Three Trillion Dollars

Marty Sullivan, noted economist, working in his garage.

Marty Sullivan is the noted Chief Economist for Tax Analysts, a non-profit who specialize in tax law.  The prestigious non-profit tax information service is not in any way connected to the U.S. government.

He stated on CSPAN that big business has a bit of a problem.  During the presidential  election in 2012 we learned about the prolific use of off-shore bank accounts by businesses and wealthy people to hide what they are doing with the money they made by avoiding paying corporate taxes and on money they earned out of the country.  We need a lot more light on what they are doing.  And in language understandable to the average tax payer.  As for profits from wholly owned foreign companies, they were able to shift them to  wholly owned subsidiaries in other  (tax free) countries.   In an earlier post we brought some detail on how this kind of skullduggery is used to manipulate the tax code.. 

And now Mr. Sullivan has discovered that the amount they have successfully avoided paying tax on, has reached a staggering 3 trillion dollars.  All that money is in off-shore bank accounts and,  as you can imagine, for 3 trillion dollars, more off-shore accounts are needed all over the place.  (Vesco, where ae you?)

In other words just the amount of tax due to the U.S., from company profits, languishing in foreign banks, in some cases has now reached an amount larger that the gross national product of the country where the bank is.  An example is Ireland.  Are they running out of countries and banks?  3 trillion dollars?  Woooo, oooooh

Money stashed in Ireland exceeds their gross GDP.

There is movement by some lobbyists and congressmen,  to bring this money back to the U.S.  But to-do so, under current law, the money is subject to the tax that was avoided.    Naturally they want to bring the money back into the country but for some piddling amount.  Even a small number is staggering. 
I'm in favor of letting them pay on a sliding scale.  A trillion, the tax rate stays the same and all loopholes are closed.  Or,  1 1/2 trillion, drop the tax rate to say 30% and all loopholes are closed.  Or 2 trillion, drop the rate to 25% and all loopholes are closed.
Lets try some math here  . . .  Wait a minute, how many zeros follow the  3 (in 3 trillion)?

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