Tax Avoidance by the Wealthiest, like Hillary & the Donald, costs US $130 BILLION/year
Outstanding, eh?
When It Comes to Taxes, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Have 1 Thing in Common
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Tax avoidance by the wealthiest Americans—including the presidential front-runners—costs the US government an additional $130 billion per year.
The Nation
By Nomi Prins YESTERDAY 2:59 PM
.......snip.......While the two leading candidates for the presidency, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, have indeed suggested cosmetic fixes for a situation that only grows more extreme with the passage of time, they have themselves taken advantage of numerous tax “efficiency” strategies that make money evaporate. Of course, you shouldn’t doubt for a second that they’ll change their ways once in the Oval Office.
.......Fast-forward about a century and tax dodging has been woven into the fabric of the lives of the affluent and corporate worldwide in an extraordinary way. According to an April 2016 Oxfam report, the top 50 US companies are hoarding more than $1.4 trillion in cash offshore.
What’s more, for every dollar that these firms spent lobbying Congress for “favorable” tax treatment (a collective total of $2.6 billion between 2008 and 2014), they received $130 dollars in tax breaks and $4,000 in subsidies from the US government. These companies, including Pfizer, Goldman Sachs, Dow Chemical, Chevron, Walmart, IBM, and Procter & Gamble, created “an opaque and secretive network” of more than 1,600 company subsidiaries located in tax havens that they decided to disclose. (Because of the weak reporting requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission, there could be thousands more.) According to a March 3 report from the Citizens for Tax Justice, the Fortune 500 companies are now saving $695 billion in federal income taxes on a total of $2.4 trillion in offshore holdings.
Americans can’t afford to ignore such tax games, since we’re the ones who, in effect, wind up paying the taxes these firms don’t.
For government policymakers, such tax evasion is a grim matter of attrition, since the United States (and other countries) plunge ever deeper into debt thanks to such antics and then find themselves cutting services or raising taxes on us to cover the gap between the money they’re losing and the taxes they’re collecting.
.......big huge snip of interesting stuff..........
Like many gilt-edged couples, Hillary and Bill Clinton have themselves utilized onshore and offshore tax loopholes. In 2010, they used a common tax-dodging technique by placing their multimillion-dollar home in Chappaqua, New York, in a “residence trust.” After he left office, Bill spent five years as an “adviser” to billionaire (now ex-pal) Ron Burkle’s investment fund, Yucaipa Global, which had funds registered in the Cayman Islands and Dubai. That alliance netted Bill at least $15 million.
Hillary’s bedrock thinking on money flowing out of the US and into the offshore world can best be seen in her support for the 2012 US-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement when she was secretary of state. The agreement removed “barriers to US services, including financial services,” which actually simplified the process of squirreling money away in or through Panama by allowing it to flow freely into that country.
The Clinton Foundation inhales donations from people using tax havens (including Panama). Although Hillary denounced Mossack Fonseca’s dealings on cue after the Panama Papers story broke, a number of individuals and multinationals that have contributed to the foundation used MF to establish offshore accounts, according to McClatchy....
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http://www.thenation.com/article/when-it-comes-to-taxes-donald-trump-and-hillary-clinton-have-one-thing-in-common/
Nothing like having unPatriotic presidential contenders. 
USA! 
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