West Coast Connection Forum

Lifestyle => Train of Thought => Topic started by: Javier on October 11, 2004, 01:27:47 PM

Title: Senate Passes 136 Billion Dollar in Corporation Tax Breaks
Post by: Javier on October 11, 2004, 01:27:47 PM
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20041010113609990001

Quote
Updated: 03:39 PM EDT
Senate OKs $136 Billion in Corporate Tax Breaks
By JIM ABRAMS, AP

WASHINGTON (Oct. 11) -- The Senate passed a far-reaching, $136 billion corporate tax package Monday that cuts taxes for businesses ranging from film companies to bow and arrow makers while closing tax loopholes and bringing U.S. exporters in line with international trade rules.

 
   
With the 69-17 vote, the legislation that was two years in the making and required a rare weekend session in the Senate to complete, goes to President Bush for his signature.

''About 200,000 American manufacturers will receive a benefit to help create jobs,'' said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.

Senators also passed by voice vote two spending bills for 2005, a $33 billion homeland security bill and another including $14.5 billion in relief for Florida hurricane victims and drought-ravaged farmers in the Plains states, before their belated departure for the campaign trail.

The House adjourned on Saturday after finishing its actions on the three bills.

Monday's vote was made possible by a Sunday night agreement to satisfy the concerns of several Democrats threatening to immobilize the Senate with a weeklong filibuster.

Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., sought to protect measures left out of the corporate tax bill, while Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, objected to a cut in spending for a farm conservation program linked to drought assistance.

In the settlement, the three senators were promised mostly symbolic votes in which the Senate will reaffirm positions it has taken in the past, but which have been opposed by House Republican leaders.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, blamed politics for the difficulties in getting the bill through Congress. ''Certain members of this body don't want a Republican president signing a jobs bill a few days before the election,'' he said.

Harkin held up action on the hurricane aid, attached to a $10 billion military construction spending bill, to protest the decision to pay for the $2.9 billion in drought relief by cutting a farm conservation program that he has championed.

The hurricane money, intended mostly for the election battleground state of Florida, is not budgeted and will increase the federal deficit.

Landrieu won agreement for a vote on a measure giving a 50 percent tax credit to employers who compensate workers up to $30,000 in lost pay when military Reservists or National Guard members are called to active duty. It was estimated to have a $2.5 billion cost over 10 years.

Her proposal had been in the Senate version of the corporate tax bill but was taken out when House Republicans opposed it. Given that opposition, it was unlikely to win House passage.

Harkin got a vote Monday on a Senate resolution to instruct members of an upcoming budget conference committee that the Senate wants funding restored for the agriculture conservation program.

The corporate tax bill grew out of the need for Congress to respond to a World Trade Organization ruling that a $5 billion annual subsidy for U.S. exporters was illegal. As a result, 1,600 American exports to Europe are being hit by penalty tariffs that now stand at 12 percent and are rising by one percentage point a month.

The bill became the vehicle for the most significant overhaul of corporate tax law in nearly two decades. It includes $76.5 billion in new tax relief for the manufacturing sector, which was broadly defined to include oil and gas producers, architectural and engineering firms and film and music companies.

The package also provides benefits for a wide range of groups, from native Alaskan whalers, importers of Chinese ceiling fans, NASCAR race track owners and residents of states without state income taxes, who would be able to deduct state and local sales taxes from their federal tax returns.

The measure includes a $10.1 billion buyout for tobacco farmers. Several senators from both parties objected strenuously that the final version of the bill drops Senate-approved language that would give the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco.

The Senate late Sunday approved two measures pushed by Kennedy and Harkin to reassert FDA authority over tobacco and to ban implementation of new Bush administration rules that critics say will deny overtime pay to millions of workers. Both proposals are unlikely to win approval in the House.

In addition to the tax relief for manufacturing, the tax measure has $42.6 billion in tax relief for multinational companies. All the tax breaks are paid for by $136 billion in measures intended to close corporate loopholes and tax shelters.


AP-NY-10-11-04 15:24 EDT



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1.  Why?
2.  Aren't we in war?
Title: Re: Senate Passes 136 Billion Dollar in Corporation Tax Breaks
Post by: Machiavelli on October 11, 2004, 02:50:05 PM
Tax cuts help the economy.
Title: Re: Senate Passes 136 Billion Dollar in Corporation Tax Breaks
Post by: Javier on October 11, 2004, 02:52:43 PM
Tax cuts help the economy.


Explain what company will create jobs right now with how "well" the economy is going right now.
Title: Re: Senate Passes 136 Billion Dollar in Corporation Tax Breaks
Post by: Thirteen on October 11, 2004, 03:06:49 PM
Tax cuts help the economy.


Explain what company will create jobs right now with how "well" the economy is going right now.

univera, a health care company just hired 150 new workers around here

carberundum (sp) is hiring 50 more people

and another factory, saint gobain, is hiring another 50 people... that's in my city that has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country
Title: Re: Senate Passes 136 Billion Dollar in Corporation Tax Breaks
Post by: Sikotic™ on October 11, 2004, 05:35:49 PM
Good call. Those poor corporations needed a break SO BADLY
Title: Re: Senate Passes 136 Billion Dollar in Corporation Tax Breaks
Post by: Thirteen on October 11, 2004, 05:37:55 PM
we need to keep them in america where they can make us some money through taxes and employment...i'd rather see them get tax breaks then to bounce to mexico where we won't see a dime
Title: Re: Senate Passes 136 Billion Dollar in Corporation Tax Breaks
Post by: Ras Kass' Toothpick on October 11, 2004, 05:58:34 PM
^^^ Exactly
and if taxes are too high but they stay they might lay off workers or raise prices to increase profits.


People don't even think when they say "give high taxes to the rich, they can afford it".
Title: Re: Senate Passes 136 Billion Dollar in Corporation Tax Breaks
Post by: Javier on October 11, 2004, 06:05:42 PM
Quote
The package also provides benefits for a wide range of groups, from native Alaskan whalers, importers of Chinese ceiling fans, NASCAR race track owners and residents of states without state income taxes, who would be able to deduct state and local sales taxes from their federal tax returns.


Yea nascar race tracks are moving to Guatemala after this year
Title: Re: Senate Passes 136 Billion Dollar in Corporation Tax Breaks
Post by: Thirteen on October 11, 2004, 06:08:45 PM
Quote
The package also provides benefits for a wide range of groups, from native Alaskan whalers, importers of Chinese ceiling fans, NASCAR race track owners and residents of states without state income taxes, who would be able to deduct state and local sales taxes from their federal tax returns.


Yea nascar race tracks are moving to Guatemala after this year

lol didn't see that NASCAR clause in there...obviously there's a NASCAR fan that wrote the bill and slipped it in there....i mean ever see one of these proposals? they're large and a simple word like NASCAR can easily slip by
Title: Re: Senate Passes 136 Billion Dollar in Corporation Tax Breaks
Post by: Sikotic™ on October 11, 2004, 07:23:48 PM
Jobs will leave regardless. Only now, the big corps get to move their factories easier with the tax break.
Title: Re: Senate Passes 136 Billion Dollar in Corporation Tax Breaks
Post by: Javier on October 11, 2004, 07:47:51 PM
exactly^   

Do you guys reallythink getting a tax cut will prevent them to leave where they have more positives by moving
Title: Re: Senate Passes 136 Billion Dollar in Corporation Tax Breaks
Post by: Thirteen on October 11, 2004, 07:55:49 PM
well if they leave the country, they don't get any tax breaks so it really only effects the companies that want to stay
Title: Re: Senate Passes 136 Billion Dollar in Corporation Tax Breaks
Post by: Javier on October 11, 2004, 08:20:20 PM
well they wont care if they get a tax break, because they will be making tons of money overseas.
Title: Re: Senate Passes 136 Billion Dollar in Corporation Tax Breaks
Post by: Thirteen on October 11, 2004, 08:27:26 PM
but that's only for the big companies that have tons of money to go over seas... companies taht have been doing poorly and had to lay off people, reduce development and everything can use the extra money hopefully in a positive way... but you're right to worry about tax breaks...people could get greedy and just fatten their pockets with it
Title: Re: Senate Passes 136 Billion Dollar in Corporation Tax Breaks
Post by: Rampant on October 12, 2004, 04:20:09 PM
Large companies will always go to mexico. The tax breaks will give them more money, and so will outsourcing.

Smaller busnises (im not talking about like mom and pop stores, just not large walmart like companies) this will help. These companies dont have the money to outsource. This will give them chances to build more jobs.

No matter what you do (unless there is a ban on outsourcing) large companies will never stop giving jobs to mexicans.

But this will help smaller corporations.