The "Greening" of America

From icis.com

I just found the "complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies." You know, the companies that get touted as "the next greatest job creator," or "the key to energy dependence," or some other such drivel, at their opening. The next time you hear about them is when the announcement's made about their bankruptcy. Or the amount of tax $$$ lost during the time between opening and closing. Or both.

"It is no secret that President Obama’s and green-energy supporters’ (from both parties)

foray into venture capitalism has not gone well. But the extent of its failure has been largely

ignored by the press. Sure, single instances garner attention as they happen, but they ignore

past failures in order to make it seem like a rare case."

(please note the "from both parties" phrase)

"So far, 36 companies that were offered federal support from taxpayers are faltering — 

either having gone bankrupt or laying off workers or heading for bankruptcy. This list includes

only those companies that received federal money from the Obama Administration’s

Department of Energy and other agencies. The amount of money indicated does not reflect

how much was actually received or spent but how much was offered. The amount also

does not include other state, local, and federal tax credits and subsidies, which push the

amount of money these companies have received from taxpayers even higher."

And now, as Bill Engvall might say, Here's you list...

Read it and weep.

 

The Brits have tax loophole problems, too

From The Guardian newspaper

And one of the holes getting attention lately involves USA companies!

A US company wants to make some bucks offshore (and maybe avoid a few US tax payments) so they find a friendly country willing to give them a few tax breaks to ring their (the US company) cash registers on said friendly country's soil.

These financial machinations are frequently referred to as "loopholes." But that depends on whether you're the Loopholer (you got the $$$ breaks) or the Loopholee (you lost the tax $$$).

In this case, did a US company avoid US tax payments? I don't know. The tax laws are a tad confusing/complicated/convoluted, but in some cases, some companies seem to.

In any case, some of our British friends are screaming bloody hell about Starbucks having only paid 8.6 million pounds ($13,892,815 US) during the 14 years they've been doing business there. In that time their revenues amounted to 3 billion pounds ($4,846,258,935 US). Folks, dollars aside, that is one helluva lot of coffee in a land known to be full of tea drinkers.

While tracking down this story (just part of the service we offer around here) I found that the dastardly corporation Facebook is also guilty! FB's sales in the UK last year were 20.4 million  pounds ($32,957,662 US) and they managed to pay only  pounds ($384,489 US). A right nice piece of managing there, Mr. Z.

Considering the number of US companies piling up revenues in the UK, you just know the list of targets is going to grow and grow. And if the UK succeeds in revising their tax laws, adds to their coffers and maybe begin to get a handle on their national debt problems, we may see a few changes in our own tax regs. Maybe.

Modern day Rome is burning, and modern day Nero(s) are still fiddlin'

Tom Coburn, Senator (R), of Muskogee, Oklahoma (yep, a gen-u-ine Okie from Muskogee) publishes what he calls the Wastebook. It's a compilation of wasted tax $$$. The 2012 Edition is available online. All 202 pages of it. I've skimmed through it and found waaaaay too many funny/ridiculous/outlandish/dumb/scandalous/unbelivable "projects" to even pick out a few to tell you about.

The Senator even uses 66 of the 202 pages citing and linking to the "Official" details of each and every "project."

And some folks wonder how we piled up $16,000,000,000,000+ in debt. (please take note of those 12 zeros!)