Just in case the notion of a $15 billion bailout for the auto industry passing The House of Representatives wasn't bad enough, our duly elected officials in Washington decided to load it down with some pork.But not just any pork. Oh no. On top of this brazen waste of taxpayer money, they decided to further inhibit our ability to collect taxes from other corporations by condoning a tax shelter scheme known as Silo that allows corporations to avoid taxes by buying and then leasing back depreciation rights and assets. The scheme costs the government tens of billions of dollars each year.
Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa called the addition of that item a "a dark-of-night move that unravels an important tax reform and benefits tax shelter participants, including transit agencies, corporations and foreign banks, on the U.S. taxpayers' dime."
President-Elect Obama has promised "change we can believe in" and this will be his chance. Hopefully, he will urge President Bush to veto the bill -- if it makes its way through the Senate -- and demand that it be sent back to have this item removed.
With budget deficits set to spiral to new records for the next few years, the last thing we can afford is a bill allowing companies earning billions to legally evade taxes.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-11-2008 @ 10:30AM
BHarrison said...
Quote from article: ". . .a tax shelter scheme known as Silo that allows corporations to avoid taxes by buying and then leasing back depreciation rights and assets."
Doesn't this somewhat smack of the "creative accounting" that was used to develop the "derivatives" that caused the economic implosion?
These types of "creative accounting" practices must be OUTLOWED. CONGRESS is the BIGGEST CULPRIT in our economic demise. The CORRUPTION in Congress has to be stamped out or these vicious cycles will never end.
12-11-2008 @ 2:39PM
Todd said...
The elected officials who added this into the auto bailout bill should have their names made public. They should have to answer as to the amount of contributions from the auto/corporate industries that they received to put this type of 'pig spending' into this bill. They should be run out of office for the theives they are!
12-12-2008 @ 1:47AM
Randall Prince said...
Completely agree! This absurdity has to stop. This is plain and simple bribery that allows elected representatives to legally allow companies to avoid paying taxes "just because." What happened to raising taxes to pay for governmental function and not penalizing people and companies because they didn't contribute enough this year.