Harry Reid is in love with one of the easiest tax dodges out there. He’s been buying –-gasp!!—municipal bonds. These bonds, as every investor knows, deny federal income tax from being paid to the patriotic hardworking citizens of the United States via the U.S. Treasury on the income created from the interest rate carried on the debenture. I don’t know how long the government will put up with this loophole whereby the federal government allows some citizens, like Reid, to make really stupid investment choices in the name of tax-free investment, but I can say this: If you have reasonable facsimile of a sarcasm font, I’m in dire need.
Because of course there is nothing wrong per se with buying municipal bonds for the tax advantages even if it is a ridiculous choice as an “investment”.
I mean what’s the market for a 30-year municipal bond at 3 1/8%?
The market can't be good, especially if interest rates rise. After you figure in inflation…yikes! That’s not investment, but rather the investment equivalent of that kid who lives in your basement with student loans and no job.
No wonder Reid loves it.
Let’s put it this way: If Reid was the guy who wrote up Obamacare, then there is no question why it sucks so badly. Like most Democrats, he knows nothing about money. So he had to earn it the old fashioned way, through graft, unlike conservatives who do so by hard work.
Which brings me to the meat of the story.
Burger King, the king of meat, is moving to Canada.
“Burger King is ruling a larger fast-food kingdom,” reports USAToday. “The new global company will be headquartered in Canada, but each brand will be managed independently, with Burger King retaining its U.S. offices in Miami, the two companies said in a joint statement.
I say good luck to the king of meat. Perhaps a country with a queen on its currency will be more friendly to the King than the U.S. has been.
It will certainly offer tax advantages, which of course is exactly what the move is all about. USAToday reports that the King saves 46% on its tax bill with the move to the Great White North.
Does anyone else find the irony in Burger King fleeing to Canada-- a place to which American Tories fled because they supported the tax on tea in opposition to guys like Adams, Franklin and Washington—because it will save them from the onerous American tax system?
And no irony would be complete in Obama’s fantasy tax code without an Obama billionaire weighing in, wagging his patriarchal moneybags in a hypocritical fashion.
“Warren Buffett has been a vocal supporter of higher tax rates for the wealthy but when push comes to shove the Oracle is all about the bottom line,” writes Jeff Macke on Yahoo Finance. “As you know yesterday Burger King (BKW) shares soared when word leaked of a potential tax inversion - inspired bid for Canadian donut shop Tim Horton's (THI). Now it's being reported that the deal will be funded in part by Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway."
Called “tax inversions”, the newest trend has companies looking to move their headquarters overseas in an attempt to selfishly make more money for investors by fleeing high American corporate taxes. Thus management fulfills the legal obligation they have to their shareholders to make profits. It’s an indictment on the sickness of the American tax system, which can't even compete with France. And that of course has liberals furious, calling companies who practice tax inversions unpatriotic and a lot of other hard names as well.
Liberal Democrats went so far at to call for a boycott of Burger King.
“Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) was the first lawmaker to call for a boycott of Burger King Worldwide Inc.,” writes the Wall Street Journal, “telling customers to shop elsewhere given the company’s pursuit of an acquisition that could allow it to avoid or curtail U.S. taxes.”
So while companies continue to flee the United States over a broken tax code, Brown, Harry Reid and the rest of the Democrat Senate engage in the oldest tax dodge of desperate politicians.
Because dishonesty is the Democrats' favorite tax dodge as well as their oldest.
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