Report: Walmart's Elaborate Tax Dodging Scheme

If I'm correct, when they bring back money into the States, are they not taxed then. I mean they do have to pay their shareholders, but maybe there is an IRS ruling that permits them amnesty or whatever it is called that they don't have to pay taxes on their profits when bringing back their money. I understand I do. An example: this maybe not 100% correct, but... I go to the states, work, send my money to this country that I live at, they now tax me on income that is brought into this country that I made in the USA. Now, this is many of you here know is true that live overseas. I work in this country (japan) and I make over $100000.00 I have to pay taxes on income earned over $100000.00 to the USA. We have a Foreign Tax Exemption of the 1st $100000.00 then we must pay taxes on it. Also we must report our savings of over $10000.00 to the US. I understand if we don't, when we transfer funds to a Stateside bank, them funds can now be confiscated by the IRS. Sucks I tell ya.

But all these companies pay plenty in u.s. payroll taxes and many pay for employee insurance.

And local property taxes.

They stimulate employment at many levels too.

Buzzy, this is how most corporations operate, and isn't limited to Walmart.

Look at the RESOURCES Walmart uses-

There's the direct uses of such things like police, fire, roads.....

They enjoy having stores in a generally politically stable country thanks to the military - which is a huge deal businesses

Then there's the government tab for training their employees- yes, they need to know how to read and write

But there is one place they have recently shifted the burden for corporations to the middle class - that's employees social services. Walmart shifted the cost of healthy employees from business to tax payers.

a reply to: zazzafrazz

I understand that. But - does that make it okay?

"Most" corporations are not relying on American citizens' tax dollars to pull up the slack. THAT is what irks me.

A FEW of them are.

anyway, ok, gnite, folks.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

When you have your men in DC, you can do anything.
"Government is the solution to a rich man's problems."

www.opensecrets.org...
77 out of 103 Wal-Mart Stores lobbyists in 2013-2014 have previously held government jobs

CONTRIBUTIONS
$17,382,912
since 1990

LOBBYING
$64,025,000
since 1998

No, this is not "Walmart's Elaborate Tax Dodging Scheme."

This is Congress' and the IRS' elaborate tax dodging scheme. They made the rules. Walmart is just following whatever rules the politicians wrote.

The ethical failure is in the politicians and gov't drones who write the codes.

I boycott Walmart and have for a while now and think that's all it would take for them to either change or be replaced by a more ethical company that would rise up. There are so many reasons why Walmart deserves a total boycott it's too much for me to list this late.

a reply to: Slickinfinity

I boycott them, too.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
Just wanted to share with you all - Walmart has been one of the examples of the mega-corps that are scamming the US taxpayers - and boy, do they have a sweet scheme, eh?

I want to comment on part of why the debate over the US corporate tax rate is so absurd. The whole debate hinges on the idea that 35% is too high but that 20% or 25% would be fair and fix things. Lets look at this article though:

It reported paying less than 1 percent in tax to Luxembourg on $1.3 billion in profits from 2010 through 2013.”

The report notes that the company's “use of inter-company debt permits it to avoid taxes overseas. It strips earnings out of higher-tax countries by taking out inter-company loans and pays interest to itself in tax havens where the interest income is taxed lightly or not at all.”

This is why it doesn't matter what rate we tax at. Corporations can set up in countries where they pay 0% tax, there is no end if we participate in this race to the bottom. If we tax them at 1% they can go to Ireland where they pay 0%. If we tax at 0% they can go to Malaysia where they pay an effective rate below 0% (the government effectively pays them to set up shop there). The whole exercise over competitive tax rates ultimately means jockeying for position over who pays the corporation the most to live there and that's a losing proposition for everyone involved.

originally posted by: stolencar18
THIS.
Let's cut the bull for a second.
1. Are any of you directly affected by how your tax dollars are spent? Of course not. You pay X% taxes. It goes to this and that and other stuff. Would it affect your wallet one bit if it went to something different? Nope. I suspect everyone here contributes nothing more than a few pennies of their taxes towards Walmart and if the government cut off those few pennies do you think they would cut your taxes by an equivalent amount? Of course not - they'd move it to another expense.

I'm affected by how my tax dollars are spent. I have high capacity roads that deliver products to small towns like mine rather than just large cities. There's an electric grid paid for with tax dollars that keeps my lights on. I'm confident the food I eat won't eventually kill me because of the FDA. There's medication I take that was developed only because it was partially funded through government grants. The air I breathe is cleaner thanks to the money spent on enforcing EPA regulations. This conversation between all of us on this thread wouldn't be happening if not for DARPA research. That's a small example of how my tax dollars have directly benefited me.

2. Let's say they have to keep everything in North America. Prices go up. Your imagined savings in tax dollars are more than offset by the price increases.

If your business model is only viable through the use of slave labor, it's not a very good business model.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
a reply to: KawRider9

I think we should boycott Walmart - the entire country should boycott them.

They are not just a 'wayward son' - they are vile, corrupt, and inhumane in all ways.

Lmao good luck. If Walmart were a country it'd rank as the 22nd largest by population, I think. Not totally sure that number is accurate. Walmart really isn't this huge vile corporation everyone makes it out to be. I work there, and the people that actually work are treated very well and paid very well....problem is, about 95% of all people I've worked with do not work, they get a job and think "Oh this is just Walmart, some slack-off job." Then they actually have to work and either don't or quit. The people that DO actually work get a raise and full-time. I've worked there for ten years, and literally most people that come into that place are flat-out lazy and do not deserve the 9$ (next year 10$) an hour they "earn." And that's what they start at, if it were me I'd pay these lazy aholes about 4$ to maybe buy a few sodas on break, lol.

Everyone wants to blame Walmart for this and that, but at the end of the day they are a pretty nice company to work for.

Here's an example: I work with this older guy that's been at this store for 15 years, it takes this dude four to six hours to stack down THREE pallets. And he only runs TWO carts in 8 hours. I stack down three pallets all on carts in under an hour and a half, I can have every cart ran and aisles "zoned" by the end of my shift. If you leave that dude by himself nothing will get done, AT ALL! And he makes 20$ an hour, not even being a manager of any sort, he's just a sale associate. I deal with this crap from every single person I work with beside maybe two stockers, even a few managers are lazy as snails.

If it's not young and lazy it's old and lazy. Like for real, if people can pass drug tests and actually get hired, THEY DO NOT WORK, besides maybe the rare 2% that come through the front door and actually stay, which usually those people within two years get bumped up to assistant manager. The irony here is that I've worked with a few "stoners" that far exceed most people in work ethic and I'd hire them any day of the week.

There's allot of thing I've "read" about Walmart I don't agree with, like this tax thing, but take it from someone who's actually there every night .... most of the crap you've read or heard, simply isn't true.

a reply to: Flesh699

Everyone wants to blame Walmart for this and that, but at the end of the day they are a pretty nice company to work for.

Sorry but nice companies don't have their employees sucking up over a billion dollars a year in subsidies.

originally posted by: buster2010
a reply to: Flesh699

Everyone wants to blame Walmart for this and that, but at the end of the day they are a pretty nice company to work for.

Sorry but nice companies don't have their employees sucking up over a billion dollars a year in subsidies.

Well if most employees actually deserved raises and full-time, they'd get them. Guaranteed. Good help is a rare, rare commodity these days. And let's talk about the Freeaters that come in every 1st of the month. Total slobs, the same slobs I've seen for ten years, all fat and lazy and they'll fill up their carts and wait until 12am for their EBT cards to fill up so I can buy them their junk. Never healthy, all disgusting and usually sugary. Yet I have to pass a drug-test to get a job, and they can shoot smack and eat on my earned dime. Let's talk about the real economic drains here.