If these companies avoid paying taxes by not being registered/incorporated in the US, how could they possibly be eligible for help from the US government?
That just seems like a contradiction, like a huge case of having your cake and eating it.
Carnival Corp and Norwegian both posted negative income tax expenses — that is, they received more in refunds or deductions than they paid or set aside for taxes — with Carnival reporting an income tax expense of $71 million and Norwegian reporting an $18.9 million tax benefit.
They don’t contribute to the public fisc in good times, they should have no call on it when times are tough.
> In general, under Section 883 of the Internal Revenue Code, certain non-U.S. corporations (such as our North American cruise ship businesses) are not subject to U.S. federal income tax or branch profits tax on U.S. source income derived from, or incidental to, the international operation of a ship or ships
From https://www.carnivalcorp.com/financial-information/annual-re...
Actually they did, see Panama Papers. So many higher-ups turned out to have a lot of money stashed away abroad.
Politicians are corrupt. I mean take Trump; while he 'officially' renounced control / ownership of his properties (I think?), he's still pumping hundreds of (tax payer) millions into his own resorts by going golfing every week in his own resorts. Said taxpayers are the common folk as well, not the actual resort itself.