When corporations pay no taxes, the result is a redistribution of income from the 99 to the 1 percent. When corporations do not pay taxes, the money from those taxes that should have gone to schools, roads, infrastructure maintenance, fire, police and more, are instead diverted to the 1 percent via higher corporate profits, surging share prices and dividends.
Furthermore, most of these major corporations have engaged in scams to overcharge the 99 percent, such as Bank of America and Citigroup in the LIBOR scandal conspiring with other banks to overcharge consumers on interest rates for loans, such as credit cards and auto. The money from that scandal went into the pockets of the 1 percent and came out of the pockets of the 99 percent.
While some corporations do not pay any taxes, many others wind up receiving tax rebates on taxes they never paid (such as Verizon), another redistribution of income from the tax revenues of the 99 percent to the pockets of the 1 percent.
Many of these corporations are stealing record profits, holding down the pay of their 99 percent employees, and shipping jobs overseas. That’s precisely why the economy is legislatively rigged in favor of the one percent, and that shows how corrupt to the core the US government has become over the last thirty years.
So here’s a list of 10 tax-dodging corporations excerpted from the Americans for Tax Fairness report.
Bank of America runs its business through more than 300 offshore tax-haven subsidiaries. It reported $17.2 billion in accumulated offshore profits in 2012. It would owe $4.3 billion in US taxes if these funds were brought back to the US. | |
Citigroup had $42.6 billion in foreign profits parked offshore in 2012 on which it paid no US taxes. It reported that it would owe $11.5 billion if it brings these funds back to the US. A significant chunk is being held in tax-haven countries. | |
ExxonMobil had a three-year federal income tax rate of just 15 percent. This gave the company a tax subsidy worth $6.2 billion from 2010-2012. It had $43 billion in offshore profits at the end of 2012, on which it paid no US taxes. | |
FedEx made $6 billion over the last three years and didn’t pay a dime in federal income taxes, in part because the tax code subsidized its purchase of new planes. This gave FedEx a huge tax subsidy worth $2.1 billion. | |
General Electric received a tax subsidy of nearly $29 billion over the last 11 years. While dodging paying its fair share of federal income taxes, GE pocketed $21.8 billion in taxpayer-funded contracts from Uncle Sam between 2006 and 2012. | |
Honeywell had profits of $5 billion from 2009 to 2012. Yet it paid only $50 million in federal income taxes for the period. Its tax rate was just 1 percent over the last four years. This gave it a huge tax subsidy worth $1.7 billion. | |
Merck had profits of $13.6 billion and paid $2.5 billion in federal income taxes from 2009 to 2012. While dodging its fair share of federal income taxes, it pocketed $8.7 billion in taxpayer-funded contracts from Uncle Sam between 2006 and 2012. | |
Microsoft saved $4.5 billion in federal income taxes from 2009 to 2011 by transferring profits to a subsidiary in the tax haven of Puerto Rico. It had $60.8 billion in profits stashed offshore in 2012 on which it paid no US taxes. | |
Pfizer paid no US income taxes from 2010 to 2012 while earning $43 billion worldwide. It did this in part by performing accounting acrobatics to shift its US profits offshore. It received $2.2 billion in federal tax refunds. | |
Verizon made $19.3 billion in US pretax profits from 2008 to 2012, yet didn’t pay any federal income taxes during the period. Instead, it got $535 million in tax rebates. Verizon’s effective federal income tax rate was negative 2.8 percent from 2008 to 2012. |
Exactly. There was less income inequality when the top marginal tax rate on the wealthiest Americans was high.
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