IATA seeks meeting with Venezuela president over money owed to airlines

[Igel]

27. Wouldn't this be billions of dollars in un-repatriated earnings?

I mean, we get bent out of shape when a company keeps its profits in another country instead of bringing them back to the US and paying income tax on them. They're unpatriotic, tax-avoiding vampires.

All of those profits kept overseas ... I guess they're "profits extracted" from those countries' citizens and the multinational corporations are doing a good deed by keeping them in those countries.

So rather than being unpatriotic and tax-avoiding, they're being good international citizens.

Maybe we can consider US-earned profits that are shipped overseas "international aid."

It's one or the other.

In the case of the airlines, though, the planes they fly and the back-of-house support that maintains the corporations aren't in Venezuela. They have to pay for those things using income wherever it's earned. It's "profits" in Venezuela because not all the expenses incurred to make those profits are incurred in Venezuela.

And saying that what you make is yours to use isn't libertarianism. Any more than it's up to others to tell you how to use your earned income. I'm using excess income to pay down my mortgage. I'd really object if the government said, "No, you need to spend it on widgets because the widget industry needs a boost from increased demand."