Tonight on 60 Minutes: Tax havens: Do companies pay their fair share?

[Electric Monk]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20047260-10391709.html?tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea.1


As the tax deadline approaches, business owners across America are staring down a 35 percent tax rate. But not every company pays. "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl reveals the new games companies play to lower their tax rates, sometimes down to single digits.

For her story on the "60 Minutes" broadcast, Lesley and her producer Shachar Bar-On traveled all the way Zug, a quaint, medieval town in Switzerland where the corporate tax rate is about 16 percent. As Stahl reports, corporate pressure to transform internal tax planning departments into profit centers has driven multinational corporations like Weatherford International to "move" to the tiny Swiss town. But when Lesley landed in Zug and went looking for these companies' headquarters, all she found was a few empty mailboxes.

[highplainsdem]

1. Thanks for the heads-up!

[Proud Liberal Dem]

2. This is news to me

that this is news.
:banghead:


Hasn't this stuff been common knowledge for some time? :shrug:

[PBass]

5. It bears repeating often, especially in the mainstream media

because "US corporations are over-taxed" is a popular rightwing talking point, now that we have a Soshulist president.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

14. Oh I agree 100%

I guess it's nice that somebody finally decided to mention it on a major news program

[Bluzmann57]

3. They're investigating that?

The answer is NO! Ok, now on to something else.
But maybe if 60 Minutes points it out, people will listen. So investigate away.

[xchrom]

4. Better late than never? Nt

[krkaufman]

6. Ok, did anyone else watch this segment?

I just had this segment on over in my right ear, whilst working on the computer, and it didn't come across as some great muckraking investigative piece on American corporations screwing over the country. Rather, it seemed to me that the story was used as an opportunity to frame American corporate taxes as too high and that we should listen to the wise and great leader of Cisco Systems, John(?) Chambers, and grant a one-time tax amnesty to allow American corporations to repatriate the 100s of billion$ they have offshore.

I was surprised to see 60 Minutes advertising and airing a tax haven piece, but Stahl's angle on the story cleared that up, right quick.

[Electric Monk]

8. Yes, that's what I got out of it as well. We must think of those poor corporations!

All that money overseas they'd just looooove to pump back into the American economy, if only all corporate tax rates were cut in half.

:/

[lz1122]

22. Exactly same position as you

Was on my computer with this in the background and it sounded like it was a sob story for these corporations. It's kind of surprising that Google is one of them considering the support between Obama and Google. Then again Virgina Commonwealth University with a head coach that has a first name of Shaka is in the Final Four so maybe if we keep fighting there is hope. A great story out of Richmond that can be carried over to politics for the working class.

[chelsea0011]

9. Leslie Stahl glossed over the lowering of the rate in 2005 without mentioning

it created few, if any, jobs.

[shraby]

11. You nailed it! A sob story for the obscene rich companies.

[anneboleyn]

12. That was my reaction too. It was a threat: lower our taxes to 5% or we'll leave forever and ever.

[highplainsdem]

24. My reaction, too. I was disgusted. As for the talk of Ireland - those companies don't pay the full

tax rate there, either, and the Irish economy is in trouble and the corporations are threatening to leave if the corporate tax rate is raised even slightly: Other European countries are unhappy with Ireland for wanting to keep its corporate tax rate so low, and that makes them less likely to help Ireland in other ways. The multinationals are pretty much holding the Irish economy hostage.

[Enthusiast]

25. You have it correct.

It was couched in 'old' 60 Minutes appearances but in reality it was the new and improved pro-corporate 60 Minutes that we can no longer rely on for truth. This was pretty obvious to me.

After that piece I was depressed for hours. We need real investigative journalism on TV not this fake bullshit propaganda.

The poor corporations suffering as they have.

[chelsea0011]

7. Cisco's CEO cries poverty and says he has to have companies in Ireland

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/Unemployment-Rate.aspx?Symbol=IEP

But Ireland's unemployment rate is 14.6%. So how is the low tax rate helping? The US tax rate is 35% and the unemployment rate is under 10% (probably really much higher). So why is Ireland so much better off? As usual it only helps the CEO's. What else is new?

[Enthusiast]

26. Excellent point!

Also in the U.S. corporations are just holding the jobs hostage until their congressional allies lower wages, taxes and regulations. Then perhaps they will create some jobs. Maybe, maybe not.

[high density]

10. This was a fucking joke of a report

Oh the poor companies, we force them offshore with our taxes! I think as long as the tax rate is above 0%, these greedy traitors will continue their shenanigans.

[GCP]

13. Agreed

One-sided propaganda piece.

[spanone]

16. cbs is a huge CORPORATION

[JHB]

15. Tell you what. Why don't you just bring the money home...

...and pay your goddam taxes!

[bluestate10]

19. OR.

You can buy products and services from companies that DO stay in the USA and pay their taxes. Corporations are going to push the bubble, some resort to tricks like moving to offshore tax haven. Meanwhile some companies refuse to do that, guess what, they and their products get ignored by pissed off DUERs while the same DUERs buy the products of the tax dodgers. Tell me who is the enemy?

[Enthusiast]

27. "Tell me who is the enemy?"

According to you the enemy is the DUer. I do not agree.

[Bombero1956]

17. more like this

Corporate America saying we'll bring that money back here if you lower the tax rate to 20%. How about if you give us a tax amnesty rate of 5% and we'll more than happy bring that money here for a little while. I heard the term "level the playing field" from the economist. To me it sounded like a protection racket.

[PA Democrat]

18. The EU is telling Ireland it must raise PERSONAL income taxes

to close their deficit. Look out poor and middle class. You must make sacrifices so the corporations will stay and throw you scraps.

[indypaul]

20. Last I heard Ireland and Switzerland were not fighting

two or three wars overseas either. Making the world
safe for overseas operations cost money we don't have and
the corporations do. Figure it out Congress that's what you
get the big bucks for.

[RKP5637]

21. Thanks for the heads up! Watched it, it was like watching a lobbying effort to lower corp. taxes and

still keep the jobs off shored.

[U4ikLefty]

23. The used the common trickery of calling out the TAX RATE and not

the actual taxes paid after all the loopholes & accounting tricks.

[alp227]

28. i missed 60 minutes last night and planned to watch it on youtube,

and I normally like Lesley Stahl, but now that I've seen the responses here and some Thom Hartmann callers, and maybe I'll heard something from FAIR.org, I'll skip this. Thanks for the warnings.

[Name removed]

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