Corporate tax code

Corporate Welfare By Job Blackmail

pickpocketYou know how States are hurting? How budgets are in the red to the point some towns cannot even hold elections? Adding insult to injury comes the news States are allowing corporations to pocket taxes they take out of your paycheck and pocket the money for themselves. I kid you not.

Nearly $700 million a year in state income taxes withheld from worker paychecks in 16 states is being used to provide lavish subsidies to corporations rather than paying for vital public services. These diversions have gone to more than 2,700 companies, including major firms such as Sears, Goldman Sachs and General Electric. Few if any of the affected workers are aware, because no state requires they be informed on their pay stubs.

David Cay Johnston put together this nifty video overviewing how corporations manage to take state taxes out of your paycheck yet pocket the money.

 

Corporations Pay No State Taxes Either

We already know many large multinationals pay no Federal taxes, but did you know many businesses don't pay State taxes either? Citizens for Tax Justice has issued a new report, Corporate Tax Dodging in the 50 States, 2008-2010. The report shows, instead of creating jobs and products, corporations seem to be in the business of tax dodge.

Naming Names Of Corporations Who Pay No Taxes

G.E., yes that G.E. who is in the White House, not only hasn't paid taxes for the last three years, our government actually paid them. From 2008-2010, G.E. received tax rebates of $4.737 billion, while earning a pretax profit of $10.46 billion. This is while they offshore outsource jobs to China and get bail outs for their financial branch, G.E. Capital.

Citizens for Tax Justice have published a new study, Corporate Taxpayers & Corporate Tax Dodgers, 2008-2010, which is simply a must read for every American. Some of the most notorious multinational corporations, complete with bail outs and offshore outsourcing your job, paid negative taxes for the last three years. In other words, we paid them.

The study covers 280 corporations. Some of what they found:

  • Seventy-eight of the 280 companies paid zero or less in federal income taxes in at least one year from 2008 to 2010.
  • Thirty corporations paid less than nothing in aggregate federal income taxes over the entire 2008-10 period.
  • 2009 was a particularly banner year for non-payment of taxes. In that year, 49 companies paid zero or less in federal income taxes.
  • In 2008, 22 companies paid no federal income tax, and got $3.3 billion in tax rebates. In 2010, 37 companies paid no income tax, and got $7.8 billion in rebates.

Below is a table from the report, showing the top worst offenders, their pretax profits, their tax or rebate and their effective tax rate.

More Stupid Tax Tricks

thumb_computer-dog.jpgNow that corporations have managed to get their glorified offshore outsourcing and tax haven bad trade deals, they are after the next thing, paying no taxes on profits made overseas. It's not enough multinationals made sure patents squeeze out the lone inventor and turned intellectual property into a glorified multinational shell game, they want more. Up next is their corporate tax holiday, complete with up is down lobbyist talking points, all to get yet another corporate giveaway through Congress.

David Cay Johnston calls the propaganda Orwellian:

Political tax talk is becoming Orwellian: Secrecy is Democracy. Auditors Reduce Collections. Tax Cheats Will Be Caught With Fewer Auditors.

The Top 10 Worst Tax Avoidance Corporations

Everybody knows multinational corporations are not paying U.S. taxes. Yet instead of making corporations cough up, our government is busy planning more screw jobs on the U.S. middle class and labor force, all under the guise of reducing spending.

Senator Bernie Sanders is trying to draw attention to the insanity with a top ten list of the worst corporate tax avoiders.

 

Google Double Dutch

Sounds like a sex act, doesn't it? In a way, it is. Business Week has a HOWTO on not paying U.S. corporate taxes, courtesy of Google. shell game

Next time you hear about how we need to lower taxes to make America more competitive, think of this story. International tax law must be a lucrative career. Grand Puppeteer of global money flows, all to play nation states and their corresponding corporate tax codes against each other. The game is to not pay taxes anywhere.

To reduce its overseas tax bill, Google uses a complicated legal structure that has saved it $3.1 billion since 2007 and boosted last year's overall earnings by 26 percent. While many multinationals use similar structures, Google has managed to lower its overseas tax rate more than its peers in the technology sector. Its rate since 2007 has been 2.4 percent.

All perfectly legal, Business Week explains how Google profits end up in Bermuda, and shows how multinational corporations pit national tax codes against each other.

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