Even the Washington Post finds Mitt Romney's "I'm going to add 12 million new jobs in four years" claim to be a load of bollocks. Long story short: Mr. Romney cobbled together conclusions from two different studies claiming 10 million new jobs over ten years, not four -- and then added two million more new jobs from a study whose hypothesis (that China stops infringing on U.S. copyrights) might never become reality no matter what Mr. Romney says he'll do. Politicians do this all the time -- when Democrats say ending top tax bracket cuts will raise $700 billion, they mean "over ten years," and when Republicans speak of $700 billion in Affordable Care Act Medicare "cuts" (which aren't cuts, but cost savings, but never mind), they also mean "over ten years," but they never say "over ten years." Conversely, when we talk about a one percent financial transaction tax raising almost $400 billion, that's over one year. Now, according to two other sources, the next President might create 12 million jobs by 2016 simply by drawing 12 breaths a minute. But that's hardly an endorsement of Mr. Romney, is it?
Meanwhile, Citizens for Tax Justice asks the provocative question, "Which Fortune 500 Companies are Sheltering Income in Overseas Tax Havens?" Only 285 of the Fortune 500 corporations actually report their overseas profits, which totalled over $1.5 trillion in 2011. Before breathlessly concluding that OMG $1.5 trillion would wipe out the deficit!, remember that corporations pay taxes on profits earned abroad to foreign countries, and would then get that payment deducted from their tax obligation to our government if and only if the corporation brings their profits back home -- so, if foreign nations taxed corporate profits at 25%, that would leave 10% for our government, or zero percent if the corporation leaves the money overseas. But wait! CTJ also found that the 47 corporations (out of 500) who actually reported their foreign tax liability aren't paying very much in foreign taxes -- their tax liability in the United States, on repatriated income, would average 27 percent in a nation with a 35 percent corporate tax rate, and the top 10 of those 47 corporations would have a liability of an eye-popping 33 percent. Can you say offshore tax haven, boys and girls?
Comments