This Study Shows How Low Corporate America’s Taxes Really Are

[Stellar]

More: HuffPo

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) requested the Government Accountability Office study.

The presidential hopeful said the findings reveal that “there is something profoundly wrong in America.”

The report comes amid a rise in “corporate inversion” deals aimed at avoiding U.S. corporate taxes.

A new government report shows just how easy corporate America has it.

Every year from 2006 to 2012, some two-thirds of U.S. corporations did not pay federal income tax, according to a Government Accountability Office study released on Wednesday. In 2012 alone, 42.5 percent of businesses that the GAO defines as large did not pay federal taxes, including 19.5 percent of big corporations that posted a profit.

The GAO said those corporations in the black that still did not pay federal taxes benefitted from loopholes and tax incentives, such as the practice of rolling over losses from previous years. That enables companies to deduct those losses from their tax burden.

Profitable U.S. corporations paid, on average, an effective federal income tax rate of 14 percent over the slightly shorter period from 2008 to 2012, the federal government watchdog found.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who requested the report, immediately condemned the findings and touted legislation he has co-sponsored to curb corporate tax avoidance.

“There is something profoundly wrong in America when one out of five profitable corporations pay nothing in federal income taxes,” Sanders said in a statement.

Which companies did not pay taxes in the period the study exa

[Jackie Wilson Said]

1. #VoteBlueNoMatterWho #VoteBlueNoMatterWho #VoteBlueNoMatterWho #VoteBlueNoMatterWho

Love your sig.

When Americans are ready to really punish corporations who outsource jobs and dont pay taxes, then we will be somewhere.


We have a rather large consumer base here, and if you create tax law and trade law that rewards domestic manufacturing, you resolve much of this.

Until automation ends most jobs and it will, someday.

[Stellar]

3. #VoteBlueNoMatterWho...hear, hear! nt

[Travis_0004]

4. How is rolling over losses a tax loophole

If I loose 100 bucks year 1, and make 100 bucks year two, I broke even, and paid no taxes. I don't think that seems unreasonable.

I also don't see how its a loophole when the tax code is specifically written to allow this.

I do get tired of people just calling everything a loophole they disagree with.

[Rex]

5. LOL you paid 100 bucks one year and got 100 back the next year...so yes you did pay taxes.

I think you mean 'lose'.

[bhikkhu]

6. Not to argue against raising corp taxes or closing loopholes...

but I don't have anything against rolling over losses, and "In 2012 alone, 42.5 percent of businesses that the GAO defines as large did not pay federal taxes" shows more the effects of the great recession on corporate profits than low tax rates. In a recession companies don't make much money; some go out of business, others struggle along and get through it.

Corporate taxes are levied against net profits, and if they don't have net profits they don't pay taxes. That's to be expected in a recession, and using the numbers from a recession isn't really a good way of arguing for how low corporate taxes are.