How Panama Cut Poor Kids Out Of A Florida Millionaire's Will

This is an excerpt from Tim Padgett, Latin America Report @WLRN

. . . What has happened to Lucom’s will since he died in 2006 is a bewildering if not byzantine tale of legal intrigue that stretches from Panama City to Palm Beach County. Critics at home and abroad call it a stark illustration of Panama’s, and to a large degree Latin America’s, indifference to gaping wealth inequality and brazen judicial corruption – two factors that weigh down the region’s development like millstones.

Boca Raton tax attorney Richard S. Lehman Esq., was an executor of Lucom's will, and he's a central character in this Grisham-esque drama. “No one who has grown up in the American system, who believes in the law, can possibly be prepared for the lawlessness of Panama,” he says.

But the case may now be taking another important turn. “It’s not dead,” Lehman argues, “by any stretch of the imagination.”

LISTEN TO AUDIO and read this full story here:
http://wlrn.org/post/how-panama-cut-poor-kids-out-florida-millionaires-will

The Solution to the Tax Inversion

What Congress is overlooking, is that assuming there is a 15% tax savings to Burger King on its foreign source income, that 15% in extra profits translates into corporate profits that are often paid as dividends to U.S. individuals.

These are dividends that might not otherwise have ever been paid to the United States individuals who own the shares of Burger King.

Those U.S. individuals who are receiving dividends as a result of increased Burger King profits which result from Burger King’s Tax Inversion, will then pay a federal income tax on the additional dividends earned from the Burger King Company. These individual taxes on the dividends can be as high as 23%, depending on the individual taxpayers’ taxable income.

In certain instances, depending upon the dividend policies of the inverted American companies, the Congress may find that more tax revenue is being raised as a result of the tax savings on the inverted company’s foreign source income than the tax revenue that may have been raised by the direct taxation of that U.S. corporation’s profits at the 35% tax rate. . . .

. . . The better solution to the Inversion would be for Congress to reduce the excessive corporate tax rates from 35% to a lower tax rate that would invite not only the American corporation to stay in the U.S. but would also invite corporations from foreign countries all over the world to open their operations in the United States because of the favorable tax rates on corporations doing business in America.

Read full article by Richard S. Lehman Esq:
http://www.lehmantaxlaw.com/domestic-tax-planning/much-damage-really-caused-tax-inversions/