March Madness: The 5th Straight Year of Extreme Corporate Tax Avoidance

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/03/18-3


The winner? There is no winner.

***SNIP

Pay Up Now just completed a compilation of corporate tax payments over the past five years, using SEC data as reported by the companies themselves. The firms chosen are top-earners who have filed 10-K reports through 2012. Their US Tax figures represent the five-year total of "current" payments.

The 64 corporate teams paid just over 8% in taxes over the five-year period.

The Slink Sixteen

General Electric: The worst tax record over five years, with $81 billion in profits and a $3 billion refund.

Boeing: In addition to receiving a refund despite $21.5 billion in profits, the company ranked high in job cutting, underfunded pensions, and contractor misconduct.

Exxon Mobil: Made by far the largest profits in the group, but paid less than 1% in U.S. taxes, and yet received oil subsidies along with their tax breaks. Unabashedly reports a 2012 "theoretical tax" of over $27 billion, almost 90% of its total income tax expense. The company was also near the top in contractor misconduct.

Verizon: Second worst tax record, with a refund despite $48 billion in profits.

Kraft Foods: Received a refund from the public despite $13.5 billion in profits. Also a leading job-cutter.

Citigroup: One of the five big banks who are estimated to get a bailout/refund from the American public amounting to three cents from every tax dollar.

Dow Chemical: Received a refund despite almost $10 billion in profits

[AndyA]

1. Billions in profits, yet they get refunds

And Congress wants to cut Social Security and Medicare. I think it's CONGRESS that should be cut!

[Newest Reality]

2. There is a fungus

that infects ants. Perhaps you have heard about it or have seen it online?

Well, it takes the ant over and the ant dutifully climbs up a blade of grass as the fungus requires. The ant strikes a pose, reaching upwards and dies. The fungus grows upwards from the ant's carcass and releases its spores.

That's fungus is similar to the corporate model and we are the ants.

A tip is to realize that many of us have "internalized" this system to the point were it is difficult to see its impact on our perception. We have, after all, been immersed in it, life fish in water. It works so well because the impact is from cradle to grave and seems normal. The fungus is mutating, growing stronger and becoming so ubiquitous that you really have to investigate it and see it externally and, most importantly, internally.

Systemic heresy may be the only way to elude the outcome. Who wants to be like a stiff, dead ant dutifully poised on a corporate pedestal leaving a legacy of spores for the profit machine?

Shout-out to my fellow ants. We do have the power of emergence and ants also display that behavior. Look it up.

[marmar]

3. k/r