patrick.net

What part of "You didn't build that!" don't they understand.

Offshore governments give business owners the respect they deserve.
Why should they hang around in a place where they are constantly told....what the captain sez up one post....

FortWayne says

No matter how tough you make the rules, assholes will always be assholes and offshore what they can.

Simply requiring companies to have their corporate headquarters in their country of registration would stop inversions cold. There haven't been many inversions but some of them are only changing the place of incorporation on paper but continuing to operate from the US. That doesn't make sense. If they want to tax advantages of a foreign country they should operate there. If they aren't paying taxes to the US then they shouldn't be using US services.

International companies will relocate their HQ's to whatever country has the best deal to increase profits. It's called running a business or legal tax avoidance, not illegal tax-evasion. And how can you blame them? Free-trade gives them the permission to do it.

carrieon says

International companies will relocate their HQ's to whatever country has the best deal to increase profits. It's called running a business or legal tax avoidance, not illegal tax-evasion. And how can you blame them? Free-trade gives them the permission to do it.

You better read up on how companies are doing inversions. Look at liberty global. Headquarters and executives all still in denver. look at the current proposed pharma deals, headquarters stay put in the US, along with all the R&D. If corporations want to take advantage of the many benefits of their headquarters and executives being in the US, then they should pay US taxes.

In contrast Burger King is proposing moving everything lock, stock, and barrel to Canada. I don't have a problem with that. Especially since anyone who actually took a few minutes to look at the BK deal would realize that the tax savings aspect is a minimal part of the proposal. If BK wanted to do an inversion for tax reasons then it could have easily done one in the Virgin Islleands at 0% tax rate when it went public in 2012. There are very compelling business reasons for BK's proposed merger and move that have nothing to do with taxes. But it makes great political theatre for the politiwhores who are far too lazy, stupid, and/or incompetent to do their jobs and fix the tax code.

That said this is all a tempest in a teapot. There have been less than 5 inversions a year since the tax code change in 2004. Most of those were companies that were already operating almost all overseas anyway. Not that many companies are in a position to do inversions for tax reasons alone, especially if they had to relocate corporate headquarters. There will always be business moving overseas for reasons other than taxes. Like Burger King.

The easiest solution would be to completely rewrite the totally antiquated US tax code so it's in alignment with the rest of the world. The corporate tax code on these areas dates back to WWI and hasn't been really revised at all since 1962 other than small tweaks. Almost all of the rest of the world has moved on to a more rational tax code that better aligns with how business work in today's world. There are a number of ways the tax law could be modernized to encourage investment in the US and not lose tax income. But with the current totally dysfunctional government that is totally unaware that the US is no longer in a position to dictate policy to the rest of the world it's not going to ever happen. So things will continue to limp along with lots of outrage, billions of dollars wasted playing tax games, and very little action.

You are talking about NSA lover Obozo the clown-signer of FATCA-hater of freedom and his imbecile followers . He will tighten the noose and raise taxes-nary a peep about lowering them to bring them in line with the rest of the world or about eliminating dual taxation. For a big chunk of this country's history, we made do without an income tax. Big gubmnt was probably not as bloated then and in every person's house -dictating things from what naturally growing weeds they should or should not smoke or how much money they should give their kids and how much time they can see them.

Our gubmnt is like the big bang-ever expanding , always looking for cash to fill its ever growing reach.

SoftShell says

Offshore governments give business owners the respect they deserve.

See I don't agree with that. We all have to pay taxes to keep some form of society going. Why should some corporations on one hand, and deadbeats on another not pay their fair share while using all the benefits of my tax dollars. Middle class is way overburdened with taxes at this rate.

US military will defend them, police will protect them, fire fighters will rescue their houses from rescue. Not a bad idea if they paid for some of that. I'm sure it's nice to get free stuff, but it is not right, and it sure ain't a right.

FortWayne says

See I don't agree with that. We all have to pay taxes to keep some form of
society going. Why should some corporations on one hand, and deadbeats on
another not pay their fair share while using all the benefits of my tax dollars.
Middle class is way overburdened with taxes at this rate.

Yup. But a company cna move their factories abroad and import with no consequences. That led to millions of job losses-so this inversion is just a drop in the bucket.
My dismay is the repubs are fully into free trade and so are the dems-with the dems wanting to tax us to death in addition. In this country you either be a bum or a billionare.

If the US tax policy on multi-nationals was similar to that of the rest of the western world, there would be no point in doing these inversions. We have a tax policy which encourages this behavior on many levels.

Most of the world taxes your revenues locally. Any business you do in the country is taxed in that country, end of story. The US taxes your revenue globally, minus whatever local taxes you paid, so you owe the difference.

Burger King moving to Canada means that it still pays US taxes to the US on all of its US activities, but it will no longer have to pay the US for the burgers it sells in Canada. It's a huge tax saving strategy, and it's legal.