>
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121770579562707543.html?
> mod=djemEditorialPage
>
>
> Political Diary
> August 3, 2008
>
> This Bud's for Belgium
>
> Politicians and Wall Streeters are starting to ask why the Belgian beer
> company InBev purchased Anheuser-Busch and not the other way around.
> Anheuser-Busch is an iconic American firm and some find it almost
> unpatriotic that Anheuser CEO August Busch IV allowed the "King of Beers"
> to relocate across the Atlantic -- though shareholders were the big
> winners here with a $50 billion-plus takeaway.
>
> But here's the real question: Was the takeover basically financed by the
> savings Anheuser expected from escaping America's increasingly
> uncompetitive corporate tax system? According to the Tax Foundation,
> Belgium's corporate tax rate is 33%%, but the effective tax rate can be
> half the nominal rate thanks to adjustments for something the OECD calls
> a "notional allowance for corporate equity." Bottom line: InBev was
> paying around 20%% of its profits in corporate taxes, compared to Anheuser-
> Busch's rate of 38.4%%.
>
> Things have gotten pretty bad when U.S. companies relocate to Europe to
> cut their tax payments. But a research analysis by Morgan Stanley finds
> the combined company's corporate tax bill will be lower than in the U.S.
> and that the tax differential indeed figured into the economics of the
> sale.
>
> So while John McCain may have benefited from his wife's ownership of
> Anheuser stock (estimated at between 40,000 and 80,000 shares), the
> country will continue to see its competitive edge wither away without a
> corporate tax rate cut. Mr. McCain to his credit wants to cut the
> corporate tax rate to 25%%, close to the global average. Senator Obama is
> more interested in raising tax rates than cutting them.
>
> Wall Street dealmakers tell us to expect more sales of U.S. companies to
> European rivals thanks to the combination of America's higher corporate
> taxes and the weak dollar. They're right. New data from the OECD for 2008
> indicate that the international average for corporate tax rates fell by
> another percentage point last year, meaning the U.S. is pricing itself
> out of the market as a corporate headquarters. "America's 35%% corporate
> tax rate is not just bad economics, it's downright unpatriotic," says tax
> expert Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute.
>
> -- Stephen Moore and Tyler Grimm
What a Grimm fairy-tale Dege brought to us!
Time to get back to reality. We are still being screwed and it's not
by the maurading hoards of off-white illegal aliens. We're being
screwed by people who look like Bush and Cheney. Damn, it is Bush and
Cheney;O)
While you go out and bust your hump and pay 30%% taxes, those who sit at
home and use their money to buy and sell, pay 15%% taxes. Fair?
Yeah, right! But even these folks are dunces compared to most American
corporations that pay zip, nada, nichts, nuthin'.
The Beer name was a rip-off to. The "real" Budweisser Comes from Budvar
in the Czeck Republic. It is sold in this country as "Czeckvar"
and it isn't made with California long grain rice, thank god.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080812/ap_on_bi_ge/corporations_income_tax
Most companies in US avoid federal income taxes
By JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press WriterTue Aug 12, 6:31 AM ET
Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between
1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.
The study by the Government Accountability Office, expected to be
released Tuesday, said about 68 percent of foreign companies doing
business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.
Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales,
according to GAO's estimate.
"It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay
nothing to support our country," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who
asked for the GAO study with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.
An outside tax expert, Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute
in Washington, said increasing numbers of limited liability corporations
and so-called "S" corporations pay taxes under individual tax codes.
"Half of all business income in the United States now ends up going
through the individual tax code," Edwards said.
The GAO study did not investigate why corporations weren't paying
federal income taxes or corporate taxes and it did not identify any
corporations by name. It said companies may escape paying such taxes due
to operating losses or because of tax credits.
More than 38,000 foreign corporations had no tax liability in 2005 and
1.2 million U.S. companies paid no income tax, the GAO said. Combined,
the companies had $2.5 trillion in sales. About 25 percent of the U.S.
corporations not paying corporate taxes were considered large
corporations, meaning they had at least $250 million in assets or $50
million in receipts.
The GAO said it analyzed data from the Internal Revenue Service,
examining samples of corporate returns for the years 1998 through 2005.
For 2005, for example, it reviewed 110,003 tax returns from among more
than 1.2 million corporations doing business in the U.S.
Dorgan and Levin have complained about companies abusing transfer prices
— amounts charged on transactions between companies in a group, such as
a parent and subsidiary. In some cases, multinational companies can
manipulate transfer prices to shift income from higher to lower tax
jurisdictions, cutting their tax liabilities. The GAO did not suggest
which companies might be doing this.
"It's time for the big corporations to pay their fair share," Dorgan
said.
____
On the Net:
Government Accountability Office:
http://www.gao.gov
