The Atlantic Wire
Carnival Won't Reimburse Coast Guard For Poop Cruise Rescue
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/04/carnival-wont-reimburse-coast-guard-poop-cruise-rescue/64195/

Even though Carnival Cruise Lines was negligent regarding the Stranded "Triumph" cruise ship week from Hell, they refuse to pay the Coast Guard back for the cost of the rescue.  Carnival had a totally inadequate and possible non-existent emergency plan.

Is Carnival on Welfare? -They are one of the greediest corporations in the world.  They care about profits but not the safety and security of passengers, most of which are Americans:

• Cruise Lines spend million$ more on lobbying than Walmart in order to avoid have effective safety measures and other regulations and to avoid taxes.
• Cruise lines do not care about the environment:
  Pollution and Environmental Violations and Fines
  Disabling Accidents, Collisions, and Fires, 1990 - 2010 
• Carnival, which is headquartered in Miami but incorporated for tax purposes in Panama, paid just $3 million in income tax benefits on $1.9 billion in pretax income last year, according to company documents. This is the same as if I made $100,000 last year and only had to pay $75.00 in taxes Carnival saves 1/2 billion dollars per year by not paying U.S. taxes.
• In 1990, Micky Arison, founder of Carnival Cruise Lines renounced his U.S. citizenship, in an effort to avoid estate tax in the United States and returned to Israel and founded Arison Investments.^[4]  He cheated the United States out of $10 billion.
• Far from offering its services reluctantly, Carnival Cruise Lines sought to enlist President Bush's brother in its quest to win a $236 million deal to place Hurricane Katrina evacuees aboard three of its ships, according to e-mail exchanges cited in a new congressional analysis.
• Senator Waxman has accused Carnival of profiteering, in part because the contracts reimbursed the company for what it would have earned under normal operations, including revenue from casino games and liquor sales.
• Did Governor Bush feel obligated to help Carnival because of the massive amounts of money Carnival and its employees spend each year on lobbying and campaign donations?

Carnival does not want to see that tax status jeopardized just because three major ships are clearly operating in the United States. After it won the FEMA bid, Carnival appealed to Treasury Secretary John W. Snow for a waiver of U.S. taxes. "We do not want to jeopardize our tax exemption, nor do we want to interrupt our relief efforts for failure to secure this assurance from the Treasury Department," wrote Howard Frank, Carnival's chief operating officer.
Cruise line council President Crye said the company will reduce its billings under the contract by the amount of income taxes forgiven. The waiver would spare Carnival and its employees the paperwork of filing tax returns.
But critics say Carnival deserves to be treated no differently than a hotel housing relief workers under a FEMA contract. "Carnival should be contributing to the relief effort just like all other taxpayers are," McIntyre said. "Why should they be singled out for special treatment, just because they've been so good at tax avoidance in the past?"

With the help of John McCain and the millions of dollars they spend on lobbying each year, they have prevented the passage of any meaningful legislation to improve safety and security on cruise ships. Royal Carribean is still incorporated in Liberia so they can avoid regulations, taxes, and corporate responsibility. The also flagged their ships for years there for the same reason. The millions of dollars they paid in fees helped finance Charles Tayor when he murdered close to 400,000 humans in Africa.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taylor_(Liberia) ‏