R i g h t a r d i a: When will America stop kissing corporate asses?

Corporate cry babies

If a corporation wants to offshore a plant, the government says fine and gives them a tax break to move offshore.

If a corporation, which is now a foreign entity, wants to sell its products to the government, no problem! You have the same competitive advantages as a US based corporation.

When did all of the whining start about government regulation start? Do corporations think the government write laws and regulations to keep busy. Most regs are written to counteract documented corporate abuse.

What about labor law? US labor law is very weak. You do have to be paid for the hours you work, but that's about it. There is no law that mandates paid holidays or vacations in the US. Likewise there are no federal laws that mandate comprehensive benefits such as health care or pensions.

Many corporations tout the 401(k)s as pension plans but Congress designed the IRA s to be savings plans, not pension plans. Many corporations do not provide matching contributions, making these corporate IRA's pointless.

In fact, unless there are some solid incentives for signing up for a corporate IRA, an IRA at a credit union is likely safer. IRA management fees are not well-regulated and many people who were laid off during the Great Recession found more than one third of their corporate IRA contributions had been eaten up by management funds.

US labor unions are weak in the private sector. According to Wikipedia:

Percentage of workforce
▪ Total: 12.4%
▪ Public sector: 36.8%
▪ Private sector: 7.6%

What about corporate income tax? Few companies pay the much-quoted federal corporate tax rate of 35 percent.

Looking at the 500 big companies in the Standard & Poor's stock index, 115 paid a total tax rate — both federal and otherwise — of less than 20 percent during the past five years, according to an analysis of company reports done for the New York Times by Capital IQ, a research firm.

Thirty-nine companies paid a rate less than 10 percent and many companies pay no corporate income tax at all.

Indeed, the problem with the US corporate income tax is the 35 per cent rate that needs to be dropped, More importantly tax loopholes need to be eliminated so most US corporations pay this tax.

Many large corporations organize as S-corporations that was really designed for small business. These corporations can evade corporate tax because S-corporations pass their tax obligations to the owners and shareholders as ordinary income. A US corporation that offshores also pays no corporate income tax.

In fact, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, says that two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005.

To make matter worse, almost all of the economic contractions and scandals in the US have been caused by corporations, not the government.

This is true of the Great Depression, the Savings and Loan scandal and the ongoing Great Recession that started in December 2007.

It appears to Rightardia that the Republican politicians wants to attack unions and programs like Social Security and Medicare for ideological reasons. None of the preceding that have much to do with the cause of the economic conditions in 2011.

Invariably, the GOP will take its pound of flesh out of people, whether government workers or citizens.

A case in point. Florida Republicans sat on their kiesters and didn't raise unemployment payroll tax in the past 12-years when they could have done so. Florida businesses suddenly got hit with a big increase for unemployment payroll tax after the Great Recession hit.

What is grifter-governor Rick Scott's solution. He want to cut the payroll tax for unemployment compensation, cut unemployment benefits to 20 weeks and make it easier for employers to challenge unemployment claims.

In Florida, we call this the rick-roll of the public.

Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/UFPYA

Netcraft rank: 6715 http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://rightardia.blogspot.com