Opinion

A solution for tax-ducking corporations?

 A Gazette editorial from the Charleston Gazette-Mail 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — For years, large American corporations like West Virginia-born Mylan Pharmaceuticals have eluded U.S. taxes by pretending to be foreign firms and stashing profits abroad. As long as they kept billions overseas — enriching those foreign lands — they avoided America’s steep 35 percent corporate income tax bite. Researchers say $2 trillion is held abroad.

President Obama proposed a solution — to let multinationals return their profits to America at a 14 percent tax rate, then pay 19 percent on foreign holdings thereafter — but conservatives in Congress objected.

Now, chickens have come home to roost. Apple has been slapped with a $14 billion European Union penalty because it kept $100 billion in Ireland without paying fair taxes. Smaller penalties previously were inflicted on Starbucks, Amazon and other U.S. firms.

 Good. It’s poetic justice that companies hiding from U.S. obligations were hit hard in their foreign havens.

Ironically, Congress is in a dither because the European Union crackdown means that America cannot someday tax the overseas wealth.

We hope West Virginia’s representatives in Washington support a solution that finally ends the shameful, disloyal practice of legal tax cheating.

To see more from the Charleston Gazette-Mail, click here.

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