If corporations want
to desert America in order to pay less in taxes, they're on their own
By Robert Reich
To watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H_Yp-fRscU
Apple
is only the latest big global American corporation to use foreign tax shelters
to avoiding paying its fair share of U.S. taxes. It’s just another form of
corporate desertion.
Corporations are deserting America
by hiding their profits abroad or even shifting their corporate headquarters to
another nation because they want lower taxes abroad. And some politicians say
the only way to stop these desertions is to
reduce corporate tax rates in the U.S. so they won’t leave.
Wrong.
If
we start trying to match lower corporate tax rates around the world,
there’s no end to it.
Instead, the President should use his executive power to end the financial incentives that encourage this type of corporate desertion. President Obama has already begun, but there is much left that could be done.
In
addition, corporation that desert America by sheltering a large portion of
their profits abroad or moving their headquarters to another country should no
longer be entitled to the advantages of being American.
1. They
shouldn’t be allowed to influence the U.S. government. They shouldn’t
be allowed to contribute to U.S. political campaigns, or lobby Congress, or
participate in U.S. government agency rule-making proceedings. And they no
longer have the right to sue foreign companies in U.S. courts for acts
committed outside the United States.
2. They shouldn’t be entitled to generous
government contracts. “Buy
American” provisions of the law should be applied to them.
3. Their assets around the world
shouldn’t any longer be protected by the U.S. government. If their
factories and equipment are expropriated somewhere around the world, they
shouldn’t expect the United States to negotiate or threaten sanctions, or use
our armed forces to protect their investments.
And
if their intellectual property – patents, trademarks, trade names, copyrights –
are disregarded, that’s their problem too. Don’t expect any help from us.
In
fact, their interests should be of no concern to the U.S. government – in trade
negotiations, climate negotiations, international treaties reconciling American
law with the laws of other countries, or international disputes over access to
resources.
They
don’t get to be represented by the U.S. government because they’re no longer
American.
It’s
simple logic. If corporations want to desert America in order to pay
less in taxes, that’s their business. But they should no longer have the
benefits that come with being American.
ROBERT
B. REICH is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of
California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies.
He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time
Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the
twentieth century. He has written fourteen books, including the best sellers
"Aftershock", "The Work of Nations," and"Beyond
Outrage," and, his most recent, "Saving Capitalism." He is also
a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause,
a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the
award-winning documentary, INEQUALITY FOR ALL.