Globalized capitalism has provided many opportunities for corporations and their ruling class owners to expand their power and profits. Using GE as an illustration, this article focuses largely on one method used by corporations to avoid paying taxes: shifting their revenue to low tax jurisdictions.
This added to all their other ploys--outsourcing jobs to low wage countries, corporate tax cuts, subsidies, bailouts, sponsorship of government representatives, etc--has resulted in what we have today: local, regional, and national governments near bankruptcy because of lack of revenues. Hence they are pushing hard for more cutbacks in public sector spending except, of course, for weapons and armies to be used against foreign elements ("terrorists") who fight back against global capitalism and their resource grabs.
The New York Times reports tonight on what a great job General Electric does in taxAnd, regarding another global corporation, what do you think the chances are for AT&T getting the regulatory agency's (FCC) approval to buy T-Mobil and further consolidate their control over mobile communications. I'd say like 100%, even though the end result will be higher prices that we will pay for these services. AT&T will only need to hint that they might move some more jobs overseas to break down any resistance from the regulators.evasionavoidance, reaping a tax credit of $3.2 billion on $5.1 billion of reported US profits. And while GE is a particularly egregious example by virtue of having the most sophisticated tax operation in the US, it illustrates a more general point.
