Interesting......Cramer went from allegedly voting for Obama to a teabagger.....all in a year. What a ridiculous man he has turned out to be.....starting with Jon Stewart's exposure of him.
Cramer's Stop Trading: Taxes, Citi
By Jeanine Poggi
TheStreet.com Staff Reporter
3/12/2010 3:58 PM EST
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- There is nothing wrong with avoiding paying taxes, Jim Cramer declared on his Stop Trading!segment on CNBC.
"The government has made it clear that it is well within your patriotic right to pay as little in taxes as legally possible," Cramer said. "I am going to take advantage of that any way I can."
The government has never suggested it is your patriotic duty to pay taxes, Cramer said; in fact, they always suggest the opposite. "Anyone who thinks it's patriotic ... doesn't understand the history or philosophy of the IRS."
Still, Cramer made it very clear: while tax avoidance is allowed, tax evasion, like moving assets to Cayman Islands, is against the law.
In the American judicial system you may be innocent until proven guilty, but in tax court you are guilty until proven innocent, Cramer said.
Or, you can always get a nice chunk of cash if you turn in someone who is evading their taxes, Cramer said.
Speaking of shady accounting, it was revealed on Friday that the Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy report could be a roadmap for criminal charges. Cramer says these accounting tricks should be investigated so we can avoid the same practices going forward.
Cramer said we shouldn't be going after people like Citigroup's (C - commentary - Trade Now) CEO Vikram Pandit, who is trying to rebuild the institution, but the people who actually brought down the economy.
As the 'Stop Trading!' segment drew to a close, Cramer switched to the retail sector, and declared that the hedge funds were shorting players like Macy's (M - commentary - Trade Now), Urban Outfitters (URBN - commentary - Trade Now) and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF - commentary - Trade Now) because of the treacherous weather in February.
But those hedge fund trades have backfired, Cramer said. The retail stocks simply refuse to come down.
-- Reported by Jeanine Poggi in New York. |
