Cat Island, Bahamas—no corporate tax
Bloomberg business is
reporting:
Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc., Google Inc. and five other tech firms now account for more than a fifth of the $2.10 trillion in profits that U.S. companies are holding overseas, according to a Bloomberg News review of the securities filings of 304 corporations. The total amount held outside the U.S. by the companies was up 8 percent from the previous year, though 58 companies reported smaller stockpiles.
This follows the trend that
Reuters reported on about a year ago. Our Congress has stalled any movement to revamp the tax code and get these companies to bring some of that money back home.
Microsoft, Apple and Google each boosted their accumulated foreign profits by more than 20 percent over the year, the largest increases by any of the 34 companies with at least $16 billion outside the U.S. International Business Machines Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Oracle, Qualcomm Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. each added at least $4 billion.
It isn't just this new "tech" money the United States is being cheated out of, it's also the old standbys.
Duke Energy Corp., based in Charlotte, North Carolina, took a $373 million tax charge against earnings in February as part of a plan to get access to $2.7 billion in accumulated foreign profits. Stryker Corp., a Kalamazoo, Michigan-based maker of medical devices, is planning to repatriate $2 billion this year.
Apache Corp., a Houston-based oil and gas company, had $17 billion indefinitely reinvested overseas at the end of 2013. Now, it has none.
You remember Duke Energy, right? Illegally dumping coal ash in
American rivers and not really paying for it? I'm glad they've landed on their feet. Of course, a corporate tax dodging article wouldn't be complete with the biggest
welfare queen of them all:
General Electric Co. topped the list for the fifth straight year. The company now has $119 billion outside the U.S., an increase of 8 percent from the end of 2013 and a 27 percent gain since 2010.
What do these companies have to say about this? It doesn't really matter, does it? It is already a fact that the money these guys make in corporate welfare
only helps the rich get richer.
Maybe we need to move to the Bahamas and buy bandanas.