AlterNet /
By Les LeopoldApple, Google, Microsoft Sitting on 58 Billion in Overseas Profits, Blackmailing Us to Avoid Taxes
How does it feel to have the jobs gun pointed at your head? Because that’s what this is: a stickup.June 23, 2011 |
America’s largest global corporations are holding $1.5 trillion dollars in profits overseas in order to avoid US taxes. “Apple has $12 billion waiting offshore, Google has $17 billion and Microsoft, $29 billion,” reports the New York Times.
These corporations claim that if we reduce their tax rate on that cash from 35 percent to 5.25 percent (which is less than the rest of us pay in sales taxes), they will bring the money home and invest it in creating badly needed jobs. They claim that for every billion invested, 15,000 to 20,000 jobs will be created directly and indirectly, which means such a tax holiday could create up to 30 million jobs – more than enough to bring us back to full employment and then some!
How does it feel to have the jobs gun pointed at your head? Because that’s what this is – a stickup, a robbery, job blackmail. It’s as if these corporations finally realized that they should emulate Wall Street and pick the carcass clean.
I know, I know. But, aren’t the pro-corporate lobbyists correct when they say that we need those overseas profits here? What good will it do the unemployed if that loot isn’t repatriated? Also, doesn’t that 5.25 percent of $1.5 trillion translate into more than $50 billion in federal revenues that we’ll never see if the money stays parked overseas? And given the fact that Washington is too broke for another jobs stimulus program, don’t we have to play ball with those who have the money to move our economy? Isn’t it time to grow up and realize that we have to encourage, not vilify Corporate America in order to put our people back to work? Wrong on all counts. Here’s why we shouldn’t give the blackmailers the money. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/151413/apple%2C_google%2C_microsoft_sitting_on_58_billion_in_overseas_profits%2C_blackmailing_us_to_avoid_taxes/