Off shore tax shelters and Apple Computer

Congress was holding an Apple Roast yesterday.  Apparently (at least this is what NPR thinks) Apple has an overseas subsidiary in Bermuda, to which substantial Apple income is directed, and Bermuda has little to no corporate income tax.  Which is kinda slippery, but as I understand US tax law, Apple is liable for full US corporate tax should they bring the money home from Bermuda.  Apple presumably doesn't need the money at home right now,  things are bad and there is nothing Apple want to spend it on.  This is not unusual, many US companies are sitting on their money and not investing it.
   However, we ought to straighten out  US tax law just to prevent more financial jiggery pokery.   We ought to restrict the sort of country that US companies can set up in.  Real countries such as England or France or Germany are fine, they all have reasonable national tax laws.  But Bermuda isn't a real country, it's a subtropical vacation island.
  We ought to forbid US companies from setting up in places too small, and/or too flaky to be reasonable.  Places with a national territory less than  say 25,000 square miles, or with populations less than a couple of million are not real countries, they are diplomatic fictions, like Monaco.  We ought to tell US companies that setting up in such places is plain old tax fraud and IRS will audit, every year, every place.  And credit all income to such a subsidery to the US parent company and tax it at 35%.

Take the fifth, loose your job.

Lois Lerner,  IRS official, exact rank unknown, was the lady in charge of the tax exempt approval department.  That's the department that decided to stall any organization with "Tea Party" or "Patriot" in their name.  Yesterday she refused to answer questions before a Congressional Committee, citing the fifth amendment, which protects citizens from testifying against them selves.  Up until now, only Mafia figures, and one Nixon Administration official used the fifth amendment in court.  Every knows you don't take the fifth unless you are actually guilty. 
  For taking the fifth, Lois ought to be fired from the IRS.  I don't want someone that guilty having anything to do with anyone's taxes.  I understand she is on "administrative leave" with full pay.  She ought to be fired, for good, and her cushy civil service retirement canceled. 
  The way to prevent this from happening again, it to make things unpleasant for everyone we can catch.  While we are at it, Lois's superiors ought to be fired, as well as her principle subordinates. 

Closing Guantanamo

Obama still wants to close the place.  But what to do with the inmates?  Can't turn em loose cause it's clear to all but the dumbest, that these guys are dangerous, if released they will head right back to Afghanistan and go to work doing terrorism.  Congress and the voters don't want 'em in the US for fear that some irresponsible bat brained judge will turn 'em loose.  The reason for putting 'em off shore in Guantanamo in the first place was to get 'em beyond the reach of US judges who nobody trusts. To keep the Guantanamo population down, Obama has ordered terrorists to be killed rather than captured.  Very humane that is.

Steamtown, the railfan's delight

Back in the 1950's  F. Nelson Blount, a New England railfan with money, started a collection of steam engines.  That decade the railroads were scrapping steamers and replacing them with diesels, so there were plenty of used steamers available for scrap metal prices.  Nelson collected a lot of 'em and parked them in Vermont at Bellows Falls.  I saw them in Vermont nearly fifty years ago.  Sometime after Nelson's death the collection of rusty iron got moved to Scranton PA, and the National Park Service stepped up and is now running it.  The park ranger conducting the engine shop tour explained about how 2009 Porkulus money went to fixing leaks in their roundhouse roof. 
   I decided to vary my flight plan down to DC and take in Scranton.  As long as I had the car loaded and going, why not go a little bit round about and take in Steamtown?  The road to Scranton is I84 which starts in Hartford, Conn, and goes west, crossing the Hudson north of NYC at Newburg and getting to Scranton some 73 miles later.  The Connecticut portion of I84 winds thru the Berkshire mountains, and is narrower and curvier than most interstates.  Once across the PA border, the road gets wider and straighter and pretty much like all the rest of the interstates.  The 40 miles from the PA border need to be repaved.  Getting closer to Scranton, it has been repaved and is very decent. 
   They say the US economy is still in recession.  The amount of semi trailer truck traffic on I84 is astounding, recession or no recession.  Awful lot of 57 foot trailers loaded with stuff, barreling along, going somewhere.  Brand new shiny tractors, Mack, Peterbuilt, Kenworth, White, all worth probably $70K apiece or better.  There may not be any jobs in this economy, but it's still producing a lot of stuff.
    Steamtown is the old Lackawanna rail yard.  They have a few steamers all repainted and looking ready to run, and a lot more looking terribly rusty, paint mostly gone.  They have maybe ten in the shop in various phases of rebuild.  They don't have any steamers still running, the excursion train was pulled by an Electro-Motive GP-7, painted for the Nickel Plate Road.  I walked down to Steamtown from the motel around 9:30, and stayed on my feet til I got back to the motel at 3PM.  Feet are still sore.
  All in all, a fun day.   
  

U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. To Be Signed 3 June

This is interesting.  The defense industry, speaking in Aviation Week, wants to pass it.  They say US companies already have to do all kinds of paperwork and put up with interminable delays from US bureaucrats, think the treaty will impose the same burdens on their international competitors.  In short, level the playing field by tying everyone's hands in red tape.  The international peace groups like Oxfam and the Arms Control Association like it 'cause they think it will make it harder for militants and militaries to get more guns. 
  The NRA is against it.  Writing in the pages of American Rifleman, the NRA magazine, Chris Cox, director of the NRA efforts to expand concealed carry rights, says that the treaty calls upon member states to keep track of each imported firearm, which sounds a lot like gun registration to the NRA. The treaty does not support the second amendment rights, in fact it encourages banning civilian ownership of firearms. 
   Thomas Countryman, assistant secretary of state, the cookie pusher in charge of getting the treaty thru the UN and signed, says he expects the US to sign the treaty on 3 June.  He admits that the Senate probably won't ratify it but he is hoping it will take effect anyhow.  He cites the old nuclear teat ban treaty that the Senate refused to ratify but three different US administrations have maintained its restrictions.  There are 34 senators, including a couple of democrats who oppose the treaty. 
   Interesting part is the Aviation Week supporting the idea and the American Rifeman opposing it arrived in my mailbox on the same day.

Black Bear seen in Lincoln and Weston (Massachusetts)

Front page story in the Boston papers.  They did get one photo that is better than my bear photos.  Officials said the bear is probably foraging for food.  No kidding.  What else do bears do in the woods?   Incidentally Lincoln and Weston are about the toniest of the Boston suburbs, located just outside Rt 128.  Kinda place where houses go for $500,000 and up.    

Why the IRS targeted the Tea Party

Perhaps this letter from eight sitting US senators had something to do with it.  Dated February of last year and signed by the likes of Charlie Schumer (D-NY) Al Franken (D-MidwestSomeplace) and our very own Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)  and four others, it complains that organizations applying for tax exempt status under 501(c)4 are actually sinister political organizations trying to dodge taxes.  It goes on to urge an IRS crackdown on them.   Although addressed to the then IRS commissioner, Douglas Shulman, want to bet the content of the letter was shared around the IRS internal grapevine?   And a bunch of the usual leftie greenie democratic bureaucrats decided to do something about it?  I mean when you have seven US senators egging you on, it cannot be illegal can it?
  Be careful what you ask for.
  And we really need to get out republican votes against our senator Jeanne Shaheen.  Any one who would join forces with the likes of Charlie Schumer and Al Franken cannot be good for New Hampshire.  She is up for re election in 2014.