Dems should run on this: some of biggest corpos don't pay taxes including Exxon, GE

[wordpix]

These corpos are "international" so that absolves them from paying taxes to US? :puke: This is an issue Amerika might be able to understand and Dem candidates for Congress should run on it.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/06/exxon-tax/

ExxonMobil paid no federal income tax in 2009. (Updated)

Last week, Forbes magazine published what the top U.S. corporations paid in taxes last year. “Most egregious,” Forbes notes, is General Electric, which “generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.” Big Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which last year reported a record $45.2 billion profit, paid the most taxes of any corporation, but none of it went to the IRS:

Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas. more...

[OZark Dem]

1. Has often been the case so people do not track it anymore.

[wordpix]

2. more info here - Most Corporations Don't Pay Income Taxes

http://www.truth-out.org/article/most-corporations-dont-pay-income-taxes

Most Corporations Don't Pay Income Taxes

Tuesday 12 August 2008

by: Richard Rubin | Congressional Quarterly


Most corporations, including the vast majority of foreign companies doing business in the United States, pay no income taxes, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday.

During the eight-year period covered by the report, 72 percent of foreign-owned corporations went at least one year without owing taxes, and the same was true for 55 percent of domestic corporations.

Small companies were much more likely to pay no taxes than larger companies. Still, more than 3,500 large domestic corporations - with more than $250 million in assets or $50 million in gross receipts - did not pay taxes in 2005.

The report said about 80 percent of the companies studied paid no taxes because they didn't generate any profit after expenses. Money-losing companies can legitimately owe no tax, and others can use provisions of the tax code to lower or eliminate their liability.

But the lawmakers who sought the data seized on the report as proof of corporate gamesmanship.

"It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country," said Byron L. Dorgan , D-N.D., who requested the report along with Carl Levin , D-Mich. "The tax system that allows this wholesale tax avoidance is an embarrassment and unfair to hardworking Americans who pay their fair share of taxes. We need to plug these tax loopholes and put these corporations back on the tax rolls." snip

See also http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081102324.html

[Romulox]

3. Even worse--our gov't subsidizes these guys

With everything from infrastructure spending to direct cash payments ("bailouts", "stimulus") to invading countries for their profit.

[wordpix]

4. meanwhile, they cut jobs and sit on trillions of dollars they don't know what to do with

[Kablooie]

5. Problem is, no one has plans to change this, Dem or Rep.

[jtrockville]

6. Because legislators represent big corporations, not we the people.

[closeupready]

9. No, and that's how things will remain. That's how a corporatocracy works.

n/t

[Bitwit1234]

7. And what I can't understand is how the Supreme Court

allowed TAX FREE COMPANIES to contribute to political campaigns. Isn't that against the law. DID THE SUPREME COURT JUST GO ON AND CHANGE A LAW without congress' consent.

[Brewman_Jax]

8. If these corporations paid what they owed

there'd be no deficit. Adding insult to injury, they get tax benefits for not paying taxes. Makes one wonder who are the REAL welfare, rather, wealthfare queens.

[mmonk]

10. Too risky for our DLC.

Many of them are on their "payroll".