July 24, 2007
Escaping Taxes
From today's papers:
Tax Break Used by Drug Makers Failed to Add Jobs
Blackstone, Sugar Daddies, and a Sweet Deal
Half of Big Firms Fail to Pay Taxes
Reconsidering Corporate Tax Breaks
What do the first three stories have in common? They're all about how big companies and wealthy individuals escape paying taxes by shifting income -- from the U.S. to abroad; from one state to another; or into capital gains, which is taxed at a lower rate.
Yet in listening to the Democratic candidates debate last night, when the subject of taxes came up, most of the candidates emphasized repealing the Bush tax breaks -- not changing the laws passed with bipartisan support at both the national and state level that allow corporations and wealthy individuals to make income disappear entirely.
The last headline is a story about a new study from the Treasury Department suggesting repealing some tax breaks -- like the research and development tax credit -- would allow all companies to have lower rates. A few candidates last night made this point, and to their credit, said it was average individuals, not corporations, that should get the lower rates by repealing the Bush tax breaks, which were aimed at high-income individuals.
But I'm still waiting for a Democratic candidate to talk about taxing corporations fairly by eliminating loopholes that allow them to move income to lower tax countries or states. That has to be one of the largest grand larcenies in the tax code.