47% of Americans do not Pay Federal Income Tax?

[YoungTulsan]

District 1 it is.
And I happen to like Coburn - at least as well or better than most - as I have mentioned many times.
Sullivan - yeah, he is ok, I guess.  Just not real inspiring one way or the other.

Sullivan flip flopped on TARP.  He voted No on the first round, and switched to Yes after Goldman Sachs threatened there would be chaos in the streets in 24 hours.

[nathanm]

If you want a good explanation of why it is that 47% of us pay no income tax, perhaps this link will enlighten:

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

[heironymouspasparagus]

Olbermann/Maddow/

Let's put Al Franken in there, too.

This is a group of three that, while very distastefully too far left (wacked out) for me are at least honest - verifiably so.  Makes an interesting contrast to the Cheney/Rove/Murdoch/Coulter world that is even more verifiably dishonest.

Good choice.

The choice you apparently present is honesty, integrity and a belief system that is distasteful and somewhat disturbing.

Or dishonesty, no integrity and a belief system that is as despicable as it isn't conservative OR Republican.  It is passing itself off to worm its way into the fabric of mainstream America.






 

[Cats Cats Cats]

[joiei]

How about corporations that pay NO TAXES.  It is not just the low income earner,  how about those big huge multinational corporations that are able to not pay their fair share?  All that money they pay their lobbyest does pay off.  http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/04/guest-post-after-getting-bailed-out-by-american-taxpayers-general-electric-pays-zero-u-s-taxes-pretending-that-all-of-its-profits-are-overseas.html

General Electric got bailed out by American taxpayers.

Specifically, it was given $139 billion in FDIC guarantees and support by the Federal Reserve for it's commercial paper (see this).

So you'd think that GE would return the favor by paying American taxes, right?

Wrong. GE paid no U.S. taxes for 2009.

As CNN points out:

    GE had plenty of earnings last year — just not in the United States. For tax purposes, the company's U.S. operations lost $408 million, while its international businesses netted a $10.8 billion profit.

Unfortunately, GE is not alone.

As I wrote in November:

    The Washington Post notes:

        About two-thirds of corporations operating in the United States did not pay taxes annually from 1998 to 2005, according to a new report scheduled to be made public today from the U.S. Government Accountability Office...

        In 2005, about 28 percent of large corporations paid no taxes...

        Dorgan and Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) requested the report out of concern that some corporations were using "transfer pricing" to reduce their tax bills. The practice allows multi-national companies to transfer goods and assets between internal divisions so they can record income in a jurisdiction with low tax rates...

        [Senator] Levin said: "This report makes clear that too many corporations are using tax trickery to send their profits overseas and avoid paying their fair share in the United States."

    Indeed, as Pulitzer prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston documents, American multinationals pay much less in taxes than they should because they use a widespread variety of tax-avoidance scams and schemes, including:

        * Selling valuable assets of the American companies to foreign subsidiaries based in tax havens for next to nothing, so that those valuable assets can be taxed at much lower foreign rates

        * Pretending that costs were spent in the United States, so that the companies can count them as costs or deductions in the U.S. and pay less taxes to the American government

        * Booking profits as if they occurred in the subsidiary's tax haven countries, so that taxes paid on profits are at the much lower safe haven rate

        * Working out sweetheart deals with certain foreign governments, so that the companies can pretend they paid more in foreign taxes than they actually did, to obtain higher U.S. tax credits than are warranted

        * Pretending they are headquartered in tax havens like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands or Panama, so that they can enjoy all of the benefits of actually being based in America (including the use of American law and the court system, listing on the Dow, etc.), with the tax benefits associated with having a principal address in a sunny tax haven.

        * And myriad other scams

    As Johnston documents, the American economy is hurt by the massive underpayment of taxes by the huge multinationals.

[Conan71]

Joiei, do you want to pay taxes on your losses? GE has legit business inerests around the world and as such is subject to a myriad of taxing authorities. GE still paid billions in payroll taxes and Federal witholding last year. GE shareholders paid taxes on dividends (albeit reduced dividends) and many people paid cap gains selling GE stock they bought bargain basement prices last year. Keep in mind all the GE vendors who did pay corporate taxes last year as well as payroll, etc.

But there again, GE is just another evil corporate entity which screws Americans and doesn't provide any useful goods or services. My bad

[guido911]

Is a value added tax (VAT) seriously being considered by our government?

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9F7MUG82&show_article=1

[nathanm]

Is a value added tax (VAT) seriously being considered by our government?

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9F7MUG82&show_article=1

Only in the minds of the folks who are trying to whip tea partiers into a frenzy over things that are complete non-starters in both parties.

[guido911]

Only in the minds of the folks who are trying to whip tea partiers into a frenzy over things that are complete non-starters in both parties.

This is coming from Obama and his administration. Are you seriously suggesting that Obama wants the tea partiers agitated?

[nathanm]

This is coming from Obama and his administration. Are you seriously suggesting that Obama wants the tea partiers agitated?

The only thing, other than denials, that came from the administration on the subject was:

The former chairman of the Federal Reserve who is an outside adviser to President Barack Obama, said the value-added tax "was not as toxic an idea" as it has been in the past, according to a Reuters report.

As in, "it's still toxic, but people are probably less opposed to this now than in the past" to a question that nobody seems to have transcribed. It would be interesting to know who asked the question that sparked Volcker's comment, but I can't find a way to read support for or serious consideration of a VAT in that.