No – American corporations do not pay high tax rates.  The tax code is structured so that some do…certainly,but in the aggregate – that’s not the case.  Not only does America not have high taxes but for these 26 companies – American taxpayers are actually GIVING these companies money over the past four years.  We’re not talking about ONE year…we’re talking about FOUR years.  The people who hide behind passing tax cuts for “small business” aren’t really interested in helping small business….they’re interested in tax cuts for their donors – their REAL constituents.

And make no mistake – corporate tax rates have been going down for DECADES.  Every $ not paid by a corporation in taxes is a dollar you’re going to pay in taxes or a $ in services that’s going to be cut.  Now – some will tell you that consumers just pay higher costs if there are higher taxes…and while that’s partly true – the real untold truth is that those tax cuts go directly to the bottom line paid directly to shareholders.  And we know that 57% of all capital gains go to the 1%.

The Center for Tax Justice sums it up:

The information on these 30 companies helps illustrate why overall federal corporate income tax collections are so low.  The Treasury Department reports that corporate taxes fell to only 1.2 percent of our gross domestic product over the past three fiscal years. That’s lower than at any time since the 1940s except for one single year during President Reagan’s first term. By comparison, corporate taxes averaged almost 4 percent of our GDP during the 1960s.

But the existing tax code isn’t sweet enough for the country’s largest corporations….they’re continuing to push for a “corporate tax holiday” which would be a complete disaster.  Politico has the story:

U.S. multinationals have hired an army of lobbyists to sell the idea of a tax holiday to Congress, so they might repatriate a pot of overseas profits estimated at more than $1 trillion for as low as a 5.25 percent rate. The companies — along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — argue that repatriation would serve as an instant stimulus of sorts, allowing hundreds of billions of dollars to flow in to the economy.

Critics disagree. They say the proposal is bad tax policy.

As evidence, the critics point to a 2004-05 tax holiday that brought some $312 billion back into the U.S. Most of that was spent on dividends and stock repurchases — not building or hiring.

President Barack Obama is caught in the middle of the fight. He’s not a repatriation fan, but some of his biggest corporate boosters in Silicon Valley and elsewhere are. The tax reform blueprint the administration rolled out in February shunned repatriation, and even proposed to end the system that allows multinationals to defer U.S. income taxes on foreign earnings until they’re repatriated.

Among those companies pushing for “repatriation” of corporate profits are: Apple, GE, Microsoft, IBM, Merck, Google, Cisco, Johnson and Johnson, Oracle, Duke Energy, Intel, and Qualcomm.

And all of this while corporate profits are at all time highs but that’s not being used to hire back workers….the Wall Street Journal writes:

“Big U.S. companies have emerged from the deepest recession since World War II more productive, more profitable, flush with cash and less burdened by debt. An analysis by The Wall Street Journal of corporate financial reports finds that cumulative sales, profits and employment last year among members of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index exceeded the totals of 2007, before the recession and financial crisis. Deep cost cutting during the downturn and caution during the recovery put the companies on firmer financial footing, helping them to outperform the rest of the economy and gather a greater share of the nation’s income…The performance hasn’t translated into significant gains in U.S. employment. Many of the 1.1 million jobs the big companies added since 2007 were outside the U.S. So, too, was much of the $1.2 trillion added to corporate treasuries.”

Among those supporting the tax holiday for corporations who have been manipulating the tax code to evade paying taxes….the Republican party and a handful of Democrats.  But mostly the Republican party.  We have written about this before many times HERE.

List of companies profits and tax refunds from 2008 to 2011:

Comments

comments