Michael Schaus | Jul 22, 2014



The Huffington Post is beside itself with indignant rage over companies moving their headquarters overseas to avoid paying the highest corporate income tax in the industrialized world. Feeling that Secretary Jack Lew was onto something when he accused companies of being economic traitors for reducing their tax burden, the HuffPo let loose a string of economic illiterate ramblings about the indecency of corporate profits.

Early last week, the drug firm Mylan stomped on the Stars and Stripes as it ditched America for the Netherlands. Then, on Friday, the drug company AbbVie similarly renounced America. For 30 pieces of silver, it will become Irish. Medical device maker Medtronic deserted America for Ireland last month. The pharmacy chain Walgreens recently announced it may be next. It plans to dump the land of the free for the bows and scrapes of royal subjects.

Is it just me, or does their article read like they just got dumped by the cool kid in high school? Of course, it got better as the article rambled on about corporations’ economic duty to pay taxes. (Because, ya know, America is so well known for its love of high taxation. Just ask those Colonists in Boston.)

[These companies refuse] to pay taxes on foreign income to the country that nurtured them, protected them from patent violators and unfair competitors, and provided them with educated workers, federally-sponsored research and development, and myriad other public services. Now, they can freeload instead. As a result, their U.S. competitors, as well as hardworking Americans, will pay more to cover the shirkers’ share.

Oh, right… Now I get it. These evil capitalist organizations didn’t actually build their businesses themselves. No, no, no… It took the benevolence of government funded programs to make success possible in America. And, furthermore, they are now forcing domestic competitors and hardworking Americans to foot the bill for such government success stories like Healthcare.gov, Dodd-Frank, the EPA and the FDA. (Deep breath… The sarcasm is getting a bit thick here.)
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Rather than address the underlying cause of inversion, Liberals would like to demonize, insult, and attack businesses for moving their cash out of the reach of Uncle Sam. Strangely, the HuffPo never mentioned lowering the corporate tax burden, or making the American tax code more competitive with the socialized nations of Europe.

Much like our liberal friends, I would rather have companies repatriate their overseas profits to America as well. Of course, the progressive “solution” to tax inversion seems to be… new punitive taxes on companies that want to move overseas. Now, I understand that Liberals feel entitled to the profits of those capitalist pigs who are avoiding the highest tax rate in the world, but even I know that 12 percent (Ireland’s tax rate) of billions of dollars is more than 35 percent of nothing. (And I didn’t even take Common-Core math!)

You want those evil capitalists to bring their money home? Stop trying to take all of it.

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/m...itable-n1864484