News coming out seems to confirm Sander’s view of corporate America .
-Sanders joins picket line with CWA members in front of Verizon HQ in NYC, where he gave an impromptu speech. Meanwhile reports listing all the donations Verizon has made to Clinton Foundation and executives have made directly to the HRC campaign.
-A GAO study, requested by Sen Sanders, shows that between 2006 – 2012, 2/3 US corporations paid NO income tax. None. 0. Deferred losses, inversions, other tricks. Shifting the costs to middle class Americans whose wages have been stagnant during the same period. This is nothing new to those of us who have been aware, but what does it say about a candidate who has been in the pocket of those very same corporations? Been on their Boards of Directors? Been paid hundreds of thousands to speak privately to their gatherings? (for example, HRC was paid $225,000.00 by Verizon).
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/documents/13/HRC_2013_Speeches_-_Tax_Return_Addendum.pdf
This will be a major campaign issue in the upcoming election, with the right person pushing it. It is one of the very real problems present in the US economy. Think if that money was available for infrastructure rebuilding? The jobs and multiplier for local economies.
While I think HRC would be competent, she is not the person to push for real reform in the US tax system. Either by law or regulation. Her hands aren’t clean enough.
R
Exactly why this primary fight is getting so vicious. It is about money, not social issues.
On social issues, is not much difference.
It’s always about the money.
Yes it is. Now the push for speech transcripts is getting hot. Anonymous sources, who heard the speeches, are saying they will sink her run for the nomination. And you can BET that there are recordings made, just being held back for the General Election.
But she can’t release them now and just hope she can bull past them in the general. I’m liking Bernie’s chances better and better.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/release-of-clintons-wall-street-speeches_b_9698632.html
my comments from Marie3’s diary. interested in your thoughts
re: Obama and 2016: my theory is 1st order of business, WH wants a dem, 2nd order of business preferably not HRC due to her undercutting Obama with email server and Ukraine; ostensible strong support of HRC makes that easier to accomplish. now that Sanders is looking more viable things seem to be happening to dislodge her [Carter’s statement most recently].
wonder what Obama and Sanders talked about in their meeting a few months back.
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[reply to marie3]Sanders is the only option other than HRC, given that Obama’s first priority is electing a dem, so Sanders is the one he’ll support –
but I view Sanders as phase II of what Obama set in motion,
I really cannot see any compelling reasons to think Obama has much fondness for the Clintons.
I think he has had to make noises in that direction, to keep the peace, so to speak. Maybe not all that different from the position Elizabeth Warren is in. (And a whole lot of other DEmocrats.)
This is the reason I don’t buy Booman’s “totally obvious” certainty that Hillary MUST be the nominee. A lot of her super delegates were pressured into supporting her, many probably at a time when there wasn’t even anybody seriously running against her. They are scared of the Clintons as long as they look like they are inevitable. If they start looking “evitable”, then we’ll see how strong her support really is. I don’t see why it couldn’t be like 2008 all over again.
Over at the Kos there’s great pushback today about Hillary’s transcripts – that I take as a measure of how much it’s heating up
You are right. Wall street/corporate/tax reform is essential for the real economic growth (not trading zeros on a computer screen) needed to get the middle class out of its slump. Can someone who earned almost $5 million speaking to corporations, banks and investment houses in 2013 alone. (this excludes speeches to trade and other organizations) be the one to act on those needed reforms?
What does she say to Goldman Sachs in NYC and resorts in Tucson and South Car. for $675,000.00 in 2013?
Too much money has crossed her palms. And let’s be honest. If there was a GOP candidate claiming to support the Middle Class while collecting huge fees from such sources, we would be howling , “Foul!” …or not as we would expect it.
Tax avoidance is a real burden on the country. While we may not like it, and joke about our small scale scams; paying taxes is a duty like jury duty, national defense, etc…. its the price of being a Citizen. Our current problem is that many of the wealthy and corporations no longer consider themselves citizens. They want the benefits but don’t want to pay the bills.
R
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” Larger corporations were more likely to owe tax. Among large corporations (generally those with at least $10 million in assets) less than half–42.3 percent–paid no federal income tax in 2012. Of those large corporations whose financial statements reported a profit, 19.5 percent paid no federal income tax that year. Reasons why even profitable corporations may have paid no federal tax in a given year include the use of tax deductions for losses carried forward from prior years and tax incentives, such as depreciation allowances that are more generous in the federal tax code than those allowed for financial accounting purposes…..”
http://www.gao.gov/products/gao-16-363
Effective tax rate, for those paying taxes on profits is 14%. If you don’t even like that amount, there are ways to hide if overseas. Pretty sweet deal if you can afford it.
Centerfielddj will tell you there is no slump and the Obama economy is peachy-keen, except for old slackers that don’t want to work and kids that just want to avoid paying back their student loans.
Read it and weep. The entropic global economy.
Given that the Republicans are always crying that US companies pay the highest corporate rate in the world, maybe the Democrats should counter with a proposal to eliminate the corporate tax. Since the Republicans always want these laws to be revenue neutral, the lost money could be made up by taxing dividends at ordinary income tax rates and by a new tax bracket that covers the 1% and makes up the remainder of the revenue loss.
Don’t know what that bracket would look like, but the CBO surely can figure it out.
I heard that very same BS at a congressional candidate forum last night. Even worse, all the supposed “Democrats” except one took the same RWNJ line as the Republicans. Also some flat tax blah, blah. I finally had enough and went home early. But maybe that just southern Indiana, ha ha.
I hope BS part was “always crying that US companies pay the highest corporate rate in the world” not my proposal.
From what I could see from trip south last year, Northern Indiana is just as Southern as Southern Indiana. Guys in camo driving trucks with anti-Obama stickers. Billboards crying about baby killing, etc.
Will say one, thing, Indiana drivers are not nutso like Chicago or Nashville area drivers.
heard a discussion on Diane Rehm supposedly about inversions, mostly how Obama’s new regs would be ineffective. but one guy pointed out re: tax in Canada, for example, counting only the fed. tax, yes the US rate is higher, but there’s also the province tax, then Canada’s is higher. they didn’t talk about infrastructure support from taxation that benefits corporations, but they did mention the role of the US military in world policing that US fed tax pays for, and if all those other countries want to kick on military costs, well go ahead. What they didn’t mention, and I don’t know precise figures, is that income tax is higher in european countries [I’d heard a figure of 75% about the netherlands some years back] and the higher income tax goes to pay for health care, university, family leave, infrastructure, etc.
There is an argument that since profits in the form of dividends are taxed once to the share holders as well as corporate taxes, that means the money is taxed twice.
But, since corporations are granted near personhood status (can own property, can sue and be sued, hire and fire, enter into contracts and are ageless-essentially superhuman) I don’t agree with that theory. They are given these powers and status so that liability does not flow to the shareholders. You can’t sue the shareholders / owners for the crimes or malicious and negligent actions of the directors and its officers. They are shielded. The shareholders of BP weren’t hauled into court, BP as a legal entity was. The cost of that near personhood are taxes on that entity.
Now the theory is that the shareholders hold the reins through the board of directors, but really, how often does that happen with large corporations? That is why shareholder revolts are extremely rare.
If you want to do away with corporate taxes, do away with the liability shield. Become partnerships and hold the owners liable for the actions of their employees. Make they responsible for how those profits and dividends are generated. If you won’t do that, then don’t keep the shield up and not tax that legal entity. There is no free lunch in America.
R
Partners are active in company management and bear responsibility for those actions. Mom and Pop shareholders don’t and aren’t. Under your proposal, nearly anyone that participated in a 401K would be liable for the Gulf spill, even though most probably didn’t even know the mutual funds owned BP.
I don’t think liability and taxation are linked.
The creation of a profit making legal entity subjects it to taxation. That other legal entities (both human and “created”) own portions of that entity does not remove them from any capital gains from the sale of equities in that entity. That is the cost of being shielded from liability. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, Metropolitan Life and the Calif Teacher’s Retirement Fund all benefit from that shield. I think it is right and proper. I have had yet hear convincing arguments to the contrary. Especially since Long Term Capital Gains is taxed at 1/2 the rate of income; even though dollars from both sources buy the same amount of milk at the store.
So yeah, I think Mr. Anderson’s 401K is liable for taxes, just I will be when I sell my Apple shares.
R
Interesting that in his speech yesterday at Washington Square he mentioned Walton family and their %; said, b/c employees require food stamps and medicaid, “get off welfare”. well put imo, succinct description
“A GAO study, requested by Sen Sanders, shows that between 2006 – 2012, 2/3 US corporations paid NO income tax. None. 0. …. Think if that money was available for infrastructure rebuilding?”
Yes, but what is this all this pie in the sky stuff about making public higher education free? Where’s the money supposed to come from? Outta my taxes?
LOL