One of the reasons corporate taxes are "so high"

[wordsmythe]

if they all just paid their share instead of worming out of it they'd all pay less.

Greed is s bitch.

Top Iraq contractor skirts US taxes offshore - The Boston Globe

CAYMAN ISLANDS - Kellogg Brown & Root, the nation's top Iraq war contractor and until last year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven.

More than 21,000 people working for KBR in Iraq - including about 10,500 Americans - are listed as employees of two companies that exist in a computer file on the fourth floor of a building on a palm-studded boulevard here in the Caribbean. Neither company has an office or phone number in the Cayman Islands.

The Defense Department has known since at least 2004 that KBR was avoiding taxes by declaring its American workers as employees of Cayman Islands shell companies, and officials said the move allowed KBR to perform the work more cheaply, saving Defense dollars.

But the use of the loophole results in a significantly greater loss of revenue to the government as a whole, particularly to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. And the creation of shell companies in places such as the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes has long been attacked by members of Congress.

A Globe survey found that the practice is unusual enough that only one other ma jor contractor in Iraq said it does something similar.
"Failing to contribute to Social Security and Medicare thousands of times over isn't shielding the taxpayers they claim to protect, it's costing our citizens in the name of short-term corporate greed," said Senator John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee who has introduced legislation to close loopholes for companies registering overseas.

With an estimated $16 billion in contracts, KBR is by far the largest contractor in Iraq, with eight times the work of its nearest competitor.
The no-bid contract it received in 2002 to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure and a multibillion-dollar contract to provide support services to troops have long drawn scrutiny because Vice President Dick Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive from 1995 until he joined the Republican ticket with President Bush in 2000.

The largest of the Cayman Islands shell companies - called Service Employers International Inc., which is now listed as having more than 20,000 workers in Iraq, according to KBR - was created two years before Cheney became Halliburton's chief executive. But a second Cayman Islands company called Overseas Administrative Services, which now is listed as the employer of 1,020 mostly managerial workers in Iraq, was established two months after Cheney's appointment.
Cheney's office at the White House referred questions to his personal lawyer, who did not return phone calls.

Heather Browne, a spokeswoman for KBR, acknowledged via e-mail that the two Cayman Islands companies were set up "in order to allow us to reduce certain tax obligations of the company and its employees."
Social Security and Medicare taxes amount to 15.3 percent of each employees' salary, split evenly between the worker and the employer. While KBR's use of the shell companies saves workers their half of the taxes, it deprives them of future retirement benefits.

In addition, the practice enables KBR to avoid paying unemployment taxes in Texas, where the company is registered, amounting to between $20 and $559 per American employee per year, depending on the company's rate of turnover.

Story continues on the link above

[Army_of_One]

The thing is...that this is probably legal. Are they doing anything illegal? The second thing is that the reason they do this is yes because of greed (Welcome to America) and because our tax system is the way it is.

After all...Hillary does it...

CLINTON TAX SHELTER HYPOCRISY

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) Has Called For An End To Offshore Tax Shelters:

“In 2004, Hillary Clinton … Said She Wanted To ‘Close The Loopholes’ For ‘People Who Create A Mailbox, Or A Drop, Or Send One Person To Sit On The Beach In Some Island Paradise And Claim That It Is Their Offshore Headquarters.’” (Timothy J. Burger and Ryan J. Donmoyer, “Clinton’s Ties To Burkle Include Funds In Offshore Tax Haven,” Bloomberg, 12/17/07)

Sen. Clinton Has Called To “Close The Loopholes, End The Unjustifiable Tax Breaks, And Stop Subsidizing The Movement Of Jobs To Foreign Tax Havens.” (Sen. Hillary Clinton, Policy Speech On “Rebuilding The Middle Class: Hillary Clinton’s Economic Blueprint For The 21st Century,” Cedar Rapids, IA, 10/8/07)

But Former President Clinton Has Investments Based In The Cayman Islands That Could Earn Him “Tens Of Millions Of Dollars”:

Bill Has Holdings In Three Investments Controlled By Billionaire Ron Burkle; All Three Funds Are Based In The Cayman Islands. “The disclosures that Hillary Clinton, 60, is required to make as a lawmaker and candidate show that her husband has holdings in three [Ron] Burkle-controlled funds -- YGOF GP Ltd., Yucaipa Global Holdings and Yucaipa Global Partnership Fund LP - - all listed at Yucaipa’s Los Angeles address. An October filing with the SEC by Burkle, Yucaipa’s lead partner, names YGOF as a Cayman Islands corporation and the latter two as Cayman Islands partnerships.” (Timothy J. Burger and Ryan J. Donmoyer, “Clinton’s Ties To Burkle Include Funds In Offshore Tax Haven,” Bloomberg, 12/17/07)

“[A] Person Familiar With The Matter Confirmed A Report Last Year In The New York Times That Bill Clinton Stands To Make Tens Of Millions Of Dollars With Little Risk If The Yucaipa Funds He Is Involved In Profit Beyond A Certain Level.” (Timothy J. Burger and Ryan J. Donmoyer, “Clinton’s Ties To Burkle Include Funds In Offshore Tax Haven,” Bloomberg, 12/17/07)

A Clinton Spokesman Would Not Confirm When The Clintons Discovered The Funds Were Based Offshore. “Bloomberg’s questions to the campaign involved the nature and amounts of his compensation from Yucaipa, why the holdings were listed as Los Angeles-based rather than Cayman Islands entities, and when Hillary Clinton became aware that the funds were offshore. [Clinton spokesman] Carson didn’t address those questions.” (Timothy J. Burger and Ryan J. Donmoyer, “Clinton’s Ties To Burkle Include Funds In Offshore Tax Haven,” Bloomberg, 12/17/07)

[Highwayman]

Originally Posted by wordsmythe

if they all just paid their share instead of worming out of it they'd all pay less.....

Can you please explain how closing a tax loophole would allow all companies to pay less taxes?

[Army_of_One]

Originally Posted by Highwayman

Can you please explain how closing a tax loophole would allow all companies to pay less taxes?

Maybe what he means is if they were TAXED less.....

[Bubba]

It's a catch 22, if they paid the taxes there would be more money to go around and the tax rate could then go down.

[Army_of_One]

Originally Posted by Bubba

It's a catch 22, if they paid the taxes there would be more money to go around and the tax rate could then go down.

Do you THINK the tax rate would go down? Wait til a Democrat takes office. More money will be going overseas than you can imagine.

[Bubba]

That must be why during Clinton's Presidency there was a balanced budget and even a budget surplus. Those Democrats just don't know how to stop spending. LOL

[Army_of_One]

Originally Posted by Bubba

That must be why during Clinton's Presidency there was a balanced budget and even a budget surplus. Those Democrats just don't know how to stop spending. LOL

No...they don't know how to stop taxing. Do you know what a budget surplus means Bubba. It means that they needed X to fund the budget but took X+surplus from you and me. The gov't should have enough to pay the budget and no more. The "extra" amounts to income redistribution. It's Bill Clinton saying he can spend your money smarter than you can and it's wrong.

[Made in the USA]

Is the IRS gonna be at the Willie concert tomorrow? You know, so he doesn't skip out on his taxes again!

[Bubba]

Before you can lower taxes you have to stop spending more than you take in. It happened on his watch. If I remember correctly, he even took a portion of that surplus and paid down part of the National Debt. You know that debt clock that will run out of digits on W's watch...