There is class warfare in the USA dummy ....the rich are $#*&% the poor and middle class into extinction

About 25 percent of millionaires in the U.S. pay federal taxes at lower effective rates than a significant portion of middle-income taxpayers, according to a legislative analysis.


Preferential treatment of investment income and the reduced impact of payroll taxes on high earners lets about 94,500 millionaires pay taxes at a lower rate than 10.4 million “moderate-income taxpayers,” representing about 10 percent of those making less than $100,000 a year, according to the report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service dated Oct. 7.

The findings put the U.S. tax system in conflict with the so-called Buffett Rule, which says households making more than $1 million annually shouldn’t pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than middle class families, says the report, which analyzed 2006 Internal Revenue Service data.

The Buffett principle was proposed by President Barack Obama in September after billionaire Warren Buffett, the 81- year-old chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said it was wrong that he paid taxes at a lower rate than 20 other people who worked in his office.

Obama has said the Buffett Rule should be a guiding principle of efforts to reform the U.S. tax code.

Choice...tax $1 Trillion Dollars a little or not at all.....go for a little!

As a coalition led by Apple Inc. (AAPL), Google Inc. (GOOG), and Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) presses for a tax holiday on more than $1 trillion in offshore profits, it is turning to a well-positioned lobbyist: Jeffrey Forbes, once chief of staff to Max Baucus, chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee.


Data compiled by Bloomberg News show that Forbes is part of an army of more than 160 lobbyists, including at least 60 who once worked for a sitting member of the House or Senate, pushing for the repatriation holiday. Their job is to persuade Congress to establish a tax break estimated to cost the U.S. government $78.7 billion over the next decade.

Independent studies have found that the last time this tax break was tried, in 2004, the bargain rate for bringing home offshore profits did little to spur hiring or domestic investment. Most of the money was used to buy back stock. (Simple solution: tie the tax break to a certain level of hiring for the benefiting company.)

In all, three former staffers of Baucus, the Finance Committee’s chairman since 2007, are lobbying on the repatriation holiday. Besides Forbes, there’s Nick Giordano of Washington Council Ernst & Young, a longtime Cisco lobbyist. Microsoft has retained Timothy E. Punke, a former adviser to Baucus on trade issues who is active in Democratic politics.

The WIN America campaign’s manager is Karen Olick, former chief of staff to Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat. One of the spokesmen for the group is Doug Thornell, who most recently was a staffer for Representative Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat who is a member of the House leadership. Like Anita Dunn, Thornell and Olick aren’t registered lobbyists.

“Our economy needs all the help it can get, and leaving this money in foreign banks when we could bring it home now makes no sense,” Thornell said.

Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s

According to Global Financial Integrity, multinational corporations’ tax evasion, when averaged per year over the last ten years, amounts to a global net loss of $400 to $440 billion for developing countries
1 June 2011, The European Investment Bank (EIB), the EU's financial arm, has frozen future loans to Swiss mining giant Glencore, suspected of tax evasion in Zambia.

"Due to serious concerns about Glencore's governance which have been brought to light recently... the president of the EIB has instructed the services to decline any further financing request from this company or one of its subsidiaries," the Luxembourg-based bank's website said.

Following a Zambian probe into tax affairs surrounding the mines and complaints by anti-poverty campaigners, the EIB has informed the EU's anti-fraud office OLAF and launched its own investigation.

"In the event that this investigation were to conclusively demonstrate tax evasion according to the Zambian authorities this would clearly expose MCM to local financial penalties and lead to events that may trigger early repayment of the EIB loan," the bank said.

The cause for the complaint lies in the financial and accounting manipulations performed by the two companies’ subsidiary, Mopani Copper Mines Plc (MCM), in order to evade taxation in Zambia.

Those allegations are based on the results of a 2009 audit performed at the request of the Zambian authorities, with support from Norwegian government, by international accountants Grant Thornton and Econ Pöyry. Among the anomalies revealed by the report, an unexplained increase in operating costs in 2007 (+ $380 million), stunningly low reported volumes of extracted cobalt when compared to similar mining companies operating in the region, and manipulations of copper selling prices in favor of Glencore which constitute a violation of OECD’s “arm’s length” principle. The result of those various processes was to lower by several hundreds of millions dollars MCM’s net income for the 2003-2008 period, hereby substantially lightening the company’s tax burden.

Those actions are all the more deplorable when one considers that the Mopani consortium operates in an already attractive fiscal environment, one highly favorable to foreign investment, and that Mopani also enjoys the effects of a 2000 development agreement with Zambia that provides massive financial and tax exemptions.

And if Zambia doesn’t raise your concerns then warehousing might?

Hagens Berman today announced that it is investigating potential claims against the owners of large metals warehouses, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS), J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) and Glencore International PLC (LSE:GLEN.L) after media sources reported that the companies are limiting the amount of metal released to customers and investors, potentially artificially inflating prices.

The delay in releasing the metal has reportedly contributed to a significant growth in the price of aluminum and other metals. According to media sources, at least one major aluminum consumer has complained to the London Metal Exchange (LME), which sets the minimum amount of metal that warehouse owners must release each day. The LME is reportedly investigating the matter.

Hagens Berman is investigating whether the limits on metal released violate antitrust laws, and whether the warehouse owners’ activities constituted manipulation of the price of aluminum in violation of the Commodities Exchange Act (CEA).

Don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time…..