If Liz were Queen

GOLDMAN SACHS TAX RATE IS NOW AT 1%. [Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which got $10 billion and debt guarantees from the US government in October 2008, expects to pay only $14 million in taxes worldwide for 2008,compared with $6 billion in 2007.]

Don’t you wish that your tax rate was at 1%?  I sure do.  Perhaps this explains Goldman Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein’s intentions to go ahead and distribute those large bonuses among his Wall Street corporate welfare executives.  Who knows?  Perhaps it was their “brilliance” that figured out how to cheat the government out of billions that they should be paying in taxes.

IN 2010, WE NEED TO SERIOUSLY WORK ON REPLACING THOSE 14 REPUBLICAN SEATS IN THE SENATE WITH AMERICAN WHO WILL REPRESENT MAIN STREET.

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“. . . A 2008 study done by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that eighty-three of the top publicly held US companies have operations in tax havens like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and the Virgin Islands. Fourteen of these companies, including AIG, Bank of America, and Citigroup, received money from the government bailout. The GAO also reported that activities of Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) are directly connected to tax avoidance.

In December 2008, the bank holding company Goldman Sachs reported its first quarterly loss. On the heels of this announcement, Goldman Sachs issued a statement confirming that its tax rate was dropping from 34.1 percent to 1 percent. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which got $10 billion and debt guarantees from the US government in October 2008, expects to pay only $14 million in taxes worldwide for 2008, compared with $6 billion in 2007. The New York-based Goldman Sachs cited “changes in geographic earnings mix” as the reason behind the decrease.
According to US Representative Lloyd Doggett, the shifting of income to countries with lower taxes is cause for concern.  “The problem is larger than Goldman Sachs,” Doggett said, “With the right hand out begging for bailout money, the left is hiding it offshore.” . . .   MORE