Obama: Tax avoidance 'a big global problem'

“Tax avoidance is a big global problem,”.....Obama has had two terms to reform the system and close the loopholes..... Apple and Google play the global community like Chellos......All hat and no cattle....

Really? And here I thought that the tax itself was the problem.

Take a moment to think about how much tax you pay. Your income tax, your residency tax, the consumption tax, the taxes on your gas, electric, phone, and cell phone, the tolls and gas tax you pay, the tariffs which are added to the cost of all the imported food you eat, and the imported clothes you wear. Then think about how much of the price you pay for goods is increased when the companies that produce them raise prices to help meet the taxes they pay. Then think about how they also compensate for their taxes by paying you less. Then add inflation, which is also a tax. It is likely that more than half of what you earn, even if you earn very little, is eventually absorbed by tax.

“It sticks the rest of us with the tab. And it makes hard-working Americans feel like the deck is stacked against them.”

Funny. This is how most republicans feel about the welfare, EBT, ACA etc. the one who are not pulling their own weight. They just want "free stuff" in life.

“Tax avoidance is a big global problem,”.....Obama has had two terms to reform the system and close the loopholes..... Apple and Google play the global community like Chellos......All hat and no cattle....

When you think about it, it's true. It's a problem, but who can blame them. With all the taxes that Dems implement, people have less money in their pockets and you will start to see people try to avoid or even cheat the system in order to keep a little of their earnings and if you live in States like Hawaii, California and NY, it's almost impossible to have a decent living, unless you make over $60K and that's scratching by.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/102115/taxes-california-small-business-basics.asp

This is what Californians have to go through and who can blame anyone for trying to avoid paying their share of taxes when they get hammered and these people complain and yet, they keep voting for the same liberal policies that keep these greedy people and the policies in place.

While enjoying the strengths of the U.S. economy—its workers, rule of law, and infrastructure—such companies are not “paying their fair share,” he said.

You can ask a Democrat a million times how much "fair share" is and they will never give you a straight answer. That is because the answer is just "more." Americans and their businesses do not exist simply to pay the King. Isn't that why America had a revolution to begin with? The more the government takes, the more people begin to feel like they are servants of the state and not free to pursue their own passions and dreams.

Face it, in Obama's America the workers are getting screwed. The rule of law is optional depending upon whether or not it is deemed politically correct or not. As for infrastructure, the massive debt America has accumulated guarantees that no amount of taxation will be able to repair the crumbling bridges, roads, and structures.

Obama complains about the "use of tax code loopholes that average taxpayers do not have access to" yet he refuses to stop providing his millionaire cronies tax breaks for favored businesses (think Solyndra). Then you have the sick pattern of elective officials going into government service and at the end of 30 years they are multi-millionaires themselves.

Obama believes that citizens are ATM machines to serve his ideology. Americans are rebelling against Washington elites because they are tired of being shamed into being tools for the elites and their cronies in both parties. More socialist authoritarianism means less freedom and more rebellion and polarization.

If governments weren't blowing money away on wars and buying out special interests to get politicians elected, maybe people wouldn't feel like it were morally justified to avoid paying tax to the extent legally possible?

by making use of tax code loopholes

Make the tax code simple then. I'm fortunate to not be an American taxpayer, but from the sounds of it the US tax code is a monster. Filling out a return in Japan is a bit of a chore too.

Kill loopholes, simplify tax rules, and there will be better compliance and lower rates too.

(Japan with it's multiple consumption tax rates idea is going in the opposite direction.)

Hacking government spending down to size would also help on the other side of the ledger.

He also labelled “insidious” the growing practice of U.S. companies merging with foreign firms just to cut their tax liabilities.

US corporate tax rate is too high relative to the foreign competition, simple as that. It's obvious what needs to be done to stop that. What's next, capital controls in the Land of the Free? Come on, leader of the free world - you can do better.

Face it, in Obama's America the workers are getting screwed.

Wait, which branch of government creates tax policy? Let's see... that would be the legislative branch, according to my handy-dandy shirt pocket Constitution. Ah, but no worry - with Republicans having been in control of both houses for years, they're sure to any moment now strike down the rules that favor the rich and create a more equitable system!

Tax avoidance 'a big global problem'

I would rather say "taxing people like a global organized slavery system is a big global problem".

Could there be a political conspiracy? Where are the exposure on US rich individuals, politicians and corporations? Is it mainly about targeting Russia and China politicians? As the media is mainly about them. Is this another version of "Arab Spring" but on the money side aim at Putin & Xi?

Arab Spring has brought so much misery, death, destruction, uncertainty to Middle East people & even Europeans. Hope Russia and China will remain stable.

Face it, in Obama's America the workers are getting screwed.

Wait, which branch of government creates tax policy? Let's see... that would be the legislative branch, according to my handy-dandy shirt pocket Constitution

Heh, expect an about face on the original comment now.

Wait, which branch of government creates tax policy?

You were expecting me to say that Republicans are not also in on the game? The elites in both parties are complicit in the fleecing of America. $19 trillion in debt to buy re-election took the cooperation of both parties. The only thing that can be said for Republicans is that a growing number want to make the tax code more transparent by implementing a flat tax or national sales tax in order to remove all of the outrageous loopholes that the rich and well connected use to their advantage. But let's assume that Harry Reid would not fillabuster a Republican tax reform plan. It's pretty safe to assume that Obama would veto it. Cutting out loopholes for his cronies isn't something he has any interest in doing.

You were expecting me to say that Republicans are not also in on the game?

Since they have been in control of the legislative branch for years, they aren't 'also in the game', they ARE the game. Yet your original claim ignored them altogether and tried to blame it on the Obama presidency:

Face it, in Obama's America the workers are getting screwed.

So either you didn't realize that it was the legislative branch causing these troubles, or you were being purposefully deceptive.

Sounds like the "Panana gate" will be a good opportunity for all the govt in the world to enforce further their slavery tax system and gain the public support for it. How smart and vicious, you see, as being tax payers ourselves we are not happy to see others not being pressurized like we are. Maybe about time we realize what is moral and what is not.

I think we all pretty much agree with Obama on this one. Sure, the Republicans here will bring in their usual trauma because the words came out of Obama's mouth, but that can't really be helped. These massive corporations are paying nothing while pushing the tax burden to the middle class. It has to stop.

These massive corporations are paying nothing while pushing the tax burden to the middle class.

The Republicans disparage the poor for wanting things for free, completely ignoring that the corporations are taking more for free than all the poor put together.

Corporations employ millions of people, paying them wages and enabling them to live happy and fruitful lives.

Personally I'd not be upset if corporations paid no tax at all, given the massive public good they provide through such employment alone, and that's before mentioning the wonderful products and services that they provide to consumers.

Got to get tax revenue from somewhere though (to pay for public services and help the poor), and taxing consumption so that rich consumers bear the most burden due to their crazy levels of consumption is best way to go, IMO.

corporations are taking more for free

Thats okay, corporations employ millions of people, influence and stimulate other global economies.

The generation after generation of welfare/EBT recipients just go to the liquor store everyday and complain about uncle sam owes them something.

'Tax avoidance 'a big global problem'....but a legal financial tool.

Every state, Country, in fact the whole global community shuns away from legislative measures to close the loopholes. Only the 'little people' pay tax. I am kicking the furniture spitting nails hearing world leaders, presidents, prime minsters harping on and doing nothing.

Well Obama and Clinton both pushed for the free trade deal with Panama that pretty much served only to encourage these tax havens there, so...

It's worth noting that Bernie Sanders predicted this would happen and was opposed way back in 2011 when the deal was being debated.

If you or I failed to pay our fair tax contibution, we invariably end up in prison. There are others that use the loopholes and demand how our contibution is spent. That is not justified under any circumstances. One of these individuals is that sanctimonious so'n'so, Bono. Yet Bono is the first to lobby governments on how they should spend our taxes.

I'm not sure much can or should be done. Any solution will obviously involve more international government surveillance and a reduction of privacy and liberty. Is it worth it? Perhaps it's time to abandon the system of taxing income and profits and return to the time tested practice of higher direct taxation on land and consumption. Don't forget that the idea of peace-time income tax is actually a very recent 20th century invention. Has it become unworkable in an era where people are crossing borders more than ever and intangible intellectual property rights are now more valuable than any factory or shop? I'm certainly not an expert in the economics of taxation but I think this is a legitimate question to ask.

Don't forget that the idea of peace-time income tax is actually a very recent 20th century invention.

Yeah, well, so is the invention of a standing army (and air force and navy and marines) - not to mention other security departments as the CIA and NSA. Put together, all of these programs likely take up 75% of the Federal budget (precise figures are hard to come by because, of course, so much is classified).

It is interesting that the first country to DELETE access to the papers was CHINA. For English learners, "The first shoe has been dropped, now we wait for the second." Xi, Castros, Putin's "friends" are in for a big surprise. Stay tuned.

As far as Japan is concerned, according to OECD figures the total tax take in 2013 was 146,436 billion yen. Within that figure, total taxes on income, profits and capital gains was 47,534 billion yen. Recurrent taxes on immovable property (Property taxes) were 9,882 billion yen. Consuption taxes (Value Added Tax) were 13,479 billion yen (rate was 5% then).

Unless I've plucked the wrong figures out (perhaps @itsonlyrocknroll can double check me), doing a back of the envelope calculation I calculate that if we completely scraped all personal and corporate income/profit and capital gains taxes, we could make up for the 47,534 billion yen shortfall by raising the consumption tax to 16% (would add +29,653) and tripling property taxes (would add +19,764). Tripling sounds like alot but I currently pay around 160,000 yen per year for my property so 480,000 wouldn't break the bank, especially if I was no longer paying income tax.

However, this doesn't eliminate those Social security contribution which are deducted from your paycheck which you would still have to pay. They make up a huge amount of government revenue (59,834 billion yen in 2013).

https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=REVJPN

@Laguna

The US certainly does spend alot of money on defence. Probably alot of saving could be made there.

The US certainly does spend alot of money on defence.

They have spent more money on welfare than defense since Nixon was in office.

Sangetsu, that depends on how you define "welfare." Deferred benefit programs such as Social Security and health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid are exempt under this definition - both by the government and by the vast majority of economists. Under such a definition, your statement is incorrect: of the discretionary budget, the Pentagon sucks up over 50%; adding other defense-related programs raises that substantially.

If you insist on this definition, however, you must return to the category of defense spending that of veteran's care - and the fact that some one million veterans live in household which receive food stamps.

The problem is the bureaucracy confiscates and wastes too much money from the entities and people who produce everything. Governments and the minions within it produce nothing.

Your obligation is to find every way possible to reduce the amount of your money you fork over to them.

Wc626APR. 06, 2016 - 09:06AM JST This is how most republicans feel about the welfare, EBT, ACA etc. the one who are not pulling their own weight. They just want "free stuff" in life.

Agreed. Especially the Republican welfare queens that take the most free stuff in the US. We understand their outrage. But that's only because they're insane...

Tax avoidance isn't the problem. Taxes are the problem. Taxation is theft.

Taxation is theft.

M3M3M3, forget to mention a few other things aside from a standing military invented in the 20th c. - compulsory public education, state-funded colleges, infrastructure created and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers and that by Federal/state partnerships (Interstate Highway system, energy, flood control, etc.), health - not only maintenance (insurance) but prevention (remember "The jungle"?), labor safety, drug safety, basic science reasearch - oh, how 1916 differs from 2016! Hands up on anyone who wants to go back to 1916!

Yet some say taxation is theft....

Laguna : Yet some say taxation is theft....

I think that's yet another insane Republican position a la Cliven Bundy. What's the alternative, a Mad Max style anarchy? Men feeding on men?

The people on this planet have a right to be furious about the way the 0.1 % that run the world shaft us. But since they run the world, don't expect it to change anytime soon.

Perhaps the key is to not punishing those rich enough to pay for creative accounting, but to hand down draconian punishments for the accountants. I dare say I'd support going medieval on 'em...

@Laguna

There are alot of good things to spend the money on, I agree. If we look at most tax free (or low tax) societies, they aren't exactly places where most people would want to live or raise a family (unless they are super rich).

@Frederic Bastiat

Taxation is theft.

But did Frederic Bastiat actually believe this? I think Bastiat's actual complaint stemmed from the fact that taxes at the time were mostly paid by the poor to benefit the rich. That's quite different from today where the rich are being taxed to help the poor. Would Bastiat be against today's system?

I think unless you are in the top 5 or 15% (or something like that) of income earners you actually end up getting back more than you pay in (when you take total government expenditure and divide it by the population). Granted, quite a bit of that is wasted or unnecessary.

M3 : I think unless you are in the top 5 or 15% (or something like that) of income earners you actually end up getting back more than you pay in (when you take total government expenditure and divide it by the population). Granted, quite a bit of that is wasted or unnecessary.

I fear it is a tad more than "quite a bit". Other than the cronyism from Western elitists that pass the power to each other since we more or less got rid of the monarchs, the biggest waste I see here in France are government "workers". It's a job creation scheme to get people off the dole by creating well paid posts with early retirement to hide the unemployment figures. Something extremely costly that isn't just robbing Peter to pay Paul, but in fact robbing Peter to pay Paul, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich....

I actually agree with US Republicans on smaller government, yet as we have seen today's US Republican party is not only insane, but a big government entity obsessed with ramming their so-called values down people's throats.

Yeah, sorry, but I'm just not going to get on board with large companies paying zero.

But I would be more than happy to support actual job creators (not just all wealth creators) with tax breaks if they are actually creating jobs and not just padding stock prices. If you are moving jobs overseas and concentrating wealth at the top of the company then I don't see why we should encourage that behavior with some kind of tax free status.

You also can't have a system where one group is excluded from taxation and everyone else pays, especially if that group gets their status only by having enough wealth to pull it off.

The Republicans disparage the poor for wanting things for free, completely ignoring that the corporations are taking more for free than all the poor put together.

Now wait a minute, this is not a Republcan ONLY issue, the Dems do it as well, in fact, The Kennedy's made out like bandits, including Ted Kennedy who accumulated $4 billion in slush funds. No one is immune from this. I think this could all be better resolved if we got rid oft the he IRS and just implement a flat tax system.

So now we know who told the world about where the super rich leaders where hiding their money!!! This explains why no US officials were brought up in this scandal!

The generation after generation of welfare/EBT recipients just go to the liquor store everyday and complain about uncle sam owes them something.

That's always been the common "retro-conservative" mantra of ignorance. And it's always said by the people who have never EVER worn that shoe, you always say the exact same thing thinking it some magical lala land where people just can pull up their bootstraps and make it on hard work and opportunity is always open for everyone.

From my experience and observation of those around me, I did and still do work hard, but am continually being cut off from the opportunity part thanks to our everloving money grubbing corporate and elitist world. They just had to keep making more money while trying to pay less. The "trickle down" theory you'd love to hold true to just doesn't work thanks to plain old selfishness and greed. When CEO and other company big-shots decide to raise their own income earnings and increase their own year end bonuses instead of distributing it equally over all other employees who have been helping keep up productivity for the corporation.

My favorite part this year was I got a raise... and then my rent, transportation, and health insurance went up... and quite literally ATE MY RAISE plus a little bit more. So once again as a non-financially well off person, I work harder so the wealthier folks can get more money. Never mind that I'd love to be able to invest and save for retirement. But I'll most likely end up like the elderly retired people I help. Living off social security and foodstamps because I didn't have enough extra money left after paying all my needs to save for my post-employment years.

I don't even waste money on cable TV or micro-transaction games, eating out, etc. But even when I make more money, it will only go to other peoples pockets. Rent in my State is now getting out of control. Because someone says they have to raise the prices to match "Market Value". A 500sq ft apartment that used to go for $450~500 may now go for $950~1200... Since rent is only supposed to be a 3rd of one's income (before taxes). I need to make an extra $24,000 more a year to meet that requirement now, when the income level I'm at now used to be enough. It used to be a family of 4 could live in reasonable comfort off of an average of $50,000 a year. Now as a single individual with no children, I'm pretty much expected to make $47,000 (before taxes) just to not have my rent alone eat over 1/3 of my yearly income.

In the simplest terms, whats going on right now is that when people above a certain income level make more money, they get to see that money and it benefits them.

But when the people below a certain income level make more money, they don't get to see that money and it doesn't benefit them because it's going to the other people above a certain income level.

Funny thing is that my taxes never went up...

He said wealthy individuals and corporations are “gaming the system” by making use of tax code loopholes that average taxpayers do not have access to.

Bingo. Tax the rich

He also labelled “insidious” the growing practice of U.S. companies merging with foreign firms just to cut their tax liabilities

BIngo. Tax the rich.

Bingo. Tax the rich

BIngo. Tax the rich.

Wrong. I know a some childless married couples in CA whose combined annual gross is roughly $250k-$300k. They're not "rich" because they pay TOO MUCH taxes. Middle Class / Upper Middle Class?

Call it what you want, but its not fair at all. Pffft- tax the rich? Why? They studied hard, worked and finally earned their dream careers. In vain, only to be taxed up the butt . . . . yet others are getting "free" county checks and assistance. Free lunches. It's complete nonsense!

Well tell your California friends that their taxes will keep going up as more and more mega companies file papers to pay no taxes at all. Someone has to make up for the difference and it will be you and me.

Someone has to make up for the difference and it will be you and me.

Ouch, that hurts my ears.

$250~300k a year huh? While that may not be as rich as millionares, it's still more than well off enough than someone making $36k, $50k, $75k, even $100k a year...

If I were making that much, and lets say the feds charged the 2016 maximum of 33% leaving me with $167k~$277k ($250k minimum~$413k Max gross income) a year after taxes (Which is still a pretty damned good amount in many folks eyes that aren't making that much).

My question is how are these people making this kind of income after taxes feeling like they're not making enough? Simply put they're over spending beyond their actual income level after taxes

If someone is trying to buy a mansion that costs $1 million+ on a $277k after tax income, they're dumb. Buy a nice home for $400k~$650k that one can live in comfortably. Don't buy a summer home, a winter home, and other homes on the side even to "make more money" because one forgets the additional cost of maintaining extra homes... FFS, be happy with what you have to live comfortably, not extravagantly.

If someone is left with $167k after taxes, aim for a comfortable home between $250k~$350k, not a $450k~$500k+ home.

Knowing how I budget myself, with even $167k a year after tax income, I can easily live off of just $43,000 a year with the current price of renting an apartment as a single individual. If I were paying a mortgage and had a family total of 3, it would still only cost $61kmin~$72kmax to meet all our needs and still have $95k+ leftover to hold on to in case of emergencies, savings, nest egg, retirement, etc.

Would still have nice things, have financial security, and a very good living standard with that kind of after tax income.

Government PENSIONS are the real problem! Get the lazy off welfare and don't tell me they aren't on there. I worked for our state welfare programs. Many are getting 5 to 6 programs - you can see their screens if you are an employee. There is no incentive to work. And millions upon millions of these people add up. And then, there are the illegal Americans - whose children get benefits, while legal Americans cannot even qualify because a social security number tracks their wage screens. Illegals income cannot be tracked. And don't give me some kind of LIBERAL phony pony show about how I have never been poor. I was poorer than many poor. We even had to sleep in a car, in a mission....and I still made it through college - without any assistance. I WORKED a LOT. I'm JAPANESE and my mother hated welfare.

We even had to sleep in a car, in a mission....and I still made it through college - without any assistance. I WORKED a LOT.

Wow, you had a car? Holy crap, you had it better off than me when I was homeless xD... what I would have given to sleep in my own car instead of looking for some reasonable safe out of sight place to put down the sleeping bag I had.