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McDonnell is making plans for Labour's manifesto in Britain that includes taking on tax avoidance including "the big accountancy firms" that act as enablers. he says. "People are offended by the scale of not just tax evasion but tax avoidance by some of these big companies," says McDonnell who would be the Chancellor in a Labour party administration.

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Paul Hannon in the WSJ tells the story of how the Swiss now support the 15% corporate minimum tax. 78% of Swiss voters support the new tax in a referendum. Switzerland is now trying to change the bad reputation it had gained as a place companies moved to shift profits to low income tax locations. Switzerland now joins 35 countries implementing the 15% corporate tax in 2024 and 2025, including the 27 members of the European Union, Australia, Japan, France and the UK. 15 other countries say they will do so in that time frame.

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Norris quotes Senator John McCain who said that when corporations such as Apple and Google do not pay their share of taxes, other companies in the U.S. and ordinary taxpayers have to make up the difference.

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This NYT report says Mr. Trump paid not much  in taxes in 10 of the prior 15 years because of losses sustained by many of the projects in the hotel business.

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Rappaport of the NYT asks how it is possible that the U.S. Treasury is critical of the EU Commission's ruling that Apple pay back $13 billion in taxes because of its low tax rate of .005% in Europe, when Treasury is strongly critical of tax avoidance. The negligible tax by Ireland, base of Apple operations, is seen as a state subsidy not available to competitors. It also, as the EU Commission says, does not correspond to economic reality because the revenues are mostly made outside Ireland. An arrangement that is basically a strategy of tax avoidance. Today the leading candidates for president, Trump and Clinton, the major parties, and Congress, all are critical of tax avoidance strategies which deprive Treasury of much needed revenues. Restoring upward mobility is a priority today and programs to provide tution free access to public colleges, healthcare access, and infrastructure development, require public funding. Then why is the U.S.Treasury critical of the EU ruling? It is because Treasury sees this as money that should be coming to Treasury not the EU. However Treasury has failed to make this clear. The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency Coalition's Clark Gascoigne, calls it very ironic. And other experts say the money would not be coming to the U.S. anyway unless a low tax rate induces Apple to repatriate profits to the U.S. One expert calls it hypocritical. Senator Schumer says he agrees with Paul Ryan that tax legislation for a low tax rate for repatriation of profits back to the U.S. should be the next step, so that an infrastructure fund can be setup. Senator Levin and transparency advocates sees the EU action as normal and to be expected, as the anti-establishment sentiment today comes from such dealings that create the impression that the system is rigged in favor of some corporations. ...

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This exceptional report in the New York Times shows the results of a NYT investigation into Trump's taxes. Trump used a $916 million loss on his tax return for 1995. This was at a time when casino losses had mounted in Atlantic City and Trump was having financial difficulties. Trump used a tax avoidance maneuvre that was considered stretching the law by tax experts. Under tax law when debt is cancelled it has to be reported as taxable income. When Trump had some of this debt cancelled for his casinos, he would normally have had to show it as taxable income. He used a tax maneuvre to not show this taxable income- to be able to show a loss of the magnitude of $916 million for 1995 tax returns. The cancelled debt would make it possible to wipe out $50 million in taxable income for 18 years, says the NYT report. Trump used the losses of $916 million to offset other income from branding, television. Trump's debate comments to Hillary Clinton was why she had not closed the loopholes he had used. Hillary Clinton was one of the senators who had this loophole closed when legislation was passed in 2004. According to Mr. Buckley, the former chief of staff for Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation, this violated a key principle of American tax law, that you cannot deduct someone else's losses. Only the bondholders for the casinos who cancelled some of Trump's debt should be allowed to use these losses according to that principle. So Buckley says of Trump's tax return maneuvring- that "he was double dipping big time." What does it mean for the average citizen- it simply increases his tax burden. ...

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French and German authorites raid banks in an investigation on a $50 billion tax avoidance scheme in the European Union.

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The global minimum corporate tax will enable US, France, Germany, India and other countries to invest more in healthcare, education, infrastructure, in the years to come. Countries that helped tax avoidance shown in this graph in Live Mint are Netherlands, Cayman Islands, Britain, Ireland, Hong Kong, China. The biggest contributor to tax losses for advanced countries US, Europe and India is the Netherlands with $27 billion in tax that is diverted away, as shown in Live Mint.

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The Indian government pushes back implementation of General Anti-Avoidance Tax Rules to April 1, 2013. India's budget deficit was 5.9% of GDP in the year ended March 31, 2012, and is increasing. The current account deficit - difference between exports and imports of goods and services- is about 4% of GDP, and is also increasing.

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Medtronic pursues tax avoidance strategies as it merges with Covidien, which is based in Ireland. Ireland's corporate tax rate is 12.5% compared to 35% in the U.S. Medronic had $14 billion in cash in 2014, much of it overseas. The merger helps Medtronic use some of the overseas cash to finance the deal, and will help Medtronic distribute half of free cash flow to shareholders.

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EU leaders and proposals to limit tax avoidance by digital companies by requiring the companies to show the profits in the countries where they are made. This would require changing bilateral treaties. France is looking at proposals to tax companies by the number of clicks or user data. Large digital companies, including Apple and Google declare most of their European revenue in Ireland using legal loopholes in that country to shift profits to lower tax locations. A Senate report in the U.S. in May 2013 shows Apple using technicalities in Irish and U.S. laws to pay only a small amount in corporate taxes in four years 2009-2012 on $74 billion. Fredrik Reinfeldt, the prime minister of Sweden stated the argument for fairness in tax policy- "These companies ask for a lot of investment in infrastructure, in research and development, they want to have well educated staff members. Well, let's keep that together: Pay your taxes so we can afford all of these investments."

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Officials of 130 countries met virtually to agree on a global minimum tax rate. A minimum tax rate of 15% would be paid by corporations in each of the countries in which they operate so that tax avoidance is prevented. The Group of 20 major economies including India and China also agreed to this change in taxation to ensure that all companies pay their fair share of taxes. It is also part of the Biden plan for tax revenue generation to fund the infrastructure and human needs in health, education and public services that were neglected for so long. US president Biden says- "This will level the playing field and also make America more competitive. And it will allow us to devote the additional revenue we raise to make generational investments, which are necessary to keep America's competitive edge razor sharp in today's global economy." This tax change was needed to prevent companies shopping for low tax locations such as Ireland. This kind of locating in low tax rate locations worked badly for the major G-20 economies for decades as it prevented the generation of revenues needed for essential services and infrastructure investments. Tax changes include Biden's plan to increase the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, and raise the minimum tax on US based companies foreign profits to 21% from 10.5%.  ...

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This NYT editorial brings up the 14-19% tax proposed by U.S. president Obama for overseas profits of U.S. companies. The 5.25% tax in 2005 under the Bush administration for repatriation of about $300 billion did not result in a positive experience says NYT, as most of the money went into dividend payments, share buybacks, and severance for laid off employees. It led to a new surge in unrepatriated profits in the expectation of another tax holiday of this type. A Senate investigation in 2013 showed Apple has $100 billion in Ireland with no tax paid on much of this amount, as cited here. The NYT says Apple shows arrogance in thinking the EU Commission which has taken up cases on tax avoidance of Fiat, Starbucks, Amazon, BASF, would not look at Apple in Ireland. It calls tax deferral on overseas profits as the root of the problem, as it allowed companies initially to look at investment opportunities, but now simply to stash the money abroad till some better tax arrangement can be achieved with U.S. Treasury. The Obama administration proposal was to immediately tax existing profits at 14%, whether repatriated or not, and thereafter at 19% on profits moved offshore. The NYT is in favor of ending corporate tax deferral altogether, and applying taxes on profits in the same year they are made.  ...

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This editorial page opinion in The Economist says the increasing concentration in business is a real problem today. It says tech companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon are entrenching through acquisitions of smaller companies and startups leading to an unhealthy level of concentration, and control of entire markets. More competition is needed so that startups and smaller companies can grow, and new ideas or ways of doing things get a chance. A big problem is tax avoidance with individuals paying taxes like everybody else, and large tech companies like Google and Apple having the option to not have to pay just like everybody else. It calls for a "tough-but-considered" approach to tax avoidance. Its not that the money saved in taxes goes back to support millions of people hired by the industry through workers wages and future investment that builds a future for workers and the company. It cites figures showing 1.2 million employed in the top 3 carmakers in the U.S. auto industry in 1990, and only 137,000 employed by the top 3 companies in Silicon Valley including Apple and Google with capitalization of about $1 trillion.This contributes to a sense of unfairness that is being expressed in voter sentiment in the 2016 elections, especially with the wide divergence in the way that the top 45 percent has done in net worth of over $400,000 in 2013, after the 5% which is in the millions, and the bottom 50 percent at average overall net worth of $25,000 in 2013. A huge disparity that  U.S. Federal Reserve chairwoman Yellen, who cited these figures at a Boston Fed conference in Oct. 2014, says is "near their highest levels in the last one hundred years and probably much higher than for much of American history before then."  ...

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This Washington Post article by Henry Farrell explains the implications of the 2016 EU ruling on Apple asking it to pay 13 billion euros in back taxes. Other countries in the European Union are upset that Ireland is taking away business and siphoning away tax revenues from their country, and giving most of it back to Apple. Normally the European Union Commission does not have authority over taxes in the member states. However considering the social and political implications at a time of deep recession and political upheaval in the EU and the U.S., the European Union Commission under Margarethe Vestager has seen it proper to look at arrangements in which companies come up with tax arrangements that deprive member states unfairly of tax revenues- revenues that could support social welfare and basic education, healthcare services at a time of painful cuts. A tax rate of .005% in 2013 for Apple is cited by Vestager as she points out that Apple's taxable profit does not correspond to economic reality, as most operations are conducted outside Ireland. Ireland is just on paper the tax location for EU operations. Vestager has thus come up with a legal approach based on Ireland's tax arrangements being a form of illegal state subsidy, which is not allowed under EU rules, and gives the EU Commission authority to require that it be reversed by paying the back taxes of 13 billion euros. Farrell answers the question why the U.S. Treasury is saying that Apple should not have to pay these taxes, as the U.S. also hopes to get some of these taxes at some future date with Apple repatriating profits to the U.S. under a still to be set tax arrangement. ...

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Jeremy Corbyn is elected by a landslide in a vote of party members to the leadership of Britain's Labor Party. Like Bernie Sanders in the U.S. Corbyn started out as a fringe candidate, but his campaign gained momentum as he barnstormed the country this summer and was able to draw large enthusiastic crowds. Corbyn has represented the Islington North constituency of London in Britain's parliament since 1983. Corbyn opposes the austerity policies of the Conservative Cameron government and military adventurism. He proposes what he calls "a people's quantitative easing" which would finance new investments in infrastructure, large scale housing, energy, transport and digital projects. He has apologized to students about the restoration of fees for education and loans replacing grants in universities, and would scrap tution fees, restore student maintenance grants, introduce universal childcare, support adult learning.The Bank of England would print money to support a national investment bank to provide the funding. Other funding would come from reducing corporate tax loopholes, and cutting into 20 billion British pounds of tax avoidance and 80 billion pounds in tax evasion. He favors immigration, and staying in the EU, opposes NATO membership on grounds that it has expanded too far to the borders of Russia....

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Fact checking Apple CEO Tim Cook's statements on the EU Commission ruling for $13 billion in back taxes, shows that CEO Tim Cook's statement that "we never asked for, nor did we receive any special deals," is not true. Ireland let Apple determine what it would pay in tax, and Apple had the benefit of loopholes in Irish tax laws, the fact check by experts shows here. Apple's Cook also says it would hurt investment and jobs in Ireland. Another NYT article showed that the entire healthcare budget of Ireland would be covered by the $13 billion, and 66% of its budget for social support services to the public. Apple has 22,000 employees in Europe and 6000 in Ireland in 2016. Based on the $13 billion owed in taxes, for every job in Ireland the cost to Ireland is 2.17 million euros, and for every job in the EU the cost is 590,000 euros. Apple could turn around and locate in some other place, other than Ireland, in which case Ireland does not get the 6000 jobs. This is Ireland's incentive to give Apple tax benefits. Only if all EU countries had common tax laws would it be possible to avoid this situation, and generate much needed tax revenues at a time of cuts in public spending in healthcare, education, and social services, and invest in infrastructure, worker retraining. The alternative is for the EU to look at other remedies. This is what the EU Commissioner Vestager did when she announced that this was a state subsidy and illegal under EU rules. Because the appeal by Apple goes to the EU Courts the appeal is difficult say legal experts. The EU courts look at the legal aspects of the ruling, was it justified, not at the overall aspect of the ruling by Vestager, as EU Competition Commissioner. This may be why there is so much outcry from Apple, and other digital companies.  ...