NYT: the art of tax war

This New York Times piece comments on efforts to repeal part of the Bush tax cuts, and begins with:

As Sun Tzu observed about 2,500 years ago, “All warfare is based on deception."

Indeed. The article is well worth reading, but we shall point out merely to this, about our good friends CTJ:

"In my view, Citizens for Tax Justice, which describes itself as an advocacy group that strives “to give ordinary people a greater voice” against the “armies of special interest lobbyists for corporations and the wealthy,” offers the most specific and well-documented analysis of the two competing approaches to the Bush tax cuts, those of President Obama and the Congressional Republicans. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have gotten much attention from the news media.

I’m not sure whose fault that is, and if Sun Tzu were alive today, I’m not sure whom he would be working for. But it’s pretty clear that the Republicans would offer him a higher salary."

And, as a reminder, it points to what we blogged recently:

"In a counterattack, a group called Business and Investors Against Tax Haven Abuse has released a report arguing that corporate tax havens provide an unfair advantage to large chain retailers and financial companies over locally owned retailers and community banks."

Good to see this stuff getting noticed. And we'll end with this little tidbit:

"Apparently Goldman Sachs, taking brilliant advantage of offshore tax havens in 2008, paid federal taxes at an effective tax rate of 1 percent, proffering a sum less than one-third what it paid its chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein."