Save Our Jobs
written by Staff
Tuesday May 31, 2011
In the 1950s, 30% of Federal revenue was generated from corporate taxes – today it is a shockingly low 6.6%. It’s no wonder then that we have a $6 trillion deficit while a growing number of American corporations are showing billion dollar surpluses. GE has spent roughly $200 million (yes 200) over the last decade lobbying for – and getting – tax law changes that result in its zero sum tax liability.
Len Burnam, former Treasury department official and now a scholar at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says, “…in our system, there are corporations that view their tax departments as a profit center, and the effects on public policy can be negative.”
Following is a roster of corporations that are profiting hugely, paying no taxes, and in some cases, scoring refunds to boot. We have cross-referenced these companies to the list researched and published by CNN of companies they “confirmed are ‘Exporting America’.” It is shocking to note that the corporations most culpable of disenfranchising the American worker also seem to be disenfranchising the American taxpayer – for most this is a double whammy as they see their jobs exported and their tax bill increased.
How much is too much for these companies?
See how these companies are shortchanging America on jobs and tax revenues:
- General Electric
- Bank of America
- ExxonMobil
- Boeing
- Chevron
- BP
How much more can the American economy and its workers tolerate from these corporations? And, most importantly, who is going to put a stop to this madness? Senator Bernie Sanders (VT-I) is encouraging fellow Senators to address the inequities and loopholes in the tax system which allow extremely profitable corporations to pay very little or altogether avoid any tax liability. He has released a list of 10 corporations that are gaming the system to the detriment of the American taxpayer. Interestingly, most of these corporations are also on CNN’s list of companies “Exporting America.”
General Electric
GE’s aggressive tax strategies and big dollar lobbying schemes resulted in it paying no taxes in 2010, while profiting $26 billion between 2005-2010 and scoring an estimated $3.2 billion tax refund. All of this was finagled while GE earned a spot on CNN’s ‘Exporting America’ roster for its aggressive outsourcing policies.
When a huge tax break was set to expire in 2008, GE heavily lobbied Congress, in particular Rep. Charles Rangel, then House Ways and Means Committee chairman, who caved in to GE and reversed his opposition.
Rangel’s district was rewarded just a month later with an $11 million donation public schools in his district – a donation which was, naturally, tax deductible.
GE spokeswoman Anne Eisele defended the donation saying, “The [GE] foundation goes to great lengths to ensure grant decisions are not influenced by company government relations or lobbying priorities.”
Congressman Rangel, who was censured for soliciting donations from corporations who were lobbying his committee, similarly defended the donation, insisting that it was unconnected to the tax break renewal.
Over the past eight years, GE has laid off 20% of its domestic workforce – over 30,000 jobs – while seeing net profits soar 613% over the same period. From 2004-2009, GE earned $26 billion in profits, yet wrangled a $4.1 billion tax refund.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur said in a recent interview that GE “hasn’t really created any jobs in this country, doesn’t pay any taxes and they’re making historic profits.”
GE continues to injure the American people on two fronts – by firing Americans and sending their jobs overseas and by not paying its fair share of taxes, thereby increasing the burden on the American taxpayer.
Bank of America
According to Senator Bernie Sanders, who has Bank of America as the #2 on his list of corporate welfare recipients, “Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.”
The bailout may have been approved by the Fed and the Treasury Department, but it was truly at the expense of the American taxpayer. With a $14 trillion deficit in total, how is it acceptable for one corporation to be handed 8% of this amount? On top of this, the $1.9 billion refund reflects a lack of fair share participation in the tax system as well as a further burden on America’s taxpayers. It is particularly disturbing in light of the massive layoffs Bank of America has implemented, disenfranchising tens of thousands of American workers while creating thousands of jobs overseas.
Exxon-Mobil
The oil giant’s aggressive tax strategies have made it an exemplar of what the New York Times has dubbed “the paradox of the United States tax code.” For the eighth year in a row, Exxon Mobil has topped Fortune’s annual rankings of the U.S.’s most profitable firms. Its annual profits near a staggering $7 billion.
In a speech on the floor of the Senate in November, Senator Bernie Sanders discussed Exxon’s 2009 profits, “Last year, ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profit. Guess what? They paid zero in taxes. They got a $156 million refund from the IRS.”
Boeing
BusinessWeek included the aircraft giant on their chart of corporations who pay the least taxes, showing a 5 year average tax rate of less than 1%. Blogger Bud Meyers dedicated an entire page to Boeing’s tax avoidance techniques titled “Boeing – Another Corporate Tax Cheat.”
Senator Bernie Sanders ranks Boeing number five on his list of corporations shorting the U.S. on its fair share of taxes, saying “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.
Chevron
Chevron is one of America’s five largest companies and, according to Public Campaign, “one of its largest tax dodgers.” According to CNN, who lists Chevron as one of the companies “Exporting America” the mega-oil corporation reportedly evaded “$3.25 billion in federal and state taxes from 1970-2000 through an involved petroleum pricing scheme that involved a project in Indonesia.”
According to Senator Bernie Sanders, who has placed Chevron in the number 4 slot in his list of corporate welfare recipients. In 2009, with a profit of $10 billion, the oil giant wrangled a $19 million refund at taxpayer expense.
BP
BP refuses to disclose whether it paid any corporate income tax in 2010 or received a tax refund. BP announced a $36 billion net profit from US operations, but is planning on offsetting it by a loss of over $40 billion. Tax payment or possible refund aside, current tax law will indirectly force the individual American taxpayer to subsidize more than 1/3 of the loss BP incurred from polluting the Gulf, including the fund created to compensate those damaged by the spill.
Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense says, “In the first instance, taxpayers have this blight on their hands with this spill in the Gulf, and the company is able to make it better for their bottom line by writing off the costs when it should be just doing their duty for clean up. It really just adds insult to injury.”
Further adding insult to injury, BP is on CNN’s “Exporting America” list for continuing to take jobs away from hard-working Americans.
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