Rupert Murdoch criticizes excessive regulation, corporate tax policy for stymieing G20 growth

12 years ago

“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.'”

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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.