via Trader Mark, Fund My Mutual Fund
This might be a repeat but an interesting video on 60 Minutes tonight, on the tax havens our corporations use to avoid that '35%' that is so oftly cited as a reason the U.S. is uncompetitive. Of course, that rate is mostly something small business - without armies of tax mavens - have to pay.
13 minute video
Our government is in knots over ways to lower the federal budget deficit. Well, what if we told you we found a pot of money - over $60 billion a year - that could be used to help out?
That bundle is tax money not coming in to the IRS from American corporations. One major way they avoid paying the tax man is by parking their profits overseas. They'll tell you they're forced to do that because the corporate 35 percent tax rate is high in relation to other countries, and indeed it seems the tax code actually encourages companies to move businesses out of the country.
Companies searching out tax havens is nothing new. In the 80s and 90s, there was an exodus to Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, where there are no taxes at all.
When President Obama threatened to clamp down on tax dodging, many companies decided to leave the Caribbean, but as we first told you in March, instead of coming back home, they went to safer havens like Switzerland.
Several of these companies came to a small, quaint medieval town in Switzerland called Zug. The population of the town of Zug is 26,000; the number of companies in the area is 30,000 and growing at an average rate of 800 a year. But many are no more than mailboxes.
