[Occupymendocino] Corporations and their Tax Breaks

[ELLEN ROSSER]

> Thirteen Facts About America's Tax-Dodging Corporations
> Saturday, 29 June 2013 10:51 By Richard Eskow, Campaign for America's
Future |
> Op-Ed
> Truthout doesn’t take corporate funding - that’s why we’re able to
confront
> the forces of greed and regression. Support us in this mission: make a
tax-
> deductible donation today by clicking here.
> (Photo: Michael Fleshman / Flickr)A judicious writer avoids adjectives
like
> “mindblowing,” especially when covering political or economic issues. But
no
> other word seems to describe the stunning reality of corporate taxation
in
> modern America, which cries out for the italics-heavy, exclamation-point-
> driven format made famous by Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
> Stylistic overkill? Read these thirteen facts and you may change your
mind.
> 1. We’re told we can’t “afford” full Social Security benefits, even
though
> closing corporate tax-haven loopholes would pay for Obama’s “chained CPI”
> benefit cut more than ten times over!
> Abusive offshore tax havens cost the US $150 billion in lost tax revenue
every
> year (via FACT Coalition). That’s $1.5 trillion over the next ten years.
> The “chained CPI” cut, proposed by President Obama and supported by
> Republicans, is projected to “save” a total of $122 billion to $130
billion
> over the same time period by denying benefits to seniors and disabled
people.
> It’s true. “Serious” politicians and pundits are demanding that ordinary
> people sacrifice earned benefits, while at the same time allowing
corporations
> to avoid more than ten times as much in taxes.
> 2. Corporate tax rates are near their 60-year low, even though profits
are at
> a 60-year high!
> Need we say more?
> (Source: Americans for Tax Fairness.)
> 3. Wells Fargo got $8 billion in tax breaks, even as executives at its
> subsidiary Wachovia avoided indictment for laundering money for the
Mexican
> drug cartels!
> That’s right. Wells Fargo paid a negative tax rate of -1.4 percent
between
> 2008 and 2010 while Wachovia, a Wells Fargo subsidiary, admitted to
laundering
> more than $378 billion for Mexican drug gangs.
> We’re talking about crazed killers like “El Loco” and gangs like “Los
Zetas” –
> gangs who cut people’s heads off and toss them out onto disco dance
floors or
> display them in the town square.
> Wachovia bankers ignored repeated warnings from law enforcement
officials, and
> continued to launder money for cartels that have murdered tens of
thousands.
> And yet no criminal indictments were handed down because, as a Senate
> investigator told Bloomberg News, “”There’s no capacity to regulate or
punish
> them because they’re too big to be threatened with failure.”
> 4. Some other huge corporations paid less than nothing, too.
> Pepco Holdings (-57.6% tax rate)
> General Electric (-45.3%)
> DuPont (-3.4%)
> Verizon (-2.9%)
> Boeing (-1.8%)
> Honeywell (-0.7%)
> (Source: Citizens for Tax Justice)
> 5. The amount of money US corporations are holding offshore is an
estimated
> one trillion dollars!
> Rather than tax these profits the way other countries do, corporate
> politicians are promoting a tax “repatriation” break that would let
> corporations “bring this money home” while paying even less than their
> currently low rates.
> They tried that in 2004 and it didn’t create any jobs. In fact,
corporations
> took the tax break and then fired thousands of people. What
“repatriation” did
> do is line a lot of wealthy investors’ pockets.
> So, naturally, they want to do it again.
> 6. One building in the Cayman Islands is the official location of 18,857
> corporations!
> According to the Government Accountability Office, a five-story building
> called “Ugland House” is home to nearly twenty thousand corporations.
That’s
> impressive, especially for such a small edifice. (Perhaps it has
supernatural
> half-floors and space-time defying “mind tunnels” like the office in
Being
> John Malkovich.)
> While impressive, Ugland House’s distinction pales next to that of 1209
North
> Orange Street in Wilmington, Delaware. According to one investigation,
that
> address is home to 217,000 corporations.
> That’s because Delaware has very generous tax rules – and, as a result,
is
> home to more than half of all the corporate subsidiaries in the United
> States.That’s startling, since only 1/342th of the nation’s population
lives
> in that state (917,092 residents, out of a national total of 313,914,040,
> according to the latest census results).
> 7. Conservatives complain about the “official” corporate tax rate in this
> country, but corporations actually pay roughly one-third of the official
rate
> in actual taxes.
> The official, or “statutory,” corporate tax rate is 35 percent. But the
actual
> rate paid by American corporations is only 12 percent, less than that
paid by
> many middle-class Americans.
> (Source: The FACT Coalition.)
> In fact, US Corporations pay less tax as a percentage of the GDP than
> corporations in Canada. Or Japan …
> … or South Korea. Or Norway. Or Luxembourg, New Zealand, Israel, the
Czech
> Republic, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Denmark,
Finland,
> and Italy.
> (Source: OECD StatsExtract interactive database.)
> 8. Corporations used to pay 30 percent of Federal taxes, and now they pay
less
> than 7 percent!
> That’s because the corporate tax rate has plunged since Dwight D.
Eisenhower
> was President and is now the lowest it’s been in modern history.
> (Source: FACT Coalition.)
> 9. Big corporations paid $216 million to Congress and got $223 billion in
tax
> breaks!
> As Citizens for Tax Justice and USPIRG reported, 280 large and profitable
> corporations contributed $216 million to Congressional campaigns over
four
> election cycles and got nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars in tax
breaks.
> That’s a terrific investment for them – a return of more than a thousand
to
> one – but it’s a bad deal for the American people.
> 10. We don’t even know who owns some corporations, even though that makes
it
> easier to evade taxes, dodge creditors, avoid paying alimony or child
support,
> and even fund terrorism!
> Here are some examples of investments that might represent a terror
threat.
> Corporate interests are blocking disclosure rules that would help protect
our
> national security.
> 11. Bank of America committed foreclosure fraud, was bailed out by the
> government, and then paid no taxes on $4.4 billion in profit!
> That’s right. In 2010, while BofA was negotiating a sweet settlement deal
for
> its foreclosure fraud, it paid nothing in taxes. (Source: FACT
Coalition.)
> Zero, on $17.2 billion in offshore earnings. (Source: Americans for Tax
> Fairness.)
> Its $4.1 billion tax break came on the heels of the bank’s
taxpayer-funded
> bailout, immunity from prosecution for its criminal employees, and a
cushy
> government settlement for its foreclosure fraud.
> Now David Dayen reports that the bank has apparently continued to defraud
> customers in violation of its government settlement. Whistleblowers have
> stated in affidavits that they were “told to lie” to customers, continued
to
> deceive homeowners before foreclosing on them, and flipped customers to
new
> servicing companies to invalidate previous homeowner agreements.
> 12. What they call “tax reform” would actually prevent our elected
> representatives from giving businesses financial incentives to improve
our
> lives!
> The word “reform” is an honorable one that’s been put to some
dishonorable
> uses lately. “Entitlement reform,” for example, is merely a euphemism for
> gutting Social Security and Medicare.
> Similarly, corporate-backed politicians are pushing a formula for
permanent
> corporate tax breaks and calling it “tax reform.” They insist their
“reform”
> be “revenue neutral” and say it will “broaden the base while lowering the
> rate.”
> Here’s an English translation: The current, unsustainably low rates for
> corporations would be made permanent, while eliminating many tax
deductions in
> the name of “simplification.”
> Here’s what that really means: The domestic tax credit for creating jobs?
> Gone. Tax breaks for protecting the environment with clean energy, rather
than
> harming other people’s health and leaving a mess for the rest of us to
clean
> up? Gone.
> All in all we’d lose dozens of important policies that make our lives
better,
> while permanently fixing corporate taxes at today’s cushy giveaway rates.
> “Reform”? Ripoff is more like it.
> 13. Despite their greed, mismanagement, and freeloading, tax-dodging
> corporations are using shell organizations like “Fix the Debt” and “the
> Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget” to tell ordinary Americans
they
> have to sacrifice even more to preserve corporate wealth!
> These organizations are using the heads of failed banks – people like
Chase’s
> Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs – to dispense “advice on
the
> economy.” That’s like getting navigation tips from the captain of the
Exxon
> Valdez.
> (Tax breaks for Exxon Mobil: $4.1 billion between 2008 and 2010. The
company
> paid no taxes at all in 2009.)
> These executives and their paid spokespeople tell the rest of us we need
to
> “sacrifice” and “tighten our belts” so that their party can go on
forever. And
> too often they’re treated as credible sources, rather than as corrupting
> influences on our public life.
> It’s all true – and there are many more astonishing facts to be found in
the
> world of corporate taxation. To fix the economy more people will need to
learn
> about them – and demand that they be changed.
> The writer and analyst in me wants to apologize for all the italicizing
and
> all those exclamation points. But the American citizen in me wants to
shout
> the truth out for all the world to hear – believe it or not!
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.mcn.org/pipermail/occupymendocino/attachments/20130701/6e011fe3/attachment.html