This is a silly report. I’m no Sheldon Adelson fan, but there are plenty of legitimate reasons for putting the headquarters of a business in a tax haven. Usually it is done because one or more of the investors in the business is a non-US person and it would be unfair to charge US taxes to a non-US person or some other country’s taxes to an American. There may have been some tax avoidance going on, but that cannot be gleaned from the report, and the report seems to equate being named in the Paradise Papers with “suspicious behavior.”
Nice try. The only reason to create a PO Box “headquarters” offshore is to avoid taxes. If you are alright with this, then you’re trolling.
Of course they did, because they need to have more wealth they will never spend and never enjoy.
Back off! These people are job creators. Granted, they are creating these jobs in Bermuda but let’s not split hairs.
Funny, you keep saying the same thing while denying it’s happening. So you think it’s perfectly reasonable for a US corporation to pay no US taxes, because it would unfair if someone from another country invested in the US company to pay US taxes.
Yer killin’ me.
I’m sure these secret off shore accounts has been addressed fully in the new Tax Reform Bill. Yeah, right. What gets me most is billionaires like the Coch bros. whose refineries have been making tons of money providing petrol to the US Military, and then they turn around and screw the country, front and rear.
This is non-story in this sense - anyone with a brain knows that most ultra rich people do everything they can to avoid taxes and hold on to everything they can. The fact that people like the Kochs and Adelson are avoiding taxes is just not surprising and not headline material.
On the other hand, the growing disparity between the rich and everyone else in this country is the biggest story of the century, and the political fight in this country right now and for the foreseeable future is to prevent the Republicans from creating a permanent aristocracy by legislative and judicial fiat. This story explores one small symptom of the huge disease that is consuming us right now. Getting rid of Trump is not going to cure what ails us. Destroying the current Republican hegemony is our only hope for revitalization as a true democracy.
First responders were still pulling identifiable body parts from the smoldering ruins of World Trade Center, and Republicans were pulling proposed money laundering, tax haven reporting provisions from the first 9/11 legislation. rePuklicans traitors.
Why would it be unfair?
If a business operates in the US, it is the beneficiary of our country’s services. Anyone who shares in the profits of that business shouldn’t expect to get a pass. Tax havens serve those who want the benefits without the costs. Profits earned with the help of governments that provide good services are recognized instead in nations that provided virtually no services related to those profitable activities. The tax havens allow their clients to act as parasites feeding on the other taxpayers in the US.
Professional athletes have to file tax returns in most or all of the states they play in, even though they reside in only one. Tough, but fair.
I own American Depositary Receipts for shares of an Indonesian company. When that company pays a dividend, Indonesia taxes that dividend before the remainder comes to me. I pay US taxes on the remainder. Tough, but fair.
If a person has deposits in a US bank and earns interest, that interest is taxable in the US no matter the person’s nationality or place of residence. Tough, but fair.
Tax havens? Technically legal theft.
They are just as deplorable as the deplorables. People who can do this, “need” to do this are so rich that if we returned to the 70% top rate of the 1950s their “lifestyles” wouldn’t be affected in the least. Why do these people feel a need to use their wealth to immiserate others? You don’t have to like all your fellow citizens in order to understand that spreading the wealth either through better wages and benefits or willingly paying higher taxes to better fund social programs is a net benefit to the country.
“Tough, but fair”? Try patently unfair and something only a tax accountant would like. It’s not even the same thing as working in NY and living in NJ but paying income tax for both.
OMG
Rich people taking advantage of tax shelters?!? Where are my smelling salts.
Until it’s illegal, this isn’t much of a story, is it?
Or until those taking advantage of tax shelters are also trying to push a bill through that would reward them with massive permanent tax cuts and almost certainly lead to massive future cuts in social spending.