March 06, 2008

Patriots all

If you're self-employed you know all about Social Security and Medicare taxes; that 15.3 percent of gross income you have to pay to the Feds on top of any income tax you might owe on your adjusted gross income each year. Everybody pays into it either through payroll tax deductions or when you file.

Unless you're KBR, the biggest Iraq war contractor (or profiteer).

CAYMAN ISLANDS - Kellogg Brown & Root, the nation's top Iraq war contractor and until last year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven.

Oh, it gets worse, too. Not only has the company been avoiding paying into the SocSec and Medicare funds, it's been avoiding paying into Texas' state unemployment fund by employing people out of its Cayman Islands offices. What's that mean? Well, if you were hired from those places, when you get back to Texas (KBR's headquarters is located there), you're ineligible for unemployment benefits.

Do I need to point out that when an outfit like KBR doesn't pay into those funds, the rest of us have to make up the difference?

The story asserts that the Pentagon has known since 2004 that KBR was doing this.

Good corporate citizens, aren't they?

Congress is trying to close this loophole, but dollars to donuts and political contributions there'll be Republican opposition to it.

via Think Progress.

Posted by Linkmeister at March 6, 2008 11:19 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Disgusting! And wasn't there something going on about auditing private contractors but the ones in Iraq were somehow exempt?

Posted by: ali at March 7, 2008 10:07 AM