Avoiding Taxes The Way Big Corporation Do

I'm interested in tax fairness. It doesn't seem fair to me that giant multi-national corporations, with their teams of lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists, are able to rig the game so they pay no income taxes despite significant profits.

By not paying their fair share, the burden on the rest of us increases while at the same time, our nation's financial outlook worsens as a result of what I believe to be both a spending and revenue problem.

Yesterday, I had an op-ed in The Hill, discussing this issue. The article was called Avoiding Taxes The Way Big Corporations Do where you can read more about my views and this issue.

The Willamette Week had a great article back in April entitled 9 Things The Rich Don't Want You to Know About Taxes where they highlighted the impact of corporate and individual loopholes that seem to be available to only an elite few.

Here's an older article claiming most corporations pay no US Income tax and here's a more recent article highlighting 16 profitable U.S. corporations who paid no income taxes.

B Corporation Community Grows

Last week I attended a local B-Corporation event at The Joinery. The B-Corp community keeps growing and now includes more than 420 business organizations representing more than $2 billion in annual revenues. Oregon has 27 B-Corps.

Four states (Maryland, Virginia, Vermont, and New Jersey) have now passed B-Corp legislation. New York is on the cusp, and bills have been introduced in over half the states. According to Stephanie Ryan from B Lab, the legislation has been passed with bipartisan, and nearly unanimous support, when the final vote was taken.

I still consider the B-Corp certification as the gold standard for green minded businesses due to the rigor, transparency, scope, vision, and accountability of the B-Corp certification mark.

B-Corp is launching version 3.0 of the assessment tool later this summer. I highly recommend that every business benchmark themselves using the free assessment tool. It will help you lead a better business.

Extensions

Individual tax returns (Form 1040) are due Monday, April 18th. Returns postmarked after this date, unless properly extended, incur a failure-to-file penalty on the balance due of 5% per month (to a maximum of 25%). Additionally, there are also failure-to-pay penalties and interest charges as well.

You can file for an automatic six-month extension by filing Form 4868 (Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File U.S. Individual Income Tax Return) on or before the April 18th filing deadline.

The instructions for filing a Form 4868 require taxpayers to:

• Properly estimate their tax liability using the information available to them;
• Enter their total tax liability on line 4 of Form 4868; and
• File Form 4868 by the regular due date of their return.

Normally, filing this form results in an automatic six-month extension of time to file without any late-filing penalty. However, filing this form does not extend time to pay any income tax liability due.

Some people have the misconception that the filed extension also applies to extending the time when taxes are due. This is not true and you should note that balances due in excess of 10% of the total tax shown on the return will incur penalties and interest for underpayment.

One thing to note is the requirement to "properly estimate" the tax liability. It is possible for the IRS to invalidate an improper extension (one that didn't estimate the tax liability) exposing the taxpayer to substantial failure-to-file penalties. This isn't something I've seen a lot of but given the need for additional revenues and computer sophistication, it easy to imagine this becoming more prevalent.

Accordingly, my advice is to make sure you spend a little time properly estimating your tax liability before sending off your extension. It is risky to just put down zeros when you know you owe taxes.

And as a final note, don't forget to properly extend any state and/or local returns as well. Some will accept the federal extension and some won't. You need to check their specific rules. As with the federal government, the extensions to file do not extend the time to pay any taxes due.

Kumo To Churippu The Movie

Kumo To Churippu is a black and white anime released in 1943, this Japanese animation pictures quality is almost as good as Walt Disney black and white animation.














The main character of this movie is a spider and this spider is attracted to a tulip flower because the tulip is protecting a lady bug from the spider. At that time this anime is a good entertainment for children, because it was created for young viewers. That’s why they used animal as the main characters for this movie.

If you want to learn a Japanese animation history this classic black and white anime is a good movie to start your research.

Hakujaden The Movie

Today we would like to review a classic Japanese anime. Hakujaden is released in 1958 and become the first full color animation played on the big screen at Japan. Toei is involved in the making of this Japanese animation.

The story is taken from a Chinese legend and revolved around Su Chien (Xu – Xian) and Pai Nhian (Bai - Niang). Su Chien is an ordinary man and he is learning to become a scholar while Pai Nhian is a white serpent princess.

So many movie is adapted from this Chinese legend, Madame White Snake is a one of the famous Chinese mythology. If you are curious of what happened between Su Chien and Pai Nhian, then just watch this old and classic anime.

Video Girl Ai

This anime has a unique story about unpopular high school boy named Yohta. When Moemi a girl that Yohta like told him that she love some one else, Yohta rent a video girl tape from eccentric video rental. When Yohta played the tape suddenly a girl come out from the tv screen, that girl is Video Girl Ai and then Ai lives with Yohta to help Yohta and Moemi relationship.

Because Yohta VCR is malfunctioning when he played the tape Ai character isn’t the same with the supposed to be personality designed for her. In the latter episode of this Japanese Animation, Ai is being recalled by her creator and Yohta is fighting to get her back.

Yohta and Ai grew closer when they are together, and they are starting to bound by love. If you like a romantic and funny story Video Girl Ai is a good anime for you to watch but this anime is not suitable for young children and some of the scene is made for adult audience. The character and story are created by Masakazu Katsura a famous anime and manga artist.

Same-sex Marriage

The Obama Administration and his Justice Department have stated they can no longer defend the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). However, the final say on this subject (whether marriage can be restricted to the legal union between a man and women) is likely to be settled by the Supreme Court, and probably not for a year or more.

In the meantime, legally married same-sex couples can file protective refund claims for all open tax years if they would benefit on their taxes by joint filing. If these protective refund claims are filed and the Supreme Court strikes down DOMA, you'll be entitled to your refunds.

It should be noted that DOMA impacts more than just income taxes. Were DOMA to be held unconstitutional, the following would also be affected:

• Gifts between spouses would get the unlimited gift tax marital deduction;
• Bequests to surviving spouses would not be subject to estate taxes and the survivor would be entitled to any unused estate tax exemption of the decedent;
• Employer provided health care for same-sex spouses would be tax free.