Introduction
Double taxation arises when an individual or business acquiring income in a foreign country is required to pay taxes on that income in both the foreign country as well as the country of origin. For example, an American company operating in a developing country, in the absence of a tax treaty between the two countries may have to pay a withholding tax to the government of the developing country, as well as corporation tax to the United States government (Howard, 2001, p. 259).
The purpose of this paper is to examine the merit of three basic systems, which is exemption system, credit system and deduction system. These systems are dealings with the essence of tax relief from international double taxation.
A discussion of
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Hence it is frequently used term of capital import neutrality. In general, it can be said that a tax exemption system encourages businesses to trade outside their home country, thus accelerating the trends towards globalization and increase of global welfare.
Countries that are purely on exemption system are often referred to as "tax havens" because the country does not tax any foreign source income (FSI) earned by individuals or corporations that have that country as their home country (Stephens, 1998).
A tax haven is a place where foreigners may receive income or own assets without paying high rates of taxes. Generally speaking, the main characteristic of a tax haven is a very low effective tax rate on foreign income. Major tax havens are the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Panama, and Singapore. Most tax havens are developing countries where governments believe that tax haven status would accelerate their rate of economic growth (Howard, 2001, p.256).
The Tax-Credit System
The credit system allows tax paid in one state to be used as credit against a taxpayer's liability in another state. The credit will be in the
countries such as Tiajuana, and Brazil, and apply to them a flat rate tax. In exchange,
One tax issue that presents no problem for a U.S. investor is the question of crediting taxes it has paid to a foreign country against taxes it would have to pay the U.S. on its federal return.
However, the companies only have to pay the U.S. tax for foreign revenues once they bring the profits back to the United States. As a result of these current tax laws, U.S. companies that seek to avoid high corporate tax rates hold their foreign earned profits overseas. “It just makes no sense to pay a substantial tax on it,” said Joseph Kennedy, a senior fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (Rubin, R.). It is far too easy for an IT corporation to create a patent in a foreign country and direct revenue to a corporation within that country, thus avoiding the much higher U.S. tax rates. According to Joint Committee on Taxation estimates, the lost revenue is increasing over time as corporations find even more creative ways to make their U.S. profits look like offshore income (Richards, K., & Craig, J.). As result, multinational American corporations have as much as $2 trillion held in overseas subsidiaries and if brought into the United States with the current tax laws, the federal government could benefit by nearly $50 billion per year.
Using the Internet or Strayer Library, research at least two (2) countries that have a zero income tax rate.
Managing assessment safe houses and different strategies utilized by rich people and expansive organizations to evade duty is significant; the measure of cash lost by creating nations to expense safe houses surpasses all universal advancement aid. This increments worldwide imbalance as well as implies that a higher extent of open consumption must be financed by citizens in lower pay bunches. In numerous nations tax assessment, has stopped to be fundamentally
The main objective of many companies is to minimize their tax obligations. Jeffers (2014) discussed the reason of why companies adopt tax inversion strategies. The researcher indicated that the income maximization is a major reason of companies attempting to reduce their tax liability (pp. 100-101). Tax inversion strategies provide companies an advantage to lower income tax rate. Today, U.S. corporations renounce its U.S. citizenship and move to low-tax countries. Companies that reincorporate oversees are not obligated to pay U.S. taxes on earning income (p. 99). Many countries implement tax competition strategies to attract and retain businesses. Well-known companies, such as Exxon Mobil, Hewlett Packard, Tyco, General Electric, PepsiCo, etc. take benefits of tax shelter opportunities overseas (p. 102). Other benefits of the jurisdiction abroad are flexible banking laws and simplified litigation processes.
“The United States has the highest corporate tax rate of the 34 developed, free-market nations that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The marginal corporate tax rate in the United States is 35% at the federal level… according to the 2013 OECD Tax Database. The global average is much lower, at 25%” (Fontinelle, 2014). Even though there are ways for businesses to decrease or even avoid these payments, this high figure deters foreign investors from considering the United States for business and sends them looking in more favorable countries like Canada or Ireland. Adding to pushing away potential foreign investors, U.S. firms flee to those tax favorable places to avoid it. “When these companies move their headquarters or create foreign subsidiaries, jobs and profits move overseas” (Fontinelle,
9. The Internet company Google managed to avoid $2 billion in international income taxes in 2011 by moving a hefty sum of its revenues to subsidiaries in Bermuda, according to CNBC, which cited a report by Bloomberg.[1] The search giant reportedly stashed $9.8 billion in revenues to its shell company in Bermuda — which doesn't have a corporate income tax — last year allowing the company to shave its overall tax rate by almost 50 percent. Google's Bermuda move was disclosed in a Nov. 21 filing by a subsidiary in the Netherlands. While the company's move to shift funds to the country was legal, it could spur the growing global criticism of corporate tax
However, the introduction of such a law becomes increasingly difficult when the companies being questioned are some of the largest and wealthiest in the world. In order to truly understand the stature of these companies, one would need to look into some of the statistics regarding them. Remarkably, according to Al Jazeera America “the largest 500 U.S. companies would owe an estimated $620 billion in U.S. taxes” if they had to declare all their overseas stockpiles, of around $2.1 trillion (“Al Jazeera America”). In addition, it found that “three-quarters of the 500 biggest companies utilize tax havens”. The top three offenders included Apple, General Electric and Microsoft. In many cases according to the report, the money is not being utilized to improve foreign economies. By this they mean to say that, U.S. businesses were not using their overseas profit to build factories and employ individuals. Instead, the overseas profit was a result of accounting tricks purposely implemented to benefit the business alone. To put all of this in perspective, the United States is losing billions of dollars to foreign economies. These taxes are being introduced into countries such as Ireland and Luxembourg. In other words the money that should be invested in the United States of America on public services, is being
Foremost, most nation’s taxing systems characteristically have five main features that either make them greatly competitive or not. Competitiveness includes desirability for both the society and business activity. A nations corporate rate, its consumption tax, property tax, the individual tax, and its international (global or territorial) are what make up the core features of competiveness. But is the competiveness of a nation’s taxing system related for both industrialized and developing nations? The answer is yes, but not completely.
A tax is the duty set through the national government on a sent out or imported administration or great to dishearten or energize exchange. The diminished exchange confinements presented by NAFTA
Should the flat tax rate system be implemented? No, the flat tax rate system should not be implemented. In this paper, the pro arguments will be presented, which will affirm the thesis. Then the con arguments will be presented. A rebuttal will then follow, and finally, the author’s conclusion will be offered.
A tax haven is a country that offers foreign corporations and individuals relatively low corporate and income tax rates, with a politically and economically stable environment. Some tax havens are Switzerland, Hong Kong, Bermuda, Ireland, and the Cayman Islands. Although the businesses have moved across seas, the United States forces them to pay the corporate tax. Fortunately for the businesses, it they keep their income and money across seas they do not have to the pay the American corporate tax, Unfortunately this is ghastly for the United States Government businesses keep their products and profits over seas.
The actions of multinational corporations (MNCs), which derive from their morally dubious goals, may be completely legitimate within a capitalist society. One of these actions that will be examined in this essay is the use of tax havens, as a way of avoiding higher tax liability. This paper will utilise the case study of Apple’s tax avoidance, in examining the legitimation of a company’s goal of profit maximisation, a goal that is against the moral/social consensus
Taxation systems are usually modeled in such a way that they take into consideration the social welfare of the citizens. The government and other policy makers have the responsibility of ensuring that the system takes into account the needs of the citizens. The bottom line is that taxation should foster equal distribution of resources. The rate of taxation is usually arrived at after several considerations have been made. The rates are not fixed as they depend on the various economic changes. The issue of how taxation should be distributed among the different economic classes is yet to be addressed.