openpolitics.com

Transcript

00:04

taxes essentially the government’s

00:06

GoFundMe page now

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today is April 15th which means you have

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just 45 minutes to file your taxes

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except relax don’t panic because thanks

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to the weekend and a holiday the

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deadline is actually April 17th

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this year except don’t relax do panic

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that’s still not enough time to do it

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right you’re fucked you’re absolutely

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fucked and you’re going to jail Anthony

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many people are perplexed and mystified

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by our tax system perhaps best

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exemplified by this Instagram video from

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cardi B you know that government is

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taking 40 percent of my taxes and Uncle

00:41

Sam I want to know what you’re doing

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with my fucking tax money but why does

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y’all niggas doing with my fucking money

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what is your with my fucking money I

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want to know I want receipts I wants

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everything I wanna go to my cousin

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weenie

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[Applause]

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whoa whoa cardi if you really want to

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know where your money’s going may I

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present to you the recently passed

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omnibus spending package

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[Applause]

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because it turns out cardi your fucking

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money goes to your fucking military your

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fucking health care and your fucking

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Social Security and veteran and

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unemployment benefits everything else is

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just on fucking discretionary shit and

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of course interest now as you may recall

01:26

late last year Republicans passed and

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Donald Trump signed a tax reform bill

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and in selling it Trump made some clear

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promises about who stood to benefit our

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focus is on helping the folks who work

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in the mail rooms and the machine shops

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of America the plumbers the carpenters

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the cops the teachers the truck drivers

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the pipe fitters the people that like me

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best well that that is clearly nonsense

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because if this bill were really helping

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the people that like Donald Trump best

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it would exclusively benefit

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Eric Trump Roseanne Barr and anyone

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who’s ever looked both ways before

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whispering it was the choose and the

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truth is for all chumps talk of pipe

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fitters the biggest tax rate cuts by far

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actually goes to businesses with the top

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federal corporate tax rate the tax on a

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company’s profits going from thirty five

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percent to just twenty one percent and

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to be fair many policymakers on both

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sides had argued at the 35 percent

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federal rate among the highest in the

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world

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should actually come down but to be even

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fairer most companies didn’t pay thirty

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five percent in fact before the bill was

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signed to the effective rate the amount

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companies actually paid was closer to

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twenty four percent and some large

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companies have historically paid far

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less than that

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you may remember a few years ago people

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were furious about this ge had profits

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of fourteen point two billion dollars in

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2010 five billion dollars of that made

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in the United States but the company’s

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expected US tax bill a grand total of

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zero dollars okay so when the total is

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zero you can’t call it a grand total

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there is literally no total less grand

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except maybe total cereal and that’s

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just because it tastes like your spoon

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somehow missed the cereal and now you’re

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just eating the box that it came in

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and GE may well say we’ll hold on that’s

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just one year but a recent study found

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that between 2008 and 2015 18 large

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profitable companies including General

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Electric paid no federal income tax at

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all over the entire period not at all

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and that is a staggering total which is

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incidentally what they used to call

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total with raisins until they got more

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honest who changed it to total with

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raises but who gives a shit

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so tonight in honor of upcoming tax day

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we thought we’d give you just a glimpse

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of the lengths that companies will go to

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to legally avoid taxes both here and

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abroad

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now corporate tax avoidance has a long

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and infuriatingly proud history in the

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1980s for instance a lawyer named John

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Carroll jr. came up with a tactic to

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move US companies offshore to avoid

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taxes and his firm celebrated him with

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and this is true a 13-minute operator

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staged in his New York apartment and

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I’ll give you just a very small taste

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[Music]

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Wow

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we may have just found the only musical

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resistant to race blind casting you

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can’t go Hamilton on this one because

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those people really have to be white now

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now that the tax dodge being celebrated

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they’re involved taking an American

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company and headquarter in it in Panama

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where taxes were lower something its

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creator called the Panama scoot which

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sounds like the name of a tiny elf in a

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cowboy hat

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my name’s Panama scoot and I sleep in

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your boots and offshore scooting is

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actually something of a common theme in

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corporate tax avoidance for decades

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companies have hunted for ways to get

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their money to friendlier tax havens

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like the Cayman Islands you may remember

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that during the 2012 election it emerged

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that Mitt Romney had money in the in

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companies in the Caymans which led to

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this magnificent clip of John Stossel

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saying the one thing he probably

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shouldn’t be saying to the person he’s

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speaking to but Romney pays taxes and

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all the money earned from the cayman

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entities i would think it would be like

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pirate heaven some pirates can’t say the

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word pirates

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to a guy with an eyepatch it can’t it’s

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not fair

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it’s like me sitting down across from

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you and calling you bootleg Geraldo yes

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yes it’s obvious but it’s also lazy and

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hurtful that’s an indoor thought and tax

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havens have become magnets to

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corporations who try and shift as much

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of their profits there as possible it’s

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a major reason why in 2016

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nearly two-thirds of the profits made by

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American multinationals outside the US

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were booked in just six low or zero tax

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countries and it’s a lot easier to move

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profits offshore than you might think an

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increasingly popular way particularly

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pharmaceutical and high-tech companies

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like Google avoid paying the 35% is to

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shift their patents computer code pill

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formulas even logos from their US bases

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to their outposts in low tax countries

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today

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a company can move automatically all of

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its assets just on paper you can push a

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button and move your algorithms you know

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could take the recipe out of the vault

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yeah put it in a Swiss Fault and then

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and then it’s Swiss yep coke could put

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that recipe in a Swiss vault and their

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profits would move offshore that is very

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roughly how it works although for the

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record just being in a Swiss vault

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doesn’t automatically make something

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Swiss that’s why we don’t call this

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Swiss gold we call it Nazi gold

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those are Hitler bucks your Swiss fucks

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and this this happens all the time

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and the best innovators in weasely

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accounting have arguably been tech

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companies look at Apple for years

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they’ve been deferring paying US taxes

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on foreign profits by stashing the money

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overseas and not bringing it back so

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much so that at the end of last year

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they had 269 billion dollars parked

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overseas and when their CEO Tim Cook

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appeared in front of Congress a few

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years back he was very defensive about

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that

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we pay all the taxes we owe every single

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dollar we don’t move intellectual

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property offshore and use it to sell our

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products back to the United States to

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avoid taxes we don’t stash money on some

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Caribbean island now he was technically

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correct there because Apple didn’t stash

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their money on a Caribbean island they

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did however have it stashed on this

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island Ireland which is it is true not

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in the Caribbean so one word made a lot

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of difference there it’s like if

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somebody said the one thing I can

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promise you is that this refrigerator is

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absolutely not

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full of severed Caribbean heads maybe

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that is technically true but I’m still

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going to pass on a sparkling water and

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when Ireland indicated that it planned

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to change its tax laws Apple found a new

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shelter for profits on this island the

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Isle of Jersey a tax haven in the

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English Channel which is again not

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technically in the Caribbean although

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when you really look at it you could

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almost mistake it for the Caribbean if

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you squint a little drink 9 points of

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beer and hold a picture of the Caribbean

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in front of us

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meanwhile Google used a slightly

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different tax workaround sending its

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money on something of a world tour

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Google license some of the intellectual

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property it created here in the US to a

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subsidiary in Ireland but it turns out

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Google’s overseas profits don’t even get

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taxed there because Google then

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reportedly funnels those profits through

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the Netherlands and then to of all

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places Bermuda where the corporate tax

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rate is zero now that tax trick actually

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has a name it’s called the double Irish

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with a dutch sandwich it sounds like a

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disgusting sex act or an even more

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disgusting Waffle House menu item it’s

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it’s when someone opens up a baked

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potato farce in it and closes it again

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really quick that’s one of it that

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that’s that is exactly what it is and

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when Google CFO was asked about their

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tax policies at a conference his answer

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nearly got him laughed off the stage we

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pay our taxes in every jurisdiction to

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the full extent that the law allows us

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and that’s what we do we pay every penny

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of tax we owe to everybody everywhere ok

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the reaction to the sentence I pay all

my taxes should never be incredulous

laughter unless you are a very wealthy

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dog who’s just spoken for the first time

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and here is where I have some good news

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and some bad news the good news is that

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Trump’s tax bill actually forces

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companies to pay taxes on all the money

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they’ve stashed overseas the hope is

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that they’ll then bring it home in

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something called repatriation the bad

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news is the tax they’re being forced to

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pay which may have once been 35%

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remember has been slashed to as little

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as eight to 15% which seems less like a

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punishment and a lot more like actively

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rewarding companies for tax avoidance

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but Steve minuchin

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Treasury secretary an objectively

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good-looking man argues that this would

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be a huge benefit to America’s workers

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we will have a one-time tax on overseas

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profits which will bring back trillions

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of dollars that are offshore to be

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invested here in the United States to

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purchase capital and to create jobs now

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I know it was hard to pay attention to

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what he was saying because you were just

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automatically undressing

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to go with your eyes and you do it

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whenever he opens his mouth I’m all

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right I’m definitely right the guy’s a

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California ten

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he’s a smoke show but but what he’s

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saying there is giving these companies a

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break on the taxes they owe is worth it

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because it will lead to job creation and

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that is hard to completely disprove

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because anything theoretically could

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lead to jobs you can say I’m dipping

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this badger in fudge to create jobs and

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I can’t prove that you won’t create any

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jobs by doing that but I would argue

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that if creating jobs is your main goal

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there are probably better ways to do it

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now luckily we actually have the benefit

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of a test case here because in 2004 we

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basically did the exact same thing under

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the American Jobs Creation Act it

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offered a one-year tax holiday where

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companies could bring back overseas

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profits and just a five percent tax

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rates the idea was that they would then

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create jobs but when the Senate looked

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at the employment numbers of the 15

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companies that brought back the most

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money this is what they found

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these are the average numbers of US jobs

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at those companies over a five year span

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here is where the big supposedly

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job-creating tax holiday kicked in and

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that is pretty fucking underwhelming I

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would argue that’s the most useless

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ineffective holiday since Arbor Day and

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I’m sorry Arbor Day but your secretaries

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day for trees and we all need to accept

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that in fact instead of hiring workers

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across the board companies mostly

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rewarded their shareholders using 94

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cents out of every dollar they brought

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home on stock buybacks and dividends

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something you can read about in the

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best-selling book yeah no fucking shit

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they did that by acclaimed author

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everyone who knows anything about

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corporations and look for many of those

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companies that may have been the best

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use of their money there is no point in

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hiring people that you don’t need

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but the Trump administration is fiercely

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insisting that this time their tax

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holiday is already creating jobs and

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some companies have seemed happy to pay

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along play-along Apple put out a press

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release not long after the tax bill was

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signed titled Apple accelerates US

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investment and job creation bragging

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they were about to create over 20,000

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new jobs and Trump was quick to take

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credit President Trump tweeting in

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response quote I promised that my

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policies would allow companies like

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Apple to bring mass

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of amounts of money back to the United

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States great to see Apple follow through

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as a result of tax cuts all caps okay

13:10

first that is a solid read from Jake

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Tapper there in fact I think all anchors

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should be forced to shout whenever Trump

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uses all caps in tweets I’ll show you

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this morning the president announced

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that he was quote heading to see the

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border wall prototypes in California or

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today today the president wished all

13:32

Americans are happy Easter but but for

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all the Trump’s excitement those 20,000

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Apple jobs were probably going to happen

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anyway given that the hole was entirely

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consistent with what Apple was doing in

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the United States before the tax cut

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bill passed and Tim Cook knows this this

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is how he responded when asked just how

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much of his hiring spree was down to

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Trump’s new tax plan there are large

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parts of this that a result of the tax

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reform and there’s large parts of this

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that we would have done in in any

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situation and so I haven’t spent a lot

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of time in categorizing those two

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because to me this is about America it’s

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not about which bucket you put things in

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yeah but actually it does matter which

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bucket you put things in because I would

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rather put things in a bucket labeled

14:19

smart economic policy than one labeled

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put money in here I like money thanks

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dummies Tim Cook and look look there are

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legitimate debates over how and how much

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we should tax corporate profits but we

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just had a huge chance to reform our tax

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code and we absolutely blew it because

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effective tax reform is not just about

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lowering rates

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it’s about closing loopholes for

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instance one reasonable idea raised last

14:44

year was forcing companies to pay a

14:46

minimum tax in every single country they

14:49

operate in it’s a bit complicated but

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that may well have reduced their abuse

14:53

of tax havens but that proposal never

14:55

even got out of committee so the result

14:57

here is that our tax code is still full

14:59

of loopholes and however much Trump

15:01

talked about how tax reform would

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benefit cops and pipefitters

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it’s worth knowing that once he got

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behind closed doors his message seemed

15:09

to change

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we’re told the president is still

15:11

celebrating passage of the Republican

15:13

tax cut bill sources with firsthand

15:16

which tells CBS News that he told a

15:18

group of wealthy people at his exclusive

15:20

mar-a-lago estate quote you all just got

15:24

a lot richer that’s right so on Tuesday

15:28

as you scrape together your taxes and

15:30

like cardi B wonder what Uncle Sam is

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doing with your motherfucking money rest

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assured that Donald Trump’s tax reform

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continues to let companies engage in

15:39

sophisticated tax avoidance schemes and

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to those companies I say this on behalf

15:44

of America please enjoy this double

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Irish with a Dutch sandwich I made it bu

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myself eat it while it’s hot

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[Applause]

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you

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