Don't cry for Walmart on tax day

[ProSense]

Don't cry for Walmart on tax day

by Laura Clawson



Walmart and the Walton family certainly have reason to be having a happy tax day. Americans for Tax Fairness rounds up the tax avoidance strategies Walmart and the Walton family use to keep taxpayers subsidizing their big profits and enormous wealth:

• Walmart receives an estimated $6.2 billion annually in mostly federal taxpayer subsidies. The reason: Walmart pays its employees so little that many of them rely on food stamps, health care and other taxpayer-funded programs.
  
  
• Walmart avoids an estimated $1 billion in federal taxes each year. The reason: Walmart uses tax breaks and loopholes, including a strategy known as accelerated depreciation that allows it to write off capital investments considerably faster than the assets actually wear out.
  
  
• The Waltons avoid an estimated $607 million in federal taxes on their Walmart dividends. The reason: income from investments is taxed at a much lower tax rate than income from salaries and wages.

It's all perfectly legal, strategies used by many if not most huge corporations and 0.1 percent families. But that's the point. The system is rigged in favor of those who can hire lobbyists and give max-out campaign contributions.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/15/1292154/-Don-t-cry-for-Walmart-on-tax-day

[broiles]

1. Ahh, the invisible hand of the free market.

[Paladin]

2. "Don't cry for Walmart on tax day, The truth is they've ALWAYS screwed you....."

Take it from there, "Evita" fans!

[FSogol]

3. K & R. n/t