World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

Citizens for Tax Justice has just released a report on how US corporations use offshore tax havens to lower their overall tax burden.  The conclusions of the report are sobering:

“Only 57 Fortune 500 companies disclose what they would expect to pay in U.S. taxes if these profits were not officially booked offshore. In total, these 57 companies would owe $184.4 billion in additional federal taxes. Based on these 57 corporations’ public disclosures, the average tax rate that they have collectively paid to foreign countries on these profits is a mere 6.0 percent, indicating that a large portion of this offshore money has been booked in tax havens. If we apply that average tax rate of 6.0 percent to the entirety of Fortune 500 companies, they would collectively owe $620 billion in additional federal taxes.”

Here is a table with a list of the top 30 companies with the most money hidden away:

For the first time, Russia has launched sea-launched cruise missiles against targets in Syria.  The missiles were launched from vessels in the Caspian Sea, demonstrating the 900-mile range of the relatively new weapon.  The attack signals yet another manifestation of Russian intent to preserve the administration of Syrian President Assad, and further complicates the US strategy against the Islamic State.  The evidence suggests that 90% of the Russian strikes have not targeted Islamic State sites.

Negotiators have (more or less) completed their discussions on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a group of 12 Pacific states who wish to increase trade among themselves by reducing barriers to trade such as tariffs.  We do not yet know the specific details of the agreement so I will not characterize it except to say that its objective is to maximize free trade.  The other fact we know about the agreement is that it does not include China and those 12 countries do a lot of trading with China.  The conclusion seems to be obvious: the 12 are leveraging their combined power to offset the dramatic economic power of China in Asia.