Tax dodging is rife in the US.
According to a report from the Tax Justice Network, the US is the country that loses the most money from tax evasion. It costs the US economy more than $337 billion. Let's be clear about one thing: tax evasion is a crime against society and a crime against democracy.
So why does the US have this sort of problem. It's all about corporate lobbying, throwing money at politicians and getting them to do favours. A study has found that 78 of America's biggest companies paid no federal income tax in at least one of the last three years and that 30 companies enjoyed a negative income tax rate over the three year period. That's despite them generating pre-tax profits of $160 billion. There are all sorts of tax rorts in America like "accelerated depreciation," which allows companies to write off investments faster than they wear out. The companies just subtract the falling value of the investments from their taxable income. All you have to do is make a bad investment. And as Bloomberg reports, Apple, Google and Cisco have hired an army of more than 160 lobbyists, including at least 60 who once worked for a sitting member of the House or Senate, to change the laws so that they can get a tax holiday on more than $1 trillion of offshore profits.
All this comes at a time when Congress is cutting budgetsin areas like unemployment and hospitals.
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