U.S. Business leaders unite against corporate tax avoidance

From the American Sustainable Business Council, a letter that is very hard to argue with.

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20005

June 7, 2013

Dear Mr. President:

As business leaders, we are writing to urge you to support the efforts of Prime Minister David Cameron and other world leaders to develop shared strategies for ending offshore tax abuse and addressing corporate tax avoidance through aggressive profit shifting when you represent the United States at the upcoming G8 meetings.

When companies play one country’s tax laws against another, and have developed a system in which their international subsidiaries hold billions of dollars of profits untaxed in any nation, this is a problem for all nations. It is also a problem for our country’s small and mid-size businesses.
America’s businesses, especially small and medium sized companies, understand that the current corporate tax system is badly broken. It provides powerful incentives to shift investment and jobs offshore. The biggest crisis small business owners face is the lack of spending power in this country.

It is easy to make the connection that unemployed and underemployed people can’t be our customers, and their lost income can’t circulate and enliven the economies of our communities.

American small businesses are angry that they are subsidizing large multinational corporations who have lobbied for, won and use tax loopholes that in many cases allow them to avoid paying any federal income taxes despite reporting billions of dollars of profits to shareholders. These very same companies are now using their political clout to argue for failed policies like a territorial tax system that would only accelerate current problems.

(Continued . . . )

Read the rest of the letter here.