I'm at the PFIR Meltdown Conference.. I'm here to listen and think not blog, so I don't know how many posts I'll do, but there are number of high-quality bloggers here, including:
Oddly, the WiFi access in the conference is slow, but I don't know if that's here or part of today's general internet slowdown.
So far, the discussion has ignored any foreign income taxes on Sue's surgeries. It now is time to look at this double taxation –- US income taxes plus foreign income taxes.
An obvious preliminary question is why do foreign income taxes, as compared to other costs of doing business overseas (like other foreign taxes), present a special case? The idea is that most costs are reflected in the prices at which goods and services are sold. Federal-level income taxes, however, are bone by the owners of the business. Thus, being required to pay US and foreign income taxes is double taxation. (The born-by-owners assumption is shaky, but further analysis is beyond this little post.)
If you happen to be in New York city this Tuesday, you are invited to Cinewomen presention of a “mini-retrospective” of short films by my friend Eva Saks at the Pioneer Theater as part of a program called “LIFE: WILD, WOOLY & WONDERFUL.” Eva turned her back on a likely career as an academic to become an entertainment lawyer, and then turned her back on that to go to NYU film school.
I have argued thus far that (ignoring foreign taxes and the possibility that a US tax would drive Sue out of the US) the US should tax Sue on her foreign surgeries. Even under the assumptions thus far, however, the analysis is incomplete. I must address the argument that we should not tax Sue as that would undermine her competitiveness.
Although, as many bloggers noted, the AP tried to whitewash the sudden Hilary-Clinton-like rediscovery of Bush's military pay records by saying that they “shed no new light on the future president's activities during that summer” it's obvious to anyone with half a brain that in fact they do shed light on a dark corner. Like the curious case of the dog in the nighttime, the pay records speak volumes for what they do NOT say: they lack any indication that Lt. Bush met his service obligation.
That's simple. How Lt. Bush got away with an honorable discharge anyway is much more complex. The fullest descriptions of the whole paper trail are provided by Paul Lukasiak and can be found at his AWOL Project. Mr. Lukasiak has now released part III of this saga, 'Fraud: The Secrets of Bush’s Payroll Records Revealed. It's pretty powerful stuff, but it's also complicated and set out in an over-wrought style.
The combination of complexity and pushy style mean that the major media will probably ignore it. If a story is a little technical and can't be explained in a sound bite, even most print reporters these days are reluctant to cover it, and doubly so if the person offering the data isn't either a known member of the pundit class or sounds very calm and sober. No one wants to be thought shrill, after all.
Jotwell Blenderlaw