Want to avoid US corporate income tax? If you are a corporation, open a branch or a subsidiary in some really low tax country. The Bahamas and some other Caribbean island-nations are notorious. Apple chose Ireland, a reasonable EU country that let Apple pay 12% instead of the US 35%. Apple got such a good deal that the EU got on Ireland's case and demanded Apple pay a whole bunch more. If the EU finds it was a scandal, where was the American IRS? Uncle Sam was loosing out bigtime on the Irish-Apple deal. More so than the EU was.
Once an overseas subsidiary is established, it's easy for the company accountants to direct all sorts of earning to the subsidiary. Just running the bills thru the subsidiary can be enough. Even if the product is made in the US, shipped in the US, delivered in the US, but the bills go to the Bahamas, it's income in the Bahamas, not the US. We could tighten this up with some rules in our tax code. Call it inverse domestic content, if say 50% of the product's content is US content, then income from selling said product is US income. And we could ban transfer of intellectual property, say the rights to Disney films like Peter Pan, out of the United States. Between movies and music and computer programs, and books and suchlike, the US earns a lotta money, probably more than we do exporting automobiles and steel.
We probably need a world wide tax agreement, setting corporate tax rates the same all over the world. This would reduce the incentives for US companies, cursed with the highest tax rate in the world, to move abroad. To make this work, we would have to bring our corporate tax rate down to match places like Germany, Japan, and England. And once we have the first world on board, we pressure the tax havens like the Bahamas to shape up. We tell 'em if they want to do business in the first world, they gotta adopt first world corporate tax rates. If they don't listen, we tighten the screws on 'em.
Wanna bet nobody running for president ever talks about this?
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Let's go with Pence for VP
I stayed up to watch the VP debate. With both presidential candidates in, or near their seventies, and a world full of crazies, there is a distinct chance of the VP succeeding to the presidency. So do either of these two guys, Republican Mike Pence, and Democrat Tim Kaine look like they could cut it as president? Both of them are unknown to me. Governors of states so far away from NH that I never heard a word about them before.
Of the two, Republican Mike Pence made a much better impression on me. He seemed steadier, talked more of substance rather than just dishing up insults, which is all Democrat Tim Kaine did. I feel the country would be in good hands with Mike Pence should something happen to Trump. Not so much Tim Kaine, Hillary won't be much good as president and Kaine will be worse.
Kaine spent the night repeating every distasteful thing Trump has ever said or whining about Trump's personal taxes. Not very interesting, I have heard most of 'em, from Trump on live TV, or on instant replay with the morning TV pundits. Pence talked about his successes as governor, they sounded pretty good, lowered taxes, lowered unemployment, created a $2 billion surplus in the state government. Pence also talked about Republican plans to revive the national economy.\
The moderator, a lady from somewhere in the MSM, I don't know her, used each question to pet the democrats and slam the republicans. And the questions were light weight, just invitations for another flood of politician talk, feel good, commit to nothing speech or the kind that Obama is so good at.
Of the two, Republican Mike Pence made a much better impression on me. He seemed steadier, talked more of substance rather than just dishing up insults, which is all Democrat Tim Kaine did. I feel the country would be in good hands with Mike Pence should something happen to Trump. Not so much Tim Kaine, Hillary won't be much good as president and Kaine will be worse.
Kaine spent the night repeating every distasteful thing Trump has ever said or whining about Trump's personal taxes. Not very interesting, I have heard most of 'em, from Trump on live TV, or on instant replay with the morning TV pundits. Pence talked about his successes as governor, they sounded pretty good, lowered taxes, lowered unemployment, created a $2 billion surplus in the state government. Pence also talked about Republican plans to revive the national economy.\
The moderator, a lady from somewhere in the MSM, I don't know her, used each question to pet the democrats and slam the republicans. And the questions were light weight, just invitations for another flood of politician talk, feel good, commit to nothing speech or the kind that Obama is so good at.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
How should Boeing do its books?
What companies make, and report as income, depends on how they do their books. For Boeing, the problem is accounting for the fantastic expenses of new product development. Take the 787 program. Originally planned to cost $5 billion to develop, it went ten times that, $50 billion in outgo (expenses) before a single 787 could be sold. If Boeing had just reported the expenses in the year they were incurred, Boeing would have shown massive losses for five years in a row. Which would have done awful things to its stock value, its credit, and its image.
Boeing used "program accounting" instead. The horrible expenses of 787 development were held somewhere, off the books, until the 787 started to sell. Now these massive expenses are divvied up on each 787 sale, after sales begin. Which makes Boeing's books look a helova lot better during the development time. The Wall St Journal didn't explain a few crucial details, like how long Boeing can take to write down the 787 expenses. Clearly forecasting a production run of 50 years drops the expense per aircraft a lot compared to a production run of 10 years. Boeing could argue that since the old 747 stayed in production for 50 years, the newer and more fuel efficient 787 might last as long. And just where the expenses are recorded, (on the books, off the books, in the cloud, somewhere) is not mentioned. The Journal does say that "program accounting" is legal.
Spending $50 billion on new product development is clearly a good thing. Without the 787 Airbus would take over the market. We need a way for companies to make super expensive investments in plant, equipment, and new product development.
I'm not an accountant. In my simplistic view of the world, you do the books every year. You list expenses, and income, and report the profit or loss every year. But looking at the Boeing case, maybe we need "program accounting".
Boeing used "program accounting" instead. The horrible expenses of 787 development were held somewhere, off the books, until the 787 started to sell. Now these massive expenses are divvied up on each 787 sale, after sales begin. Which makes Boeing's books look a helova lot better during the development time. The Wall St Journal didn't explain a few crucial details, like how long Boeing can take to write down the 787 expenses. Clearly forecasting a production run of 50 years drops the expense per aircraft a lot compared to a production run of 10 years. Boeing could argue that since the old 747 stayed in production for 50 years, the newer and more fuel efficient 787 might last as long. And just where the expenses are recorded, (on the books, off the books, in the cloud, somewhere) is not mentioned. The Journal does say that "program accounting" is legal.
Spending $50 billion on new product development is clearly a good thing. Without the 787 Airbus would take over the market. We need a way for companies to make super expensive investments in plant, equipment, and new product development.
I'm not an accountant. In my simplistic view of the world, you do the books every year. You list expenses, and income, and report the profit or loss every year. But looking at the Boeing case, maybe we need "program accounting".
We ought to watch the VP debate tonight.
With both presidential candidates in their seventies or almost seventy, there is a distinct chance of a VP becoming president. I know little to nothing about either of the VP candidates. Watching 'em debate ought to tell me something.
Cooler weather slows the flies.
Makes 'em easier to hand swat. In the heat of summer I have to use bug bomb to kill 'em.
Monday, October 3, 2016
Sucking up all the Oxygen
The New York Slimes claims to have three pages of a Donald Trump income tax return from twenty years ago. They say that Trump took a loss of nearly $1 billion dollars that year. Wow. Not discussed, is how anyone, even The Donald, can stay in business after loosing a real $1 billion dollars in cash. Clever tax men, and The Donald hires the cleverest, can gin up paper losses as required. No discussion of this.
And, why are we discussing twenty year old tax returns? Especially twenty year old tax returns that passed IRS audit. And the IRS is auditing this year's tax return, and they won't do The Donald any favors. I'd sorta like to see The Donald's returns for 2015, but I can wait, the IRS can do The Donald more damage than the MSM can. And the IRS would enjoy doing the damage.
The tax loss carry forward provision has been in the tax code for a long time. I'm an amateur tax preparer (I do my own taxes) and I know about tax loss carry forward. When you loose money, you can deduct losses from previous years against this year's tax. I've never lost enough money to take advantage of it. And if you have $1 billion in allowed losses, you can carry it forward for quite a few years, especially if you haven't made much money in the succeeding years.
Tax loss carry forward is a loophole that ought to be closed. All it does is reward failure.
I'm with Carly Fiorina. Close every loophole, lower every rate.
And, why are we discussing twenty year old tax returns? Especially twenty year old tax returns that passed IRS audit. And the IRS is auditing this year's tax return, and they won't do The Donald any favors. I'd sorta like to see The Donald's returns for 2015, but I can wait, the IRS can do The Donald more damage than the MSM can. And the IRS would enjoy doing the damage.
The tax loss carry forward provision has been in the tax code for a long time. I'm an amateur tax preparer (I do my own taxes) and I know about tax loss carry forward. When you loose money, you can deduct losses from previous years against this year's tax. I've never lost enough money to take advantage of it. And if you have $1 billion in allowed losses, you can carry it forward for quite a few years, especially if you haven't made much money in the succeeding years.
Tax loss carry forward is a loophole that ought to be closed. All it does is reward failure.
I'm with Carly Fiorina. Close every loophole, lower every rate.
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Discipline for Wall St
Want to shape up Wall St? Put some risk in the game. Right now, they can play risky games, and when they loose, the tax payers bail them out. FDIC and all that. Since the risky games are high yield (except for when they become high loss) they keep on playing them. Step one, make it perfectly clear to everyone, that the next Wall St operation to go broke will stay broke, no bailout, anyone who gave them loans will loose, and the broke outfit's executives will be prosecuted for fraud.
Make a list of risky games, credit default swaps, mortgage backed securities, commodities trading, and the like. Either tax the bejesus out of them or make them illegal.
Forbid banks playing the stock market. Glass Steagall had it right.
Discourage banks from lending to each other. The purpose of a bank is to make loans for economic development. Lending money to another bank doesn't develop the economy. Loans should go to builders and businesses to build plant and equipment, buy inventory, or build houses. If the loan doesn't create anything that you can see, touch, or pack in a truck, it isn't developing the economy or creating jobs. Which means the bank should not be doing it. Discouragement can be taxes or worse.
Forbid banks selling mortgages. Mortgages are good investments, safe as houses they used to say. The borrower is highly motivated to make the payments on time, if for no other reason than to avoid the things his wife will say when they get foreclosed on. The collateral is fairly sound, and it's immobile, nobody can drive it out of state. Make a mortgage and the bank has to keep it, until the borrower pays it off, like when he sells the house. This way the banks won't make NINJA (No Income, No Job, No Assets) mortgages and, won't do balloon notes. And they won't crash the global economy with mortgage backed securities.
Make a list of risky games, credit default swaps, mortgage backed securities, commodities trading, and the like. Either tax the bejesus out of them or make them illegal.
Forbid banks playing the stock market. Glass Steagall had it right.
Discourage banks from lending to each other. The purpose of a bank is to make loans for economic development. Lending money to another bank doesn't develop the economy. Loans should go to builders and businesses to build plant and equipment, buy inventory, or build houses. If the loan doesn't create anything that you can see, touch, or pack in a truck, it isn't developing the economy or creating jobs. Which means the bank should not be doing it. Discouragement can be taxes or worse.
Forbid banks selling mortgages. Mortgages are good investments, safe as houses they used to say. The borrower is highly motivated to make the payments on time, if for no other reason than to avoid the things his wife will say when they get foreclosed on. The collateral is fairly sound, and it's immobile, nobody can drive it out of state. Make a mortgage and the bank has to keep it, until the borrower pays it off, like when he sells the house. This way the banks won't make NINJA (No Income, No Job, No Assets) mortgages and, won't do balloon notes. And they won't crash the global economy with mortgage backed securities.
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