8) Close up tax shelters (Cayman Islands, Swiss banks etc) Where corporations can hide profits. As in all things, we need to establish some definitions as they can be used to confuse and divide. The term tax shelter itself has several different interpretations from things like retirement and real estate investment, to other more commonly associated like Swiss Bank Accounts. Tax shelters encompass all of the above, again as in most things, there is no good vs evil in terms of this policy. Our demands are focused on some of the negative abuses of such policy as opposed to the existence of tax shelters at all. We are posing to have common sense restrictions to ALL tax shelters (even those that are popular) to ensure that the best interests of all Americans are met. Shelters such as 401ks, IRAs, starting a business, job sponsored education/benefits etc are all things most Americans do or hope to enjoy in some capacity. However means testing on some of these is fair. Naturally, the more wealthy you are, the greater ability you have to take advantage of these shelters, thus our tax policy should not willfully uphold income disparity especially with an increased tax burden by percentage. Similar to the notion that a CEO should not pay less in taxes than his secretary. We suggest a progressive system of taxation based upon gross worth (more than just salary) Now lets get to the good stuff :). As in the title of this demand, we are concentrating on the more negative and commonly abused side of tax shelters where corporations use them as a tool to hide income that is taxable to the US government. This is actually a CRIMINAL act already, so the problem is not making or changing the law, but rather ENFORCING it. But given the extreme abuse despite the law, we need to make stronger efforts to enforce the law and hold stricter financial and commerce prohibiting penalties along with the threat of jail time for the corporation and accounting firms if infractions are found. This level of evasion is only something the wealthy and businesses are able to do as it involves foreign investment, forming corporate partnerships, forming IRA companies and so forth. Remember that despite the talking point of the US having the highest corporate tax rate of 35%, corporations ACTUALLY PAY only 12% on average, and that is JUST what they report! We need to have equity in the tax code so that the rich and corporations and not given a pass to evade paying their fair share while attacking things like earned income and child tax credits for the common man. This tax stuff may seem boring to some, but truly in the midst of financial woes, I cant understand why this isnt the FIRST area that we attack. We are losing literally tens of billions annually even from conservative estimates. This is truly being exploited as some kind of partisan issue but its a matter of ENFORCING the EXISTING law. I dont understand the merit or logic of arguing to lower a tax rate that most people are NOT paying at any rate? Look we did this in under a page ;)
Posted on: Wed, 05 Feb 2014 22:24:05 +0000
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