60 Minutes on Corporate Taxes
28th March 2011
American corporations moving business overseas to avoid America’s high corporate tax rates was the topic of a thirteen-and-a-half minute story by Leslie Stahl on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” show Sunday.
On a certain level, it was an illuminating story, because it showed how America’s high corporate tax rate essentially pushes economic activity to lower-tax jurisdictions overseas. But it was also a frustrating story to watch, because, like the Times, “60 Minutes” seems to be coming at it from the perspective of wanting to dream up some way to force the companies to pay higher taxes.
Indeed, for a sane person to watch a Voice of the Crust in action is highly frustrating. But one must remember that there is an Agenda here, and that Agenda has little to do with what we used to call Common Sense.
Everything for the State; nothing outside the State; nothing against the State. — Benito Mussolini
By attempting to avoid taxes, corporations violate Fascist Principle #1; by doing so by escaping overseas, they violate Fascist Principle #2. Neither can be tolerated.
One of my key tests for a country has always been whether people are lined up trying to sneak in or lined up trying to sneak out. East Berlin, North Korea, and the Soviet Union are bad by that test; America is good, because immigrants want to come here. You could apply a similar test to countries for whether companies want to be based there. America shouldn’t have to pass some kind of law preventing companies from moving their operations to Zug or Ireland, as Mr. Doggett seems to suggest. We should have laws that create such an attractive business environment that the companies in Zug and in Ireland are falling over themselves trying to figure out a way to move here.
A good rule of thumb.