“Media mogul Rupert Murdoch on Thursday criticized excessive financial regulation as stymieing free markets and urged Group of 20 governments to “take a back seat” to allow businesses to drive economic growth,” Jane Wardell reports for Reuters. “Murdoch also said U.S. President Barack Obama was penalizing businesses by cracking down on so-called ‘profit shifting’ by major corporations to countries with lighter tax regimes, a technique that is also in the sights of the G20. ‘My blood pressure goes up when I think of the number of local, state and federal regulations we have in our lives today,’ Murdoch told a meeting of the Business 20 leaders in Sydney, a day after his Twenty-First Century Fox Inc made an audacious $80 billion offer for Time Warner Inc. ‘That is just in America. Don’t even get me started on the European Union.'”
“The B20 was set up in 2010 to give policy recommendations on behalf of the international business community to the G20. Business leaders meeting here are looking to influence the outcome of the G20 Leaders Summit in Brisbane in November,” Wardell reports. “‘I believe that business does have a role in shaping public policy, mainly in helping limit the size and scope of government,’ Murdoch said. ‘For businesses large and small, there’s simply too much red tape, too many subservient politicians stifling economic growth and entrepreneurism.'”
“Along with targeting growth of 2 percent above trend over the next 5 years, the G20 is tackling corporate ‘profit shifting,’ which has allowed multinationals such as Starbucks Corp, Google Inc, Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc to avoid paying taxes,” Wardell reports. “‘Do we really expect overseas companies to voluntarily bring profits back to be taxed at 35 to 40 percent in the United States, when the corporate tax rate in Ireland is 12.5 percent?” Murdoch said. “This is not the way to achieve economic growth.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple CEO Tim Cook, May 21, 2013:
Under the current U.S. corporate tax system, it would be very expensive to repatriate that cash. Unfortunately, the tax code has not kept up with the digital age. The tax system handicaps American corporations in relation to our foreign competitors who don’t have such constraints on the free flow of capital… Apple has always believed in the simple, not the complex. You can see it in our products and the way we conduct ourselves. It is in this spirit that we recommend a dramatic simplification of the corporate tax code. This reform should be revenue neutral, eliminate all corporate tax expenditures, lower corporate income tax rates and implement a reasonable tax on foreign earnings that allows the free flow of capital back to the U.S. We make this recommendation with our eyes wide open, realizing this would likely increase Apple’s U.S. taxes. But we strongly believe such comprehensive reform would be fair to all taxpayers, would keep America globally competitive and would promote U.S. economic growth.
Related articles:
EU’s investigation of Apple’s taxes isn’t going to cause the company any problems – June 13, 2014
U.S. SEC ends review of Apple taxes, overseas cash – October 5, 2013
Obama, world leaders push big companies like Apple, Google to pay more taxes – September 6, 2013
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. shutters The Daily, announces details regarding proposed separation of businesses – December 3, 2012
Rupert Murdoch to split News Corp. into two publicly traded companies – June 28, 2012
News Corp.‘s Rupert Murdoch, Apple’s Eddy Cue to launch The Daily at special media event on Feb. 2 – February 1, 2011
iPad newspaper ‘Daily’ created by Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch to launch within days – November 20, 2010
“This opportunity – to make it to the middle class or beyond no matter where you start out in life – it isn’t bestowed on us from Washington. It comes from a vibrant free economy where people can risk their own money to open a business. And when they succeed, they hire more people, who in turn invest or spend the money they make, helping others start a business and create jobs. Presidents in both parties – from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan – have known that our free enterprise economy is the source of our middle class prosperity. But President Obama? He believes it’s the cause of our problems.”
“Mr. President, I still live in the same working class neighborhood I grew up in. My neighbors aren’t millionaires. They’re retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare. They’re workers who have to get up early tomorrow morning and go to work to pay the bills. They’re immigrants, who came here because they were stuck in poverty in countries where the government dominated the economy. The tax increases and the deficit spending you propose will hurt middle class families. It will cost them their raises. It will cost them their benefits. It may even cost some of them their jobs. And it will hurt seniors because it does nothing to save Medicare and Social Security. So Mr. President, I don’t oppose your plans because I want to protect the rich. I oppose your plans because I want to protect my neighbors.”
“Economic growth is the best way to help the middle class. Unfortunately, our economy actually shrank during the last three months of 2012. But if we can get the economy to grow at just 4 percent a year, it would create millions of middle class jobs. And it could reduce our deficits by almost $4 trillion dollars over the next decade. Tax increases can’t do this. Raising taxes won’t create private sector jobs. And there’s no realistic tax increase that could lower our deficits by almost $4 trillion. That’s why I hope the President will abandon his obsession with raising taxes and instead work with us to achieve real growth in our economy.”
“The real cause of our debt is that our government has been spending 1 trillion dollars more than it takes in every year. That’s why we need a balanced budget amendment. The biggest obstacles to balancing the budget are programs where spending is already locked in. One of these programs, Medicare, is especially important to me. It provided my father the care he needed to battle cancer and ultimately die with dignity. And it pays for the care my mother receives now. I would never support any changes to Medicare that would hurt seniors like my mother. But anyone who is in favor of leaving Medicare exactly the way it is right now, is in favor of bankrupting it.”
“Despite our differences, I know that both Republicans and Democrats love America. I pray we can come together to solve our problems, because the choices before us could not be more important. If we can get our economy healthy again, our children will be the most prosperous Americans ever. And if we do not, we will forever be known as the generation responsible for America’s decline.”
– Marco Rubio, Republican response to the statist Obama’s State of the Disunion 2013
Tax cuts create greater tax revenues for the government.
I understand this may seem incongruous at first glance, but it’s not. Prosperity breeds prosperity.
A fun little quiz: Match the people (Rush Limbaugh, Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy) to the quotes below:
1. “Republicans believe every day is the 4th of July, but the Democrats believe every day is April 15.”
2. “If you’re not a liberal at 20, you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative at 40, you have no head.”
3. “An economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits… In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.”
4. “No nation ever taxed itself into prosperity.”
the laffer curve has proven to be false. lowering taxes does not have an impact on economic prosperity. usa have been lowering taxes for decades and it hasnt helped the people, who real wages have been going backwards.
Historian you say? Perhaps you should have studied statistics, mathematics, and economics better. Real word outcomes are dramatically different than your fairy-tale propaganda talking point.
Cutting taxes makes the rich richer, it doesn’t spur the economy, nor does it help nearly 80% of the population. Since Raygun Ronnie’s criminal regime (Iran-Contra anyone?) the average cep’s pay has risen over 300%, while the average workers wages have stagnated and been reduced. (http : //econproph.com/2011/04/17/ceos-pay-grows-average-worker-pay-stagnates/)
“If we look at the aggregate outcomes, we find no apparent correlation between cuts in top tax rates and growth rates in real per capita GDP. Countries that made large cuts in top tax rates, such as the United Kingdom or the United States, have not grown significantly faster than countries that did not, such as Germany or Denmark.”
http : //www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2013/06/06/cutting-top-rate-taxes-makes-the-rich-richer-and-thats-it/
I think you may be in violent agreement with @Historian
You arena ignoramus of great proportion
Let me rob, and get filthy rich please. I build my pen highway when i need one!
“I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.”
“Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.”
“We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.”
Paraphrasing:
A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Barack Obama loses his.
it must hurt republicans that the dow jones is at an all time high, unemployment is falling, and the economy has recovered from the gfc. obama might have performed poorly on some issues, but the economy is not one. funny thing is as the republicans continue to go to the extreme right, it will guarantee the next president will be a democrat.
You lie.
Here are some facts:
47% of Unemployed Have Given Up Looking for a Job
Food Stamp Growth 75X Greater than Job Creation
murdoch is pure evil. he is the monty burns of our generation.
The “m” stands for “moron,” obviously.
the superior being stands for “master race”. nice chatting with you adolph.
Last reply to you, since once a moron has nothing left but to hit Godwin’s law, I’m out.
Now he is screaming about taxes!
Mr Murdoch needs to shut up and pay the taxes, since he complained about having to pay less tax than his secretary. Never volunteered to pay any more taxes – no donations to the working class taxpayer? We are accepting cashiers checks Mr. Murdoch. Just mail them to any old address if you feel so passionate about pay more taxes- oh, what? Too much government involvement with higher taxes- that was “comprehensive” change!
You are confusing Mr. Murdoch with Warren Buffet (the Obama supporter). I’m sure this was an honest mistake and not some cheap attempt to smear a right-wing business man from a foreign country. Your criticism of Buffet still stands though.
Rupert Murdoch runs an organisation that has been shown to have systematically extorted members of a European government over the course of decades, in clear breach of US law holding leaders of US corporations accountable for doing just that. Who is he to criticise US government policy? If the US government had any balls they should put the man on trial.
I highly doubt it harms growth, at least of the corporations themselves. Even if the tax rate were much lower, there would still be tax havens abroad. The issue is loopholes, low income taxes for the high earners and a weak estate tax.
It’s hard to be a meritocratic society when the sons of billionaires get huge fortunes without building anything themselves or gaining any expertise.
I bet he’d like phone hacking laws changing too
I suspect growth is stymied in the US because wages have been flat since Reagan was in office. People have already borrowed more than they can ever hope to repay and are working longer for less than ever before. They’ll not be spending much above subsistence for a while.
That’s rich. One of the worlds richest and most powerful men whines about being stifled.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if his “blood pressure goes up” to the point where we don’t have to listen to his corrupt (IMHO of course) ramblings ever again? There’s an excuse for a party. 😆
By rights, Rupert Murdoch should be in jail. That of course is IMHO. Why anyone gives a rat’s what Muyrdoch says about anything… Oh yeah. He has piles of money, and these days money = megaphone free speech and control over #MyStupidGovernment. Oh and he’s the boss of all those news service outlets.
What we have here is 50% useful megaphone free speech and 50% disingenuous, evil megaphone free speech. I’m willing to bet that his version of ‘deregulation’ includes the right for his media kingdom to tap the phones of celebrities for sensationalist headlines at his news outlets, tits-on-page-three around the world, and other such sleaze.
All in all, I’d prefer Mr. Murdoch to be in jail. Note that’s of course IMHO.
Let’s get the facts right. International companies like Apple, Google and Glencore derive profits from one country need to pay that country’s local tax, which ultimately benefits the local population (regardless of your political persuasion, certain civic activity requires community funding). Profit shifting to another lower-taxing country simply benefit that lower-taxing country and that company. This is just Rupert Murdoch squawking his own self interest. We will be worse off if he gets his way with the G20 politicians.
Ugh, why does that POS Murdoch have to be on Apple’s side? It stings hearing him talk of corporate tax breaks, when he’s worked for BS like making taxpayers pay for corporations to dump industrial waste.
Taxes on profits should not affect a company’s growth. It may affect the stock price, but that has a negligible effect on the company or its growth.