Carrier / UTC = THEIR PARENT COMPANY has only averaged paying 10% in corporate income taxes NOT the 35% marginal corporate tax rate, for the past 15 years with their annual average income of $2.8 Billion....or so.
Carrier/UTC WANTS MORE tax breaks, as in zero taxes for their repatriated profits from overseas... btw, how does this help the USA and help workers get jobs... by companies bringing their money back to the USA to sit in a US bank vs a foreign bank...I don't understand all of that stuff...? Is it the banks that make money off of them bringing their profits made overseas home to the US? It ain't for tax monies, cuz giving them a break of zero percent in taxes is simply zero for the federal govt coffers?
TrumpPence can't make a deal that is not up to them to make, ya know? they have to get their tax breaks through congress and it would not be for Carrier only, but for all corporations...
Trump has pledged repeatedly to keep UTC and Carrier from offshoring jobs, and it now appears that UTC may want a lower tax rate as the price for complying with this demand. Saving middle-class jobs is an important and laudable goal. But policymakers should approach such consequential discussions with all the facts. And the fact is that Carrier’s parent company already pays a relatively low effective tax rate.
As we previously noted, UTC does not have a lot of skin in the game when it comes to federal income taxes. The company paid an effective federal tax rate averaging just 10.3 percent over the 15-year period between 2000 and 2014. And UTC’s most recent annual report shows more of the same: the company paid a federal tax rate of just 9.4 percent on $2.8 billion in U.S. profits last year. This means year after year, the profitable company pays only a fraction of the federal statutory rate of 35 percent.
The company’s push for a corporate tax cut likely has a lot to do with its offshore cash. As of 2015, UTC had a cumulative $29 billion in profits stashed offshore that it claimed it earned abroad and has no intention of repatriating to the United States. The profits, if repatriated, would be subject to the federal corporate tax rate less any taxes it paid to foreign governments.
It’s impossible to know how much of this offshore cash is in the hands of the company’s zero-tax haven subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands or the British Virgin Islands because UTC refuses to disclose this information. (The limited disclosures that have been made by other corporations with offshore cash show these companies are paying single digit tax rates on their foreign profits.) But it seems plausible that when the company warns of “adverse tax consequences” of repatriating from “certain of our subsidiaries,” it has its Caribbean affiliates in mind.
The United States is one of the world’s most advanced democracies, which our federal tax system enables. Infrastructure, public education, health and safety, clean water, safe food, and national defense all require tax dollars—from citizens and corporations. The Unites States simply cannot compete with a zero-percent tax rate, nor should it try.
A company like Carrier, which may be accustomed to stashing money in the Cayman Islands and paying a zero-percent tax rate, certainly would consider the U.S. federal statutory rate “adverse.” But given UTC’s consistent ability to avoid that tax rate over the past 15 years, it’s hard to see why Congress or the incoming Trump administration should prioritize finding a way to cut the company’s taxes even further.
A Few Things to Consider Before Giving Away the Store to Carrier Corp | Tax Justice Blog
