End Tax Breaks for Profitable Corporations in Huffington Post

End Tax Breaks for Profitable Corporations

Posted: 03/27/11 04:40 PM ET Read More: Bernie Sanders , Budget Cuts , Corporate Greed , Federal Deficit , General Electric , Head Start , Healthcare , House Republicans , National Debt , Pell Grants , Social Security , Taxes , Politics News

Republicans in the House want to balance the budget by denying more than 200,000 little children the opportunity to receive an early education through Head Start; reducing or eliminating Pell Grants for 9.4 million college students; eliminating primary health care services to 11 million Americans; and delaying Social Security benefits to half a million eligible Americans, among other things.

Before Congress cuts funding for Head Start, Social Security, and financial aid for college, we have got to make sure that large, profitable corporations are paying their fair share of taxes.

At a time when we have a $14.2 trillion national debt and a $1.6 trillion federal deficit, it is unacceptable that Exxon Mobil, General Electric, Bank of America, Chevron, Boeing, and other large, profitable corporations are not only avoiding paying any federal income taxes at all but have actually received huge refund checks from the IRS.

Loopholes in the tax code, offshore tax havens, tax breaks to companies that export American jobs to China, and other tax breaks have allowed giant corporations in America to receive billions in refunds from the IRS.

Meanwhile corporations are sitting on nearly $2 trillion in cash on hand, and big banks have nearly a trillion dollars in excess reserves parked at the Federal Reserve.

In 2005, one out of four large corporations paid no income taxes at all even though they collected $1.1 trillion in revenue over that one-year period.

In 2009, Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits. Not only did Exxon not pay any federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to SEC filings.

Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, even though it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.

Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year.

Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year, received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.

In 2008, Goldman Sachs only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.

Last year, Citigroup made over $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes, even though it received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department. Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS. According to a New York Times article, "G.E. is so good at avoiding taxes that some people consider its tax department to be the best in the world, even better than any law firm's."

Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year, even though it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.

ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, which made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.

Ford's federal income tax rate was just 2.3 percent in 2009 even though it made $3 billion in profits.

Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made over $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.

Over the last five years, Southwest Airlines paid a federal income tax rate of 6.3 percent, Yahoo paid 7 percent, and Prudential Financial paid 7.6 percent.

Shared sacrifice means that corporate America must play its part in reducing the deficit.

The time has come for corporate America to start paying its fair share. We simply cannot balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the sick, the middle class, little kids and the most vulnerable people in our society.

Here are just a few things we could do to make sure corporations pay their fair share:

1. End abusive and illegal offshore tax shelters.

Each and every year, the United States loses an estimated $100 billion a year in tax revenues due to offshore tax abuses by the wealthy and large corporations.

The situation has become so absurd that one five story office building in the Cayman Islands is now the home to more than 18,000 corporations. That is wrong.

The wealthy and large corporations should not be allowed to avoid paying $100 billion a year in taxes by setting up tax shelters in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas or other tax haven countries.



2. End tax breaks for big oil and gas companies. Exxon Mobil, the most profitable corporation in the history of the world, not only paid nothing in federal income taxes in 2009, but received a $156 million tax refund from the IRS, according to their own shareholder report. Repealing tax breaks for big oil and gas companies as President Obama has recommended would raise more than $35 billion in revenue over the next decade.

3. Stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas. Today, the U.S. government is actually rewarding companies that move U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas through loopholes in the tax code known as deferral and foreign source income.

This is unacceptable. During the Bush years, the U.S. lost nearly 30 percent of its manufacturing jobs and since 2001, 50,000 manufacturing plants have been shut down. Today, corporations in this country are outsourcing jobs to China and other low wage countries where workers are paid pennies an hour. The last thing we should be doing is providing a tax break to companies that move jobs overseas.

Ending these tax loopholes could raise more than $400 billion over a 10-year period.


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Source: www.huffingtonpost.com...

Now read my location.

Don't know what more to add.

Let's see BP really messed up the Gulf, what corporations screwed up with our nuclear power plants? (No you can't tell me nuclear energy is clean, sorry I won't buy that hooey).

Factory farming has put the small clean farmer out of business
I have a dog that was a factory breeder for six years and taken to be killed but a moral vet called Pointer Rescue because he saw a gentle, sweet and innocent being vs a thing

If we all keep turning our heads thinking this won't involve me, well one day when the corporations are done with your neighbor or guy two streets over, you and your family will be next.

Corporations and a handfull of the elite owning and running them only care about profit.

And our governments, now most of them are tight bedfellows with these large corporations.

The common man / woman MUST unit and somehow, someway fight this tyranny.

America (and soon the globe) is owned by the NWO and that NWO are the large corporations that run at the worker's expense for profitting a few at the top.

Tell me this isn't a insane way to allow our planet to be run.

If this is a sane way to run our planet, than stand back after the Gulf Oil Spill, Chernobyl, now Fukushima, and on and on it goes.

Found this site on Facebook...............I don't do Facebook but this does sound interesting.

Stop The Greed

About Co-op America

Grow the Green Economy

Help us grow a green economy that works for people and the planet.
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Co-op America is a not-for-profit membership organization founded in 1982.

Our mission is to harness economic power—the strength of consumers, investors, businesses, and the marketplace—to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society.

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What Makes Co-op America Unique

We focus on economic strategies—economic action to solve social and environmental problems.
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We empower people to take personal and collective action
We work on issues of social justice and environmental responsibility. We see these issues as completely linked in the quest for a sustainable world. It’s what we mean when we say “green.”
We work to stop abusive practices and to create healthy, just and sustainable practices.
Learn more about our work » Source: www.facebook.com...

Website: www.greenamerica.org... ...

I feel time is running out.

There is no longer enough "time" to stand around with our fingers in our noses looking the other way and pretend that everything is business as usual.

Things have got to change.

War, hunger, poverty, genocide, allowing a handful of bullies to cut 3/4 of the pie and leave the rest (1/4) for the rest of us.

If we as a whole do not unite and try to change things, things are going to change anyway and maybe not for the better.

We are becoming a corporate owned prison planet.

The guy that left my home after fixing my phone, his company called us up 15 minutes after he left and wanted us to report on him, rate him.

Yes on one hand this is good for customer satisfaction and to ensure high quality customer service.

But cameras on every street corner, TSA and pat downs, reporting on each other - 1984 is here.

When you allow corporations to run the governments you end up with human rights violations.

Corporations, most anyway, not all, run solely for profit for the few at the top.

The people who do the real work are abused, over worked, underpaid, and how much further are we going to allow this?

Read, "Minnesota Cold" by Cynthia Kraack.............................very interesting book and makes 1884 look like a walk in the park.

If everyone reading this does not stand up and take some kind of action, soon, every aspect of our lives will be dictated to.

We already have no privacy.

What is HAARP really up to?

Know who your real enemy is............read my location.

This video below is really informative. Just seven minutes

How Corporations Run America & The World, Field McConnell Abel Danger

What is a lobbyist? Corporate profits, influence on government, politicians, federal agencies, How to find Truth

In this series of free videos Field McConnel from Abel Danger discusses corporate influence on government agencies, the media, tv, law & people. Are corporations taking over the country and shifting the world toward globalization? How do corporations use lobbyist to team up and change the laws in USA. This video explains a little about the above questions posed and the link below I am gearing up to explore.

www.abeldanger.net...

reply to post by ofhumandescent


Hear! Hear!

Simply cannot agree more with this idea ofhumandescent.

Something to add is about the tax loopholes being granted to corporations for outsourcing jobs. This to me is positive proof that Obama is not on the working person's side. The Dems, you know the party for the little guy, had two years of majorities to close these suckers down. This while in the greatest jobs crisis since the Great Depression.

So, they DID close all those crappy loopholes, right? Right?



Unbelievable! Star & Flag to you.

Cheers!

I couldn't agree with you more. The time has come to demand economic justice in this country just like people are doing in other countries.

When the crowd at a rally to support the Wisconsin workers was being held in my state capitol a few weeks ago, one of the speakers ask the crowd; "What are we going to do with this crowd of greedy ultra wealthy elite who are attempting to repress workers while robbing our economy?" Someone in the crowd shouted; "Eat Them!" and it was followed by overwhelming laughter.

The other day I watched Beck pointing out the demonstrators in the U.K. and calling them things like anarchist, socialist and communist and he questioned whether or not this type of revolution could erupt in the U.S. essentially destroying our capitalistic society and ruining America. (those were his opinions, not mine.) I would say to Beck; "Hell yes it can happen here and it will, soon!"

I actually sensed a little fear coming from Beck because I think he's beginning to realize that it is indeed coming and it's people like him that we're after.

Who knows, maybe we should "Eat Them."

reply to post by Flatfish


I collect quotes and this is one of my favorite ones: “Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest” - Denis Diderot

I intend to get a book about Denis Diderot, he sounds like one heck of a interesting guy. Many of his quotes are insightful.

Denis Diderot (5 October 1713 – 31 July 1784) was a French philosopher and chief editor of the historic project to produce L'Encyclopédie.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c6465ce43024.jpg[/atsimg]

Instead of kings we now have owners of corporations (shareholders) and CEO's who are their hench men, same thing as in the middle ages just called different names, game is the same.

More money for me so I have live in a palace and let the common man "eat cake'.

Time changes one's views.

At twelve I read Victoria Holt's fantasy "The Queen's Confessions" about Marie Antoinette and cried when she was walked to the gallows.

46 years later if I were to read that very same novel, I wouldn't cry, I would cheer.

This planet Earth is being mismanaged big time..............it's time for the common working man to wake up, unite and rebel.

It's time we as a species threw the bullies out of the school yard and cut the pie a little more evenly.

But as long as our governments (and that includes England, and many other countries) allow the corporations to bed down with our governments - we the people will be corporate and government slaves.

reply to post by ofhumandescent


I agree, sounds like an interesting guy. I for one, think that the quote of his that you cited is "dead on." Who knows, he may even turn out to be some what of a prophet.

Corporate greed is the scourge of the earth and organized religion is nothing more than a tool which capitalizes on fear to maintain conformity among the masses. It's high time that both were called out for what they truly are.

Awesome thread and I couldn't agree more. I was glad to see Carnival Cruise lies among those listed as guilty. (As well as most major cruise lines.) In addition to shirking corporate taxes, by registering ships in lax foreign countries they skirt maritime laws (much like the giant oil rigs) and are not held to same standard for wages and treatment of employees. Not to mention accounts of passengers that have been victims of crime only to have suspected crew member kicked off ship at next port of call. More on that here.

Thanks for calling them out OP

ETA: Worth noting that AOL - Time Warner recently purchased Huff Po. Didn't see them on list.

thegreatamericandisconnect.blogspot.com...

Amazing. Just amazing. I can't...I just don't have the words to describe how I feel about this. And the only word I can come up with to describe this behavior? Treason. These corporations have sold America to the highest bidder.

/TOA

reply to post by Hessling


Democrats, Republicans are simply different sides to the exact same coin............to give the working corporate drone a sense of "choice".

Wake up, there is no choice.

A prisoner that does not know he is imprisoned will not try to escape.

A slave that does not know she is enslaved will not try to rebel.

I think it's clear to us all now, that Big Business comes before humanity. It seems certain capitalist institutions like banks are deemed too big to fail, privatizing profits and nationalizing the debt destroying the fabric of society and communities. It should be society which is deemed too big to fail.

YESS!

And end tax breaks for rich individuals as well, most of whom own those rich companies.

My country (NZ) is suffering, we are trying to rebuild Christchurch, and yet pay rises and tax breaks keep flowing to the rich.

It is obscene.

Interesting amount of agreement in this thread. Where are the dissenters?

The dissenters are sitting in their palatial homes and counting their money.

OMG, another one-liner.

Mods, why do you hate one-liners?

I think one-liners tell it all and I think one-liners are great.

Don't know if you're mocking me. I was genuinely surprised.

But anyway, if one wants something more substantive, we had 70-90% tax rates on the rich between WWII and the beginning of the 80s, and we did pretty well. Time we start going back to those rates.

There are so many loopholes that if you remove all the loopholes for US companies the companies will just move to a county that allows them.

Any company is just going to pass on any taxes to the people buying there products anyway.

Can the people in the US take all the extra tax on the products they buy in this economy.

Can the people in the US take more jobs going to other countries.

Originally posted by ANNED
There are so many loopholes that if you remove all the loopholes for US companies the companies will just move to a county that allows them.

Any company is just going to pass on any taxes to the people buying there products anyway.

Can the people in the US take all the extra tax on the products they buy in this economy.

Can the people in the US take more jobs going to other countries.

Closing the tax loopholes is only one step in the process of bringing our jobs and our tax dollars home. Have you ever wondered why it is that these other countries can even offer a corporate tax rate so much lower than our own? Well I have, and I think that maybe one of the reasons is because we, (U.S.A.) are providing them with their national security apparatus via all those U.S. bases scattered throughout the world, at the expense of the american taxpayer. It's not just their national security that's being protected at the expense of the american taxpayer either, who do you think is footing the bill for insuring that oil flows in and out of the Persian Gulf? We provide them with energy security too!

Maybe if these foreign nations were picking up their own national defense & energy security tabs, they too would require that corporations pay their fair share of the tax revenue mix. It's easy to offer lower rates when someone else is picking up your bills. I'm sure there are many other valid reasons too.

reply to post by ofhumandescent


There is only one way to change the current model whereby corporations avoid taxes and that is by taking the current tax code and tossing it away with something that is simple, straight forward and has no loop holes. That goes for individuals as well as corporations. It should also significantly reduce the criteria for what amounts to a non-profit organization. AARP and many chuches would fall into that category. Its the only way.

This issue is also not tied to the other cuts that are mentioned in your post - some of which are prudent and practical and some of which are not. The challenge is that the politicans tie all of these items together such that you can't cut one without the other. The trade their own self interests and the self interests of their speciall interests above the common good and both sides of the isle do it with equal abandon.

Instead of getting in to these pissing contests about what can't be cut, what needs to be cut, how many kids will go hungry should this be cut, how many jobs lost if that would be cut, They need to start with a tax code that can not be engineered. No loop holes, one rate for individuals one rate for corporations. Once thats done, they can do the rest of the budget work.

All of the other talk is just that, talk. A firm like GE has hundreds of folks in their tax department, lawyers, accountants, quantitative finance guys, investment folks. They will always be able to engineer a way out of paying taxes in a tax code with 2000 pages. Getting rid of that is the first step towards sanity.

GREAT OP! I think the best I have seen on this forum.
You have said it all there isn’t much to add to it.

We have to somehow educate the people in America people about what is going on.
This OP and information like it is a beginning.

No doubt it needs to end.

The reality is American worker will suffer more layoffs for corporations to maintain the return on investment for their shareholders.

The laws require corporations to make money. People actually complete with that mission because they impact profits adversely.

We need to burn it all down and let nature heal the ground for rebuilding.

reply to post by ofhumandescent


Let's end the stereotypes to admit that there are more 'Greedy Wealthy Democrats' than there are 'Greedy Wealthy Republicans.'

And the poor really don't have much of a chance in the 'Class Warfare' state of affairs.

reply to post by catwhoknowsplusone


Couldn't agree with you more. Some of the best posts have been one liners, short sweet and to the point.