Tax Avoidance And The Legal Right Of An Individual

Tax avoidance has become a massive topic of discussion over the past few years, given the current global economic conditions and the cuts to the public sector by the government as a result. This led to increased anger from the public who perceive avoidance by many of the country’s wealthiest people in a time of austerity as greed. Perhaps the most notable demonstration of this anger can be seen in the actions of the group UK Uncut, who for the past year have been organising protests at shops owned by retail tycoon Philip Green who, as the poster boy for tax avoidance, paid a £1.2 billion dividend to his Monaco-resident wife.

With the advancements in the globalization of the economy, corporations are finding more ways to avoid the extraordinary tax rates set in place of The United States Of America. With the loss of revenue from large companies dodging taxes the government must make up for the loss by either raising taxes or changing the tax code. A recent company to avoid american taxes is Johnson Controls, a company that “…would not exist as it is today but for American taxpayers, who paid $80 billion in 2008…”(The Editorial Board). This use of American resources to get through tough times, and run to another county during an economic incline is an act that calls for reform in the American tax system. However congress has not passed any legislation to fix the

Companies in the US are finding clever deceiving ways to get what they want. Many companies like Google are investing offshore to avoid American taxes. Others like the company Monsanto uses

In recent years, more than twenty major American companies have left the United States and moved overseas to take advantage of lower tax rates, taking with them jobs and investments (Allen, D). The recent surge of interest in United States corporate inversions has triggered calls for Congress to put an end to the practice. A corporate inversion is when an American company merges with a foreign business and moves the combined business’s headquarters to the foreign country. Inversions are a problem because they are a symptom of a broken tax system that is hurting the United States economy. Furthermore, with the strict laws concerning inversions, some companies opt to direct profits to their foreign subsidiaries to take advantage of lower

Throughout years large American industrial companies have been running away from U.S. taxes, but there has been a new change. Companies such as Apple and Google have been affected by a change foreign countries are going through collecting higher taxes than before. It seems as if no longer can these companies get away with paying low taxes. This is happening because the European Commission have passed an order to collect high taxes. One example is Ireland who was ordered to collect fourteen billion dollars from Apple, which brought a surprise to this company. Companies have run out of places to run and pay one percent or less of taxes in foreign places, instead of paying back home.

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,

A sustainable budget with crackdowns on tax avoidance and loopholes, address the issue of tax avoidance that are cause by legal

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

Tax inversion can be commonly found to be used in America. Tax inversion is when a corporation or business relocates their operation overseas to reduce how much taxes they have to pay. When companies are picking a country to relocate to they are mostly looking for one that has lower tax rates and little to no corporate requirements. I can see in way why corporations take this route when it comes to high tax rates, but looking at it from a bigger picture I believe that corporation should not be allowed to relocate to avoid tax rates. Taxes are vital to the economy as they play a big role in our life every day. Taxes pay for public schools, police department, roadwork, public transportation, and much more. I have personally used many of the services

Many large corporations are not paying their fair share of taxes, including what is legally required of them. They use tax breaks, loop holes, and so on. Many corporations pay no federal income taxes at all, stashing their cash in off shore tax havens around the world… causing us to lose over $100 billion a year in revenue.

The United States of America, a country driven by business, money, and technological advancement, has the third highest corporate income tax rate in the world; the highest among the thirty-four industrialized nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (Pomerleau, 1). Large corporations that have developed in the United States have recognized this. In 1982, McDermott Inc., with the help of its lawyers, developed a strategy in which they could continue with their business, founded in New Orleans, without having to be punished by the prohibitive tax rates employed by the U.S. government (Mider, 2). Thus, the corporate tax inversion was conceived; an idea that allowed businessmen and women that have used

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