Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Want to Avoid $600 Billion in Corporate Tax ? Go to Puerto Rico, USA

NOTE : You may also benefit from PR Law 22 which allows people to move to Puerto Rico, USA and not pay Puerto Rico State or Federal taxes. All this money generated in the island, and it doesn't enter the local or national economy!

Oh.. by the way...due to this and other similar bad decisions made by our political leaders, we puertoricans are requesting the US to allow us to qualify to apply for Bankruptcy. 

As a result, about 600,000 tax paying citizens have abandoned the island in the last few years and moved to another area in the US.

MJ

Fortune 500 Corporations Are Likely Avoiding $600 Billion in Corporate Tax Using Offshore Tax Havens

September 3, 2015
As Labor Day weekend approaches, a tanned and rested Congress is poised to return to Washington to hash out corporate tax changes. Much of the debate over corporate tax reform in Washington sensibly focuses on how to encourage Fortune 500 corporations to repatriate and pay U.S. taxes on the $2.1 trillion on profits they have declared to be “permanently reinvested” (and thereby free of U.S. taxes) overseas. But an overlooked fact in this debate is just how much tax companies have avoided by keeping these profits (on paper, at least) offshore. An April 2015 CTJ report estimates that Fortune 500 corporations likely have avoided $600 billion in federal income taxes on these offshore profits.
Corporations declaring their intention to keep profits permanently offshore are required to estimate, if possible, the amount of U.S. tax they would pay if they repatriate these profits. Most companies legally avoid complying with this rule simply by declaring that it is too complex to make the calculation. But CTJ went through corporate filings and found 57 Fortune 500 corporations do comply. (See table below for details) These companies estimate they would pay a 29 percent tax rate on repatriation. (Since the federal tax on repatriated profits is 35 percent minus any taxes already paid to foreign countries, this means these companies have paid an average tax rate of just 6 percent on these profits, an indicator that much of this income is being kept in low-rate tax havens.)
Hundreds of other companies with offshore cash fail to make this disclosure, so it is impossible to know precisely how much corporate income tax they have avoided on their offshore cash. But if these companies, which include notorious tax avoiders General Electric, Pfizer, Merck and IBM, owed tax at the same 29 percent average rate reported by disclosing companies, the unpaid tax bill on Fortune 500 corporations’ offshore cash would be $600 billion (that is, $2.1 trillion times 29 percent). Since almost two-thirds of Fortune 500 corporations disclose owning subsidiaries based in offshore tax havens, it seems likely that many of these corporations are sheltering their “permanently invested” profits in these havens.
Congressional tax writers are sensibly focusing their energies on finding a way to make companies with offshore cash pay at least some tax on these profits. But CTJ’s finding suggests that any plan that would bring in less than $600 billion would amount to yet another giveaway for corporate tax dodgers.  


57 Companies That Disclose Likely Tax Payments from Repatriation
 UnrepatriatedEstimated  
 IncomeTax BillImpliedImplied Foreign
Company Name$ Millions$MillionsTax RateTax Rate
Hertz Global Holdings  $ 475 $ 18438.7%0.0%
Owens Corning 1,40051136.5%0.0%
Safeway 1806536.1%0.0%
Amgen 29,30010,50035.8%0.0%
Qualcomm 25,7009,10035.4%0.0%
Gilead Sciences 15,6005,50035.3%0.0%
Wynn Resorts 41214435.0%0.0%
Advanced Micro Devices 34912235.0%0.0%
AK Steel Holding 271034.9%0.1%
Biogen Idec 4,6001,55033.7%1.3%
Western Digital 8,2002,70032.9%2.1%
Apple 157,80051,61532.7%2.3%
Microsoft 92,90029,60031.9%3.1%
Nike 6,6002,10031.8%3.2%
PNC Financial Services Group 772431.2%3.8%
American Express 9,7003,00030.9%4.1%
Oracle 32,40010,00030.9%4.1%
FMC Technologies 1,61949230.4%4.6%
Baxter International 13,9004,20030.2%4.8%
NetApp 3,00089629.9%5.1%
Symantec 3,20091828.7%6.3%
Wells Fargo 1,80051328.5%6.5%
Group 1 Automotive 17528.1%6.9%
Jacobs Engineering Group 26728.0%7.0%
Leucadia National 1714626.9%8.1%
Clorox 1865026.9%8.1%
Citigroup 43,80011,60026.5%8.5%
Bank of America Corp. 17,2004,50026.2%8.8%
Air Products & Chemicals 5,8941,46624.9%10.1%
Northern Trust 1,10025523.2%11.8%
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. 31,1007,00022.5%12.5%
Ameriprise Financial 1804022.2%12.8%
State Street Corp. 4,20087620.9%14.1%
Kraft Foods Group 57811820.4%14.6%
Bank of New York Mellon Corp. 6,0001,20020.0%15.0%
Walt Disney 1,90037719.8%15.2%
Lockheed Martin 2915518.9%16.1%
Goldman Sachs Group 24,8804,66018.7%16.3%
Graham Holdings 581118.3%16.7%
Viacom 2,50043817.5%17.5%
Tenneco 73712116.4%18.6%
Sherwin-Williams 4114.6%20.4%
Gap 5817212.4%22.6%
Cigna 1,80021812.1%22.9%
Morgan Stanley 7,36484111.4%23.6%
Murphy Oil 6,04568411.3%23.7%
Caesars Entertainment 1181311.0%24.0%
Paccar 4,1004009.8%25.2%
Anixter International 679527.6%27.4%
Laboratory Corp. of America 3026.4%28.6%
W.R. Berkley 5835.3%29.7%
Ford Motor 4,3002004.7%30.3%
PPG Industries 5,0002004.0%31.0%
Rock-Tenn 24093.7%31.3%
Timken 487102.1%32.9%
Occidental Petroleum 9,9001401.4%33.6%
Assurant 16310.6%34.4%
TOTAL  $ 590,926 $ 169,41228.7%6.3%
Source: CTJ analysis of companies' 10-Ks

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