Why is the World's Richest Company Such a Tax Cheat?

[abner137 48]

C'mon man..... first of all I would like to make it clear, I dislike Apple immensely. That being said, put this in perspective.

Say a hardworking American such as yourself makes $50k a year, you might not "cheat" on your taxes but you make some "liberal" if not "questionable" deductions or something to that effect, say in the amount of $1000....

1/50 of 50 billion????.... just sayin....

[Danno 1,228]

Okay, so we agree. Low taxes do not create jobs. Thank you.

YEah I guess it was the BBQ which brought so many plants south..... and here everyone thought is was the sweet tax incentives.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

YEah I guess it was the BBQ which brought so many plants south..... and here everyone thought is was the sweet tax incentives.

Lots of red and orange and yellow down south, eh? Tax incentives are there but where the ** are the jobs?

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://www.nctimes.com/article_be130984-2fe2-52f1-b49e-3cc2e28fbe70.html

Top Ten Reasons Why Companies Are Leaving California

May 21, 2012 10:51 am • JOSEPH VRANICH

Joseph Vranich, an Orange County-based business relocation specialist, offers these top 10 reasons why businesses are departing California.

#1 – Excessively Adversarial: For eight years in a row, Chief Executive magazine found California to be the worst state for business. Editors said the state appears to have slipped deeper into the “ninth circle of business hell,” a reference to Dante’s Inferno. “The economy, which used to outperform the rest of the country, now substantially underperforms.” They’ve called California the “Venezuela of North America.”

#2 – Severe Existing Tax Treatment: The Tax Foundation in its 2012 State Business Tax Climate Index lists California at No. 48. CFO Magazine ranked California the worst state for tax treatment, as do many other rankings.

#3 – Future Tax Increases: Businesses will face higher income and sales taxes. The state has the largest budget deficit of any state. Employer costs will rise in 2013 as payroll taxes increase to bail out the Unemployment Insurance Fund (insolvent by $10 billion) and to cover excessive borrowing from the Disability Insurance Fund. Future bond borrowing costs will grow because California is S&P's lowest-rated U.S. state. (Bloomberg News, May 18, 2012: "Gov. Jerry Brown is seeking a 38,000 percent spending increase for a proposed high-speed rail system” despite a $15.7 billion deficit.)

#4 – Worst Regulatory Burden: California approved global warming cap-and-trade initiatives with 262 pages of new regulations and fees going into effect in early 2013 even though the state contributes less than 1 percent of the worlds’ green house gases. The draconian measures ignore Bain & Co.’s “regulatory hassle index” that found “California is far worse than any other state by a very significant margin.”

#5 – Unprecedented Energy Costs: California’s commercial electrical rates already average 50 percent higher than in the rest of the country. The new 2013-2018 “green energy” mandates will boost rates by a minimum of another 19 percent in many California localities, which will harm companies in every industry.

#6 – Dreadful Legal Treatment: The Civil Justice Association of California said the state ranks 44th in legal fairness to business. In 2010, the Institute for Legal Reform found Los Angeles’ courts were the second worst in the nation for legal fairness, after Chicago’s, while San Francisco’s courts were the sixth worst.

#7 – Most Expensive Locations: The Milken Institute found that California businesses pay 23% more than the national average in operating costs. McAfee avoids hiring in California and saves about 30 percent to 40 percent every time it hires outside of the state.

#8 – Oppressive Permitting Procedures: Obtaining permits from public agencies is extraordinarily expensive and time consuming because of confusing, extraneous and harsh requirements. Example: It can take 2 years to obtain permits just to build a restaurant in California while in other states it can be as little as 1-1/2 months.

#9 – Unfriendly Even to Small Businesses: In 2012, Thumbtack.com and the Kauffman Foundation gave California an “F” grade from small businesses for overall business unfriendliness, difficult regulations, tax code, licensing and health and safety. The finding echoes the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council in Virginia 2011 conclusion that California ranked 49th overall in terms of business friendliness.

#10 – ‘Composite’ Findings Put California Last: Development Counselors International in a 2011 survey of executives found that ranked California as having the worst business climate of any state based on operating costs, taxes and deficits. That reinforced the “Pollina Corporate Top 10 Pro-Business States for 2010” study that placed the state at the bottom based on labor costs, taxes, litigation abuse, crime rates, demographics, school dropout rates and other factors.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/moved-342887-companies-texas.html

Report: 254 companies left California in 2011

Published: March 2, 2012 Updated: March 5, 2012 8:31 a.m.

California lost most jobs, firms in recession

69 more companies move jobs, facilities out of California

Are California businesses closing or leaving?

2010 total: 204 companies leave California

By JAN NORMAN / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

In 2011, 254 California companies moved some or all of their work and jobs out of state, 26% more than in 2010, according to Irvine business consultant Joe Vranich who has been tracking these departures since 2009.

Twenty-eight of these companies were in Orange County. Seven of them moved or expanded to Texas, three to Mexico, two to Washington and one each to 16 other states, said Vranich, who has changed the name of his business from The Relocation Coach to Spectrum Location Solutions, which helps companies define their goals, find new locations and coordinate the move.

The pace is accelerating, Vranich said. An average of 4.9 businesses left California each week of 2011, compared to 3.9 per week (202 total) in 2010 and one a week (51 total) in 2009.

In what he calls "disinvestment events," Vranich counts companies that move jobs, facilities or headquarters out of California and "in carefully selected instances, companies making major capital investments in plants elsewhere that in the past would have been built in California," Vranich said.

He doesn't count companies that invest outside the state for growth or marketing reasons.

In this latest report, Vranich does not include a list of departing companies by name.

"Hassles arise when it becomes known that a company is going to move and politicians call to try to persuade them to change their mind. That includes calls from Gov. Brown's office," Vranich said. "In effect, I've added fuel to a fire that had started to simmer down. I don't want to make life more difficult for other people in business so I'm no longer naming the companies."

But based on news reports, here is a sampling of companies that moved partly or completely out of California in 2011:

Some are well known: Dunn-Edwards Paints in Vernon; and eBay Inc. in San Jose which will add 1,000 high-paying jobs in Austin, Texas, after receiving government incentives to locate there. The new owner of Claim Jumper and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurants moved the headquarters for both chains to Houston. Hyundai Capital America in Irvine transferred 71 jobs to Georgia and Texas.

In addition, Rockwell Collins in Irvine moved its electromechanical systems work to Mexico and Florida. Tickets.com in Costa Mesa closed its Concord office and moved the call center and customer service work to Texas. Wells Fargo Bank moved 59 jobs from Orange County to India.

Here are some of the Orange County departures in 2011:

Legacy Electronics to South Dakota

EDM Laboratories to Texas

Ossur Americas moved knee-brace manufacturing from Foothill Ranch to Mexico, laying off 109 people in Orange County

MVM Technologies moved from San Clemente to Washington D.C. The company was also wooed by economic development staffs in Oregon, Texas and Ohio.

Kairak closed its Fullerton plant and moved the work to Fort Worth, Texas.LeMaitre Vascular Inc., based in Massachusetts, closed its Laguna Hills factoryAccentCare, a home healthcare provider, moved its corporate headquarters from Irvine to Dallas.

For all California departures, the top destinations were Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and a tie for Utah and Florida, Vranich said.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Bad_Daddy

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/us/californians-face-competing-tax-increase-propositions.html?_r=0

Californians Face Rival Ballot Initiatives That Would Raise Taxes

By BROOKS BARNES

Published: September 10, 2012

LOS ANGELES — First came a competing save-our-schools ballot initiative, backed by a wealthy lawyer who proved more persistent than Gov. Jerry Brown had hoped. Then came a summer of minor financial embarrassments that handed Mr. Brown’s opponents a narrative to use against him.

Now comes a nagging question: Against that backdrop, is Mr. Brown’s $8-billion-a-year proposed tax increase in trouble?

On Nov. 6, California voters will face their usual thicket of ballot measures, 11 in all this time around, ranging from a further crackdown on human trafficking to the mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food. But the most prominent by far is a budget-easing measure being pushed by Mr. Brown, who wants voters to approve tax increases to head off even more cuts to the state’s already decimated education system — a loss would automatically set off about $5.5 billion in cuts from public schools and $500 million from the state’s public colleges.

Proposition 30, as the measure is called, would increase statewide sales taxes by one-fourth of a cent and impose an income tax surcharge on Californians who earn more than $250,000 annually. The sales tax increase would expire after four years, and the income tax component would last for seven years. Some of the new money would go to public safety programs, like the supervision of parolees.

Stepping up his campaign for the initiative on Aug. 15, Mr. Brown, 74, framed his argument in biblical terms, telling a crowd gathered at a Sacramento high school, “To those who much has been given, much will be required,” a reference to the Gospel of Luke. The week before last, campaigning in San Diego, he said that students would see “real suffering” if voters rejected the plan.

A defeat could have consequences for the state and for Mr. Brown even beyond forcing deeper cuts in a school system that already ranks 47th in the nation in per-pupil spending. So strenuously has the governor pushed the measure, and so closely has he become linked to it, that a defeat would most likely curb his influence, and might even invite a primary challenge from a younger generation of Democrats. As Mr. Brown approaches the end of his career, his broader legacy is also in play.

“This initiative has been defined as seminal to his governorship,” said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California.

But Proposition 30, supported by California’s teachers’ unions, has run into two snags, both of which are out of Mr. Brown’s control.

One is a rival education measure, Proposition 38, which is backed by Molly Munger, a civil rights lawyer who is the daughter of Charles Munger, the billionaire vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Ms. Munger’s initiative would raise income taxes on nearly all wage earners, although wealthy Californians would bear most of the burden.

Her measure would raise about $10 billion a year, with the bulk going to schools and some going to pay down state debt. It would expire after 12 years and is supported by the California State PTA.

Mr. Brown made various attempts to eliminate competing ballot measures; some political experts say multiple tax-related measures could confuse voters, or at least make them weary of tax issues. But Ms. Munger refused to back off, and she has so far poured $19 million into her campaign. “There’s room for more than one idea about how to fix our schools, and on a topic this important, voters deserve a chance to choose,” Ms. Munger said in an e-mail.

Nathan Ballard, a spokesman for Proposition 38, added, “Our TV campaign, focused on making sure voters know Prop 38 is the only one that sends money directly to schools, will now start rolling out aggressively.”

Ace Smith, the campaign manager for Mr. Brown’s proposition, said Ms. Munger’s tax initiative was of little consequence to the governor’s plan, calling the theory that voters shut down when presented with multiple tax measures “stale conventional wisdom.” If anything, Mr. Smith contended, Ms. Munger’s ads will give Mr. Brown’s measure a lift. (If both measures pass, the California Constitution stipulates that the one with the greatest number of votes takes effect.)

Mr. Brown’s tax increase may also be threatened by a series of minor spending scandals that undermine his carefully devised message that voters can trust Sacramento with more of their money.

Recent months have brought the disclosure of pay raises to hundreds of legislative staff members, many already making six figures. In a bigger setback, state parks administrators acknowledged that employees kept a budget surplus of nearly $54 million hidden even as the park system faced cutbacks and dozens of closings. Such missteps — along with Mr. Brown’s support of a $68 billion high-speed rail project at a time when the state supposedly does not have money for schools — have invigorated opponents like the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

“What else are they keeping from us?” Jon Coupal, the president of the taxpayers’ group, says in a radio ad that has been running lately.

Mr. Brown had no comment, but Mr. Smith said support for Proposition 30 showed “a real steady progression” over the summer in various polls, which indicated support at about 54 percent. “I just don’t see any evidence for the supposition that these things are hurting Prop 30,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Still, Mr. Schnur said Mr. Brown’s tax increase, which once seemed to have a good chance of winning despite California’s antitax history (voters have rejected the last eight tax increases on the ballot), is now “very vulnerable.”

“The poll numbers show it passing, but with a level of support in the low 50s, which is considered shaky ground,” Mr. Schnur said.

Mr. Brown has a few things going his way. Polls show that voter support for Ms. Munger’s initiative is weaker, and Mr. Brown won a legal battle in July for his proposition to appear first on the ballot.

Ms. Munger may have a fat checkbook, but Mr. Brown has done all right himself, with supporters raising about $11 million. Support has been particularly strong from businesses — Indian casinos, soft drink companies, oil — worried that they could become targets for additional taxes if Proposition 30 fails. Meanwhile, opponents have struggled to raise money.

Two weeks ago, the Legislature gave Mr. Brown some help, pushing through an overhaul of state workers’ pensions that will save taxpayers billions and giving the governor a way to prove to voters wary of a tax increase that he is working to reduce government spending.

A potential pitfall remains that expensive high-speed rail project that Mr. Brown has championed. But some political analysts say it might give him a card to play. If the campaign is a close one, “his best chance for getting Prop 30 across the finish line is by announcing that he’s postponing action on the rail project,” Mr. Schnur said. “At some point over the coming weeks, Jerry Brown may have to decide what he wants most, the ballot measure or the train.”

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Or, just tighten the rules so that corporations can't avoid paying corporate taxes, or eliminate corporate taxes altogether, and find a different mechanism to collect those revenues.

Golly gee willickers. I imagine any company based in California ever relocating...especially with all that great weather California has. Gov. Moonbeam and the rest of that bunch must be so proud of themselves. Just think about it...future generations of Californians for years to come will be paying for Moonbeams high speed rail. They really do care about the future in that state don't they now.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Bad_Daddy

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

1347978832[/url]' post='5696860']

Related:

Maybe cause they are bunch of liberal wankers. They have ideas on how everyone should act but them

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Maybe cause they are bunch of liberal wankers. They have ideas on how everyone should act but them

I wonder what happened to the OP? He seemed like he was on a roll with how to punish those companies.

[Penny Lane 8,159]

YEah I guess it was the BBQ which brought so many plants south..... and here everyone thought is was the sweet tax incentives.

Your signature confuses me. You're ... anti-tolerance? What?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I wonder what happened to the OP? He seemed like he was on a roll with how to punish those companies.

I believe he was either spammed to death, or stuck doing the dishes.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

I believe he was either spammed to death, or stuck doing the dishes.

Dishes are easy enough...spamming though..that one sucks.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

I believe he was either spammed to death, or stuck doing the dishes.

I am on VJ political forum ration now. The Mrs hath put her foot down.. You can address the thank you cards to....