''Google sheltered almost $10bn in Bermuda last year''

From The Telegraph

''The accounts, seen by Bloomberg, show that Google shifted $9.8bn in revenues in 2011 into a Bermuda-based company.

The move, which is perfectly legal, meant the internet giant was able to slash its overall tax bill by almost 50pc, as the country doesn’t have a corporate income tax.

The increase in Google’s revenues routed to Bermuda, disclosed in the November 21 filing by a subsidiary in the Netherlands, could fuel the outrage spreading over corporate tax avoidance.''

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''Don’t forget the organ grinders behind these monkeys''

From NewLeft Project

''Tax theft is endemic all over the world. It is organised through an intricate system of tax havens; the PR around it is astonishingly good, as evidenced by the fact that most people have no idea of its scale and can get distracted by the misdeeds of a few bad apples rather than seeing the barrel they came in; and one of the most vibrant and important hubs – the City of London - is sitting right under the noses of the British politicians who are today decrying the corporations who use it.''

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''U.S. Is a Divisive and Coercive Influence in the Caribbean''

From Strategic Culture
By Wayne Madsen

''The United States, rather than embrace its own Caribbean cultures in the Florida Keys and New Orleans and its surrounding bayou country, has adopted a policy of treating the Caribbean as a «soft underbelly» of the United States where the only things that matter are a constant military presence and an assurance that the nations of the region follow the United States foreign policy lines and maintain the financial status quo that permits wealthy American businessmen like Mitt Romney to hide their assets from the U.S. tax man''..............read more

''Trillions hidden in offshore accounts''

From TribLive News

''More than half the world’s money passes almost undetected through a series of financial black holes that shelter it from not only the tax collector but from shareholders, partners and wives, a Tribune-Review investigation found.

Once employed by gangsters such as Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, these secret bank accounts have grown so vast and lawless that some experts tell the Trib they fear the amount of money involved threatens societies from China to Africa, Europe and the United States. World leaders railed against the impact of secret havens during the G20 summit in Pittsburgh three years ago.''

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''The Rich Are Different Than You and Me''

From Counter Punch
By Bill Moyers

"Benjamin Franklin, who used his many talents to become a wealthy man, famously said that the only things certain in life are death and taxes.  But if you’re a corporate CEO in America today, even they can be put on the back burner – death held at bay by the best medical care money can buy and the latest in surgical and life extension techniques, taxes conveniently shunted aside courtesy of loopholes, overseas investment and governments that conveniently look the other way."

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London: "18,700 properties owned by off-shore companies"

from the bureau of investigative journalism....

"Figures released by the Land Registry reveal that more than £100 billion of property in central London alone is held in offshore companies and therefore avoids certain taxes.

The Sunday Times analysed an inventory of 18,700 title deeds, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, and found that millions of pounds could be lost through a loophole."

IRS: ''Tax Gap Stands at Nearly Half a Trillion''

from omb watch....


"Earlier this month, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released an updated analysis of the tax gap – the difference between the total amount in federal taxes owed by people and businesses, and the total paid. What did the IRS find? In 2006, the most recent year for which information is available, Americans underpaid their taxes by $450 billion. Extended over a decade, this could represent a shortfall of trillions, robbing the country of needed funds for infrastructure and other investments."

''How the world is losing trillions to tax havens''

from undispatch......

"Since the economic collapse of 2008 and the ensuing recession, increasingly more attention is being paid to corporate accountability. Recently, the Occupy movement has brought into sharp relief some of the discontent with poor corporate citizenship. If you pay close enough attention, there have been many stories in the media exposing unfair – sometimes illegal – corporate practices and how they are affecting the overall health of the economy. We’ve learned, for example, how G.E. – America’s largest corporation – avoided paying any taxes in the United States in 2010 – thanks to the “clever use” of tax breaks and offshore accounting. While Republican presidential hopefuls will have you believe that reducing corporate tax rates is the best way to boost the economy, American corporate tax rates haven’t been this low (35%) since before the Second World War. Meanwhile, the United States is struggling to figure out how to cut a soaring budget deficit and continue financing key health care and welfare programs.

This situation, however, is not unique to the United States or the industrialized world. Indeed, a recent report by Eurodad (European Network on Debt & Development) finds that developing nations lose more than a trillion (yes, trillion) dollars of potential tax revenue every year because of corporate tax evasion"...........READ MORE

'Panama Free Trade Agreement Queuing Patiently for U.S. Signature - At What Cost?'

from diplomaticourier........

"In his 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama made a bold commitment of doubling U.S. exports by 2015. Flash forward 18 months, and politicians from both parties have failed in achieving a consensus towards ratifying the already negotiated Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with Colombia, South Korea and Panama, lessening the realization of President Obama’s’ pledge. Perhaps the problem is not in the details of the agreements, but failure of presentation, or if you may, selling the FTA’s better to Congress and the American public"...............READ MORE

'Swiss-British bank tax deal ruffles feathers'

from swiss info.......

"A deal to end a tax evasion row between Switzerland and Britain has been hailed as a victory for Swiss banks but a blow for the global crusade against banking secrecy.

On Wednesday, the two countries initialled a plan to impose withholding taxes on British assets held by Swiss banks without an automatic exchange of information. Germany has agreed in principle to a similar deal.

The British agreement could raise up to £5 billion (SFr6.5 billion) in withholding tax by 2013. This includes a one-off  levy of between 19 and 34 per cent and 48 per cent on future income.

"Overall, my assessment of the tax agreements is positive,” said Patrick Odier, chairman of the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) in a statement. “They mark important milestones for the Swiss financial centre. As a banker, I am especially grateful that clients have been offered a fair solution for regularising their assets”................READ MORE

"German Example Shows Way Out of Debt Crisis-Raise Taxes"

from der spiegel.........

"Almost all the industrialized economies are struggling under the weight of enormous debt levels. The problem is their government revenues are too low. Debt-ridden countries like the United States, Ireland and Japan need to raise their taxes to a similar level to Germany"

"The global economic and financial crisis has led to a dramatic increase in government debt in recent years. Within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), member countries' average debt ratio -- i.e., public debt relative to economic output -- increased significantly from 72 percent in 2007 to more than 100 percent in 2011. And there's no turnaround in sight for 2012.

In hindsight, there is no doubt that the states were correct to increase their debt. Without an expansionary fiscal policy and the extensive support programs for the banking system, the global economy would have plunged into a 1930s-style Great Depression during the past few years"..........READ MORE

'Microsoft use of low-tax havens drives down tax bill, only pays 7% of Profit'

must be nice....and we wonder why the country is broke?.........from reuters.........

"If you want to know why tax from surging corporate profits isn't making much of a dent in the United States' crippling budget deficit, a glance at Microsoft Corp's recent results provides some clues.

Things were rosy in the giant software company's just-ended fiscal fourth quarter, which produced record sales of nearly $17.4 billion, a 30 percent increase in after-tax profit, and a 35 percent gain in earnings per share.

But for the Internal Revenue Service and foreign tax authorities, things weren't so rosy. Microsoft reported only $445 million in taxes in the U.S. and other foreign countries, just 7 percent of its $6.32 billion in pre-tax profit.

Given the rancor in Congress and in the country about how to tackle the nation's budget deficit and debt, including how companies stash profits overseas and enjoy lucrative tax breaks, it is instructive to see how the top brass at Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, headquarters achieved this eye-popping tax result"................READ MORE

'DuPont pays no tax on $3B profit, and it's legal'

and we wonder why we are broke................from delawareonline..........

"Wilmington's DuPont Co. rebounded impressively in 2010 after two years of recession, with global profits soaring 73 percent to $3 billion, including $950 million in pre-tax U.S. profits.


DuPont's tax accountants deserve some of the credit. They devised a strategy that allowed DuPont to not only avoid federal income taxes altogether last year, but to accrue a $109 million tax benefit, according to year-end financial statements DuPont filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission".............LINK

'GE hoax put focus on U.S. corporate tax dodgers'

from newjerseynewsroom.com....

"The activist group US Uncut claims the Government Accountability Office is reporting that 83 of the top 100 US companies use tax havens to dodge taxes. They say that corporate tax cheats are bankrupting America.

General Electric has become the latest target of the Yes Men, a group which intends to humiliate corporations by posing as their leaders.

The Yes Men helped US Uncut send a phony press releaseto media outlets on Wednesday that said GE was giving a $3.2 billion tax refund back to the US Treasury. At least two news outlets, the Associated Press and Dow Jones, fell for the prank and briefly posted stories. GE’s stock, which dropped 14 cents a share after those stories, but began to recover after the AP retracted the story"...........read more here

'Do tax havens contribute to African poverty?'

does a bear shit in the woods?..........from reuters africa.............

“Poverty in Africa cannot be understood without understanding the role of offshore. The world’s worst war for years has been the civil conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is tied in with the wholesale looting of its mineral resources via tax havens,” he writes.

The amount of money in tax havens has been estimated at $11.5 trillion by the Tax Justice Network, a respected and independent advocacy group that monitors such trends. Much of it is money that has been channeled illicitly to the developed world from the developing world and by some estimates exceeds the amount of aid that goes into regions such as Africa".........a must read........read it here

'The New Financial Imperialism'

from the Moral Liberal-Robert Stewart


“Tax havens are engaged in economic warfare against the United States, and honest, hardworking Americans,” Levin said. The implication is that no country should derive a comparative economic advantage from its fiscal policies and that such policies should be harmonized with countries like the United States."......read more here

60 Minutes on Tax Havens.

for those who didnt see it..............


from CBS News.......watch here

Shame on you General Electric...........

its no wonder this country is broke...........

from the NYTIMES.....

"The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States."

"Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion".

"While General Electric is one of the most skilled at reducing its tax burden, many other companies have become better at this as well. Although the top corporate tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, one of the highest in the world, companies have been increasingly using a maze of shelters, tax credits and subsidies to pay far less."......read it here