280 Corporations are "Too Big to Tax"

A new report just came out that confirmed what we've already known. Besides just dodging taxes on income from their foreign subsidiaries, American corporations are also dodging taxes at home...and becoming parasites on our society.

U.S. corporations are sitting on a huge and growing pile of cash. It just crossed the $2 trillion threshold, according to new Fed data. The Federal Reserve figures don't even include the substantial amount of cash held at many U.S. companies' foreign subsidiaries, which would be subject to taxation if the companies repatriated it.

Eleven companies, including Apple, Microsoft, and Cisco held foreign cash balances of $10 billion or more.

By comparison, 50% of all American workers earned less than $27,000 last year, yet 280 major and profitable U.S. corporations are dodging taxes.

“These 280 corporations received a total of nearly $224 billion in tax subsidies,” said Robert McIntyre, Director at Citizens for Tax Justice and the report’s lead author. “This is wasted money that could have gone to protect Medicare, create jobs and cut the deficit.” (But just try telling that Senator John Boehner and his radical Tea Party.)

30 Companies averaged less than a zero tax bill in the last three years, and 78 had at least one no-tax year. (You pay more taxes than they do.)

Financial services (banks, insurance, etc.) received the largest share of all federal tax subsidies over the last three years. More than half the tax subsidies for companies in the study went to four industries: financial services, utilities, telecommunications, and oil, gas & pipelines. (But bankers and CEOs are too big to fail or go to jail.)

U.S. corporations with significant foreign profits paid tax rates to foreign countries that were almost a third higher than they paid to the IRS on their domestic profits. (But the Republicans want a lower tax rate and more tax breaks for corporations the wealthiest 1%.)

Profitable corporate tax dodgers aren't just parasites on our society, it's also a global problem. And this doesn't even include the top one percent. Federal investigators believe wealthy Americans have used offshore accounts to hide as much as $20 billion in assets from the Internal Revenue Service.

So all in all, it's just been business as usual...and that's another reason why, instead of jobs, we have Occupy Wall Street...because large corporations, CEOs, and the top 1% have not been job creators, at least, not in THIS country. Instead they've been job killers, by outsourcing jobs and not paying U.S. taxes.

Full Report Here (pdf)

Press Release With Key Findings (pdf)

Full Articles in the News:

Salon: The great corporate tax scam

Washington Post: Big corporations use loopholes, dodge taxes: Study

New York Times: Biggest Public Firms Paid Little U.S. Tax, Study Says

CNN Money: Many Companies pay no income taxes, study finds

The Huffington Post: Thirty Of America's Most Profitable Companies Paid 'Less Than Zero' In Income Taxes In Last 3 Years

Bloomberg: Thirty Top Companies Profited Without Paying Tax, Study Finds

The Hill: Report: Corporations paid half statutory rate

Reuters: Thirty companies paid no income tax 2008-2010: report

Politico: Study: 30 tops firms paid no taxes

Wall Street Journal: Are Corporations Paying Too Much in Taxes