Maybe they needed something to occupy their attention before the presidential candidates go head to head, but a U.S. Senate committee says that two of tech's biggest companies have worked assiduously to reduce their tax bills.
Big whoop? Still, it was worth the time of congressional staffers who today published an extensive report in advance of an afternoon Senate hearing today on loopholes in current tax law.
"Major U.S. corporations are increasingly earning their profits here but shipping them overseas to avoid paying the taxes they owe," Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said prior to the hearing.
The report traces how it says Microsoft and Hewlett Packard took advantage of provisions in current tax and accounting codes to avoid paying U.S. tax on billions of dollars in offshore profits. However, the report does not charge the companies with doing anything illegal as both individuals and corporations routinely take steps to reduce their tax liability.
The report goes into quite some detail about how the companies' web of subsidiaries help their corporate parents reduce their tax bill to Uncle Sam. But while th... [Read more]
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