HuffPo reports:
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive, has been out front among Wall Street chiefs in supporting higher tax rates on individual taxpayers as a way to avert the fiscal cliff.
In fact, Dimon has even said that he'd be willing to pay higher taxes on his own income, which was around $23 million last year alone. Add to that, the CEO is a member of Fix the Debt, a nonprofit group with the mission to promote ways to reduce the national debt.
Yet JPMorgan, the biggest bank in the country by assets, appears to be unwilling to sacrifice its own tax benefits to help bring down the national debt. Instead, it has spent millions this year alone lobbying Congress to extend a key loophole that allows the bank to avoid paying a tax bill on its foreign income.
The corporate tax break is known as the "active finance exception," and it allows multinational companies to earn interest on overseas lending and defer paying taxes to the U.S. government indefinitely.
Of course any established (crony )big business is going to support tax raises- only they have the means (power, influence, lawyers) to find and exploit loopholes and most of their net wealth is probably already protected anyway. Who wouldn't use any opportunity they could to stifle out their competition (small and medium business owners who can't find their way around such tax raises!)
ReplyDeleteRobert,
ReplyDeleteI thought loopholes were Rothbardian virtuous?
It seems that all the people who get media exposure are either criminals, or useful idiots. Yeah, thanks be that our taxes are going up toward a debt that's impossible to pay off.
ReplyDeleteOur only hope is active and far-sighted libertarian efforts at the local level. Those who do this will be fighting brainwashed, retarded people who like things the way they are. Well, they may not like them, but the answer to their problems is always more government.
The old people want the "government to keep their hands off!" their SS and Medicare. These programs are the 2 biggest disasters outside the military. When libertarians make efforts to wake people up toward these realities, we appear (to them) to be engaging in some kind of pessimistic raindance. It is an alien language to most people.
I have sympathy for us all under crony capitalism. But I'm almost looking forward to the day when everybody's check isn't worth much. This whole thing is immoral and it doesn't work.