--- "Paul T. Root" <ptroot@iaces.com> wrote:
> I remember a couple of years ago, Stanley announced that they
> were moving Corporate Headquarters off shores, simply to skip
> out on paying taxes.
>
> I seem to remember they got shamed into not doing this. But, either
> way, I vowed never to by Stanley again. Not really much of a threat
> since I rarely bought it in the first place.
They did a gutsy thing to try to save the company. The problem
is the US tax code. In most countries, the tax code is arranged
so that foreign income is only taxed once. If it's taxed in
another country, your home country does not tax it. But in the
US, all revenue is taxed when it's brought into the country
whether it's been taxed somewhere else or not. Therefore, the
only way to avoid double taxation is to keep the offshore
money offshore. That's why so little is exported from the US
to foreigh countries. If a business is successful at all
overseas, they soon need to establish overseas factories to
supply that market to avoid the tax penalty by re-spending
the proceeds in the foreign countries. And if they're
*really* successful, and can't re-spend all that overseas
revenue offshore, they have to move their corporate headquarters
offshore as well to avoid a non-competitive tax hit. Companies
don't make these decisions because they're greedy or sinister,
they are compelled to do it to stay in business.
For a nation of big evil capitalists, the US has some pretty
business-unfriendly tax laws.
=====
David Breneman david_breneman@yahoo.com
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