Suggested Discussion Outline

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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Suggested Discussion Outline

Post by johnkarls »

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Suggested Discussion Outline


We have a choice --

• Chapter by chapter of our focus book, A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System by T.R. Reid.

• Major issues as set forth in The Suggested Answers to the Short Quiz, posted on http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org in the “Participants Comments” Section for 10/4/2017.


The Chapter Titles in Our Focus Book

Prologue: Every Thirty-Two Years
1. Policy Laboratories
2. “Low Effort, Low Collection”
3. Taxes: What Are They Good For?
4. BBLR
5. Scooping Water with a Sieve
6. Flat Broke
7. The Defining Problem: The Taxing Solution
8. Convoluted and Pernicious Strategies
9. The Single Tax, the Flat Tax, the Tiny Tax, the Carbon Tax – and No Tax At All
10. The Panama Papers: Sunny Places for Shady Money
11. Simplify, Simplify
12. The Money Machine
Epilogue: The Internal Revenue Code of 2018


Major Issues Set Forth in The Suggested Answers to the Short Quiz

A. Introduction (to the effect that “our focus book ignores the really important policy questions”)


B. Value-Added Taxes (VAT’s)

B-1. Our focus book “fails to explain that VAT’s act as import tariffs and export subsidies”

B-2. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has “for many decades coached developing and transition countries to convert their turnover taxes, manufacturer’s tax, retail sales tax, and other indirect taxes to VAT’s” [quoting “Value Added Tax: A Comparative Approach (Cambridge Tax Law Series)” (Cambridge University Press - 2/2/2015 - 570 pages)]

B-3. In other words, the IMF coaches the rest of the world to PROTECT THEIR WORKERS while the American Establishment (which we have always defined as the billionaires who, since 1992, have “owned” virtually all of the pols of both political parties, who “own” many (if not most) members of The Mainstream Media, and who “own” many members of academia) have refused, as part of their “War on American Workers,” to permit the U.S. to protect American workers with a VAT!!!


C. Supposedly “Off Shore” Corporate Funds About To Cause Another Economic Meltdown

C-1. The supposedly $4 TRillion - $5 TRillion of “off shore” funds comprise the EARNINGS FROM EXPORTING AMERICAN JOBS that have piled up in tax havens (primarily “Non-Resident Singapore Companies”) since the 2008 Economic Meltdown

C-2. That same amount had ALSO piled up prior to the so-called “American Jobs Creation Act of 2004”

C-3. HOWEVER, those earnings had NOT BEEN STUFFED IN MATTRESSES in the tax havens but had long since been loaned to the CHUMP AMERICAN COMPANIES THAT HAD NOT EXPORTED AMERICAN JOBS

C-4. ACCORDINGLY, the so-called “American Jobs Creation Act of 2004” effectively required the CHUMP AMERICAN COMPANIES THAT HAD NOT EXPORTED AMERICAN JOBS to reduce American payroll and capital expenditures 2005-2007 in order to repay the AMERICAN COMPANIES THAT HAD EXPORTED AMERICAN JOBS

C-5. Since Congress required THE CHUMP COMPANIES to reduce American payroll by 10% 2005-2007, then of course the homes of all of those workers would be foreclosed in short order and there would be no one to buy them because the American workforce had contracted by 10%

C-6. So the Economic Meltdown would have happened WHETHER OR NOT ALL OF THOSE WORKERS THAT CONGRESS THREW OUT OF WORK had had conventional mortgages (20% down and, in all other respects, “plain vanilla” terms)

C-7. The Federal Reserve (“The Fed”) had the “last clear chance” to prevent the Economic Meltdown by having its Regional Federal Reserve Banks use their authority to buy up the loans to THE CHUMP COMPANIES -- but instead, The Fed simply lamented throughout the meltdown that THE CHUMP COMPANIES were in desperate need of loans which they could not obtain, while The Fed exhibited a complete lack of understanding about what was actually happening!!!

C-8. NOW WE ARE POISED TO DO EXACTLY THE SAME THING ALL OVER AGAIN WITH THE $4 TRILLION - $5 TRILLION OF SUPPOSEDLY “OFF SHORE” FUNDS THAT HAVE PILED UP SINCE THE LAST ECONOMIC MELTDOWN IN TAX-HAVENS FROM EXPORTING AMERICAN JOBS


D. Other Examples of Kool Aid that Our Author “Has Drunk”

D-1. Income/wealth disparity is caused by a failure to tax the rich, rather than caused predominantly by The Establishment’s War on American Workers which includes Exporting American Jobs

D-2. Income tax rates affect American employment -- rather than American unemployment being driven primarily by The Establishment’s Export of American Jobs which will not stop until American wages have been reduced to third-world levels

D-3. The size of the Internal Revenue Code can be substantially reduced by simply eliminating various deductions/credits and only taxing U.S.-source income -- regardless of however much rates might be reduced, the Internal Revenue Code will still have to retain (1) all of the zillions of provisions that determine whether income is U.S. source, (2) all of the zillions of provisions about how various entities (corporations, partnerships, trusts, etc.) are distinguished from each other and taxed differently, and (3) all of the zillions about how financial instruments (debt vs. equity, lease vs. ownership, etc., etc.) are categorized and taxed differently


E. Miscellaneous

E-1. Whether Tax Reform will receive “Static Scoring” or “Dynamic” Scoring -- in other words, will Tax Reform be “paid for” or will it “break the bank” accompanied by the argument that it will produce growth which will mean increased future tax revenues about which it is hoped that anybody concerned with the national debt, will believe that the increased revenues will be sufficient to “pay for” the tax reform

E-2. Whether our author is correct that Apple Inc. (with collaboration from Price Waterhouse Coopers) and Caterpillar Tractor have engaged in tax fraud

E-3. Whether so-called “corporate inversions” (moving the headquarters of U.S. companies to tax havens) are effective

E-4. The “standard structure” for EXPORTING AMERICAN JOBS which we have discussed so often over the years and pursuant to which a U.S.-Based Multi-National Company (MNC) has a tax-haven subsidiary (typically a “Non-Resident Singapore Company”) contract with an independently-owned company that the MNC has established (and, typically, financed) in China or other low-wage country to manufacture the MNC’s products to the MNC’s specifications using the MNC’s technology and “know how” UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF THE EMPLOYEES OF THE TAX-HAVEN SUBSIDIARY

E-4-a. Unlike the Apple Inc. structure, the “standard structure” captures in the tax-haven subsidiary virtually all of the MNC’s profit ON U.S. SALES as well as Non-U.S. Sales

E-4-b. Unlike the Apple Inc. structure which our author thinks comprises tax fraud, the “standard structure” is rock solid in terms of qualifying for deferral of the U.S. income tax on tax-haven income until it is distributed (or deemed distributed) as a dividend to the MNC under the “substantial transformation” rule

E-5. Our author’s failure to recognize that combatting The Establishment’s Export of American Jobs can be accomplished by “the stroke of a pen” -- Renewing 1968 Executive Order 11387 to halt the Export of American Capital

E-5-a. The lame excuse that capital-export prohibitions are NOT tax provisions is wrong both theoretically (because prohibitions are a 100% tax) and practically (because the capital-export returns, though submitted to the Department of Commerce rather than the IRS, were generated by the Tax Departments of the Big-8 CPA firms (yes, there were 8 back in those days)).

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