Why Raise Taxes??????????

Let's just start collecting the ones due right now. Why should the wealthy corporatists and bankers pay little to no taxes?

The Senate is looking into it. It'll be interesting to see how far it actually goes.

Senate report says dividend taxes being dodged

By Donna Smith

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. financial institutions are using stock swaps and intricate loan transactions to help foreign investors avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes on dividends paid by U.S. companies, according to a Senate report to be released on Thursday.

The report by the U.S. Senate Homeland Security subcommittee on permanent investigations said investment bankers use phrases like "dividend enhancement," "yield enhancement" and "dividend uplift" to market an array of transactions "whose major purpose is to enable non U.S. persons to dodge payment of U.S. taxes on stock dividends."

Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who along with Minnesota Republican Sen. Norm Coleman led the year-long investigation into these transactions, said the Internal Revenue Service has not done enough to crack down on abusive swap and loan transactions.

"There is no business purpose other than avoiding taxes," Levin told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday. "The IRS ought to go after that, they ought to go after that heavily, they have not."

The committee estimates that using offshore entities to avoid paying U.S. taxes costs the federal treasury about $100 billion annually. The report did not put a specific amount on tax losses due to stock swaps and loans transactions with offshore entities, but said the amount is "substantial."

[...]

Levin said transactions aimed at avoiding U.S. dividend taxes have become widespread in the offshore hedge fund industry and that some of the funds function as shell companies controlled by Americans.

"It adds insult to injury when so-called 'offshore' hedge funds turn out to have a shell operation offshore and their real headquarters are in the
United States with U.S. personnel advising them on how to dodge U.S. taxes," said Levin.

...........and they're talkin' 'bout thowin' me in Debtor's Prison, and seizing everything I own, including wife, children, and pets, for owing less than $5,000.

Go figure......................

Submit To Propeller
Tweet