Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (36414)	5/3/2014 3:51:10 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

That's why married couples can elect to file joint returns; Congress believes it is good public policy to encourage marriage. Except that for some it can discourage marriage. While a majority of married couples might do better filing jointly then they would do filing separately as unmarried individuals that isn't always the case. Spouses can still file separately but the law doesn't treat the separate returns the same way it treats returns from non-married individuals, and some couples will pay less tax if they don't get married then if they do.

To: i-node who wrote (36414)	5/3/2014 4:30:43 PM
From: J_F_Shepard	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

But if you study those ten or so pages intensively you will find they make a hell of a lot of sense. That goes for almost every provision of the tax code. They make a lot of sense for those benefiting from them......and that's all.. It may be that they benefit the nation as a whole, but it is the guys paying the lobbyists who benefit most......

To: i-node who wrote (36414)	5/3/2014 4:36:13 PM
From: J_F_Shepard	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Gaming the tax system has, of course, long been a popular blood sport for American business, particularly for pharmaceutical concerns and for technology darlings like Apple. AFTER years of post-recession somnolence, corporate takeovers and mergers have ballooned to their highest level since 2007, fueled in part by American companies’ fleeing the United States to save tax dollars. Gaming the tax system has, of course, long been a popular blood sport for American business, particularly for pharmaceutical concerns and for technology darlings like Apple. But these days, tax avoidance feels like a full-fledged business strategy, with American citizens as the losers. At the moment, New York-based Pfizer is battling to acquire the British giant AstraZeneca. At $106 billion, that would be the largest of the current raft of tax-advantaged deals. If it’s completed, Pfizer would become a British company, saving it $1 billion or more annually because of Britain’s lower tax rate (21 percent and soon, 20 percent) and other potential breaks. By comparison, Pfizer is currently taxed at a 27 percent rate. Since 2008, about two dozen American companies have used mergers to shift their legal residence abroad through the process known as inversion. That’s about the same number as over the previous 25 years. All told, the raft of increasingly sophisticated tax-avoidance schemes has helped the share of corporate profits paid in taxes to drop significantly. Continue reading the main story Merger Values Rise Again Drop in Corporate Tax Rate Value of global mergers and acquisitions through May 1 of each year (not adjusted for inflation). Effective rate paid to the United States by all corporations, both domestic and foreign. 50% Time period in chart at left $1.5 TRILLION $1.2 trillion 40 $1.0 30 20 $0.5 15% 10 ’95 ’00 ’05 ’10 ’14 1950 ’60 ’70 ’80 ’90 ’00 ’10 Sources: Dealogic (mergers); St. Louis Federal Reserve (tax rates) That’s not the only cost. When the New York eye-health company Bausch & Lomb put itself up for sale last year, Valeant — “Canadian” since 2010 — used the savings from its 3 to 5 percent tax rate to top the bidding. Washington and Albany took an immediate tax hit. Just as quickly, Valeant — whose top brass operate from a converted Y.M.C.A. in Madison, N.J. — eliminated 400 of Bausch & Lomb’s 1,700 Rochester employees. After harsh criticism, the company promised to retain the remaining workers there. Now Valeant is trying to buy rival Allergan and eliminate much of Allergan’s $458 million tax bill for 2013. The tax dodge is hardly limited to pharma and tech. As part of their proposed merger, two huge ad giants — New York’s Omnicom and Paris’s Publicis — chose Britain as a tax “headquarters,” for an estimated $80 million a year in savings. Meanwhile, even the quintessentially American drugstore chain Walgreens, which owns 45 percent of the European company Alliance Boots, is being lobbied by large shareholders to shift its tax home to Europe when its right to buy the remainder of that drugstore chain becomes active next year. The recent cross-border deals often include one more goody for the companies. To help pay for the merger, the American corporations can utilize cash “trapped” abroad by rules requiring that 35 percent be paid to the Treasury on profits brought home. Action is clearly needed. But most of the proposals floating around the capital are more focused on helping companies compete in the global tax race to the bottom. Nor has President Obama been able to gain international cooperation to end this self-defeating competition.