Most people have heard of billionaire, Mark Cuban, a star investor on the Shark Tank TV show and owner of the Dallas Mavericks. There has been much in the news recently about companies that are moving their tax base out of the United States to other countries, in order to reduce taxes. Cuban has stated that if he owns the stock of such a company, he will sell it.
In a tweet on Twitter (TWTR) on July 25th, Cuban said "If I own stock in your company and you move offshore for tax reasons I'm selling your stock. There are enough investment choices here."
So there are a few issues here. First, what stocks does Cuban own? He is a major owner of Reading International (RDI), which is in the motion picture theater business and real estate business, and Immediatek (IMKI), which is in the online backup and file storage business. And I haven't seen anything in the news about those companies moving out of the US.
He bought one million share of J. C Penny (JCP) last year. He also owned the intellectual property company, often referred to a a patent troll firm, Vringo (VRNG) as of last year.
Unless he runs for office, or is a major shareholder (generally 10% or more), or discloses holdings in an interview, it is very difficult to find out all the stocks that he owns.
Now what do you think? Is it any big deal that some companies are moving to save on taxes? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? If so many companies are starting to do this, are corporate taxes to high? If we lower corporate taxes, will it encourage more companies to startup and/or move to the US?
Looking forward to your feedback.
Eliminate corporate taxes altogether. That will spark corporate earnings, improve the economy, and allow for the creation of new jobs. No company will want to leave the US.
ReplyDeleteWe should find out what stocks he may be selling and short them.
ReplyDeleteEliminating corporate taxes altogether wouldn't be too great of an idea, I think. This country already has problems separating large businesses from politics. Can one imagine how screwed up and crowded things will be if more massive corporations pop up and start battling it out for political power? Hmm... now that I think of it, maybe that isn't such a bad idea. It's already happeneing, so why not make America the business beacon of the world like it should be?
ReplyDeleteAhkenaten: I agree that eliminating corporate taxes would be extreme. However, I don't think that more massive corporations would pop up. I think more small and mid size corporations would pop up with a better chance of survival, because of the eliminated tax burden. The big non-US corporations already have a presence in the US already in most cases. Moving their headquarters to the US, would certainly increase jobs, which would increase overall taxable income of US citizens, which would bring more tax revenues to the government. Even a decent size corporate tax reduction could help.
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