying to be told that it IS.



But for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence.....truth is considered profane, and only illusion sacred. Sacredness
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2007
In reply to: kalielu
Tue, 09-23-2008 - 2:38pm

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5378080


Day of Reckoning? Super Rich Tax Cheats Outed by Bank Clerk


Technician in Liechtenstein Turns Over Names of Americans With Secret Bank Accounts
By BRIAN ROSS and RHONDA SCHWARTZ

July 15, 2008—



Hundreds of super-rich American tax cheats have, in effect, turned themselves in to the IRS after a bank computer technician in the tiny European country of Liechtenstein came forward with the names of US citizens who had set up secret accounts there, according to Washington lawyers investigating the scheme.



The bank clerk, Heinrich Kieber, has been branded a thief by the government of Liechtenstein for violating the country's bank secrecy laws.



He is now in hiding but scheduled to testify to the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Thursday via a video statement from a secret location, according to Congressional investigators.



Aides for committee chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) are scheduled to provide reporters with a background briefing later this morning in Washington on the committee's investigation of tax haven banks in Liechtenstein and Switzerland.



Aides say the hearing will also focus on the role of the giant Swiss bank UBS and its alleged efforts to help wealthy Americans hide their money from the IRS through shell companies in Liechtenstein.



Liechtenstein's veil of secrecy was pierced five years ago when the disgruntled technician, Kieber, downloaded the names of foreign citizens connected to the secret accounts.



Kieber reportedly sold three CD's full of names and data to tax authorities to 12 countries including Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy and the United States.



Tax authorities in Italy published the full list of names.



In Germany, the disclosures led to the arrests of several prominent CEO's on charges that had evaded millions of dollars in taxes.



A former UBS private banker, Bradley Birkenfeld, has agreed to a plea deal and is reported to be cooperating with US authorities in bring charges against American citizens on tax evasion charges.



The Liechtenstein bank, LGT, is owned by the tiny country's ruling family led by Prince Hans-Adam II.



Kieber's Washington lawyer, Jack Blum, says Kieber should be considered a whistleblower and a hero, not a thief, for revealing how the super rich hid billions of dollars using the Liechtenstein bank.



The names of the US citizens are now in the hands of the IRS and Senate investigators.



Washington lawyers say a number of prominent citizens have been subpoenaed to testify but have already indicated they will refuse to testify, asserting their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.



It is not yet clear whether Senator Levin will insist they appear in front of the committee anyway. >>>

Sopal


Sopal

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2008
In reply to: kalielu
Tue, 09-23-2008 - 3:02pm

" i.e., NO proclivity towards that sort of ideologically partisan hypocrisy - then I'd probably be inclined to wonder further about whether there might have been instance-specific factors at work in this one case, which made it different from the norm,"


iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2008
In reply to: kalielu
Tue, 09-23-2008 - 3:09pm
So again, by that reasoning if those wire taps produce criminals then the ends justify the means?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2007
In reply to: kalielu
Tue, 09-23-2008 - 4:29pm

Apparently we will have to agree to disagree here.

Sopal

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2008
In reply to: kalielu
Tue, 09-23-2008 - 4:50pm

"This is different than a government listening into private conversations without a warrant in violation of statue

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