MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Who Will Crack the Code? (for corporate taxes)
By artappraiser on Sun, 05/26/2013 - 1:15pm |By David Leonhardt, Sunday Review @ nytimes.com, May 25/26, 2013
[....] What Ireland and Singapore share is a low corporate tax rate. And because soda is such a simple product, with so much of its financial value stemming from the concentrate, Coke and Pepsi can reduce their overall tax rates by manufacturing it in low-tax countries. [....]
The soda industry’s success at legally avoiding taxes shows why so many economists and tax experts believe the United States corporate-tax code is terribly flawed. It includes a notoriously high statutory rate that causes companies to devote resources to avoiding taxes. But it has so many loopholes that the effective corporate tax rate in the United States is slightly lower than the average for rich countries.
The decline in corporate-tax collection in recent decades has contributed to budget deficits. It has also aggravated income inequality: a company’s shareholders ultimately pay its taxes, and with a smaller tax bill, shareholders, who tend to be much more affluent than the average American, see their wealth increase.
“It’s clearly a broken system,” said Michelle Hanlon, an accounting professor at M.I.T. [....]
URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/opinion/sunday/who-will-crack-the-code.html?ref=opinion
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Note accompanying interactive graphic:
Across U.S. Companies, Tax Rates Vary Greatly
Last week, in a Congressional hearing, Apple got grilled for its low-tax strategy. But not every business can copy that approach. Here is a look at what S.&P. 500 companies paid in corporate income taxes — federal, state, local and foreign — from 2007 to 2012, according to S&P Capital IQ.
by artappraiser on Sun, 05/26/2013 - 1:18pm