Over 10 Percent Of America’s Largest Companies Pay Zero Percent Tax Rates - ThinkProgress

[Bill USA]

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/10/25/2840141/10-percent-americas-largest-companies-pay-percent-tax-rates/

Among companies listed on the S&P 500, almost one in nine paid an effective tax rate of zero percent — or even lower — over the past year, according to an analysis by USA Today.

There are 57 separate companies listed on the index that paid a zero percent rate from the past year. Those companies include both household names like Verizon and News Corp. and lesser-known corporate giants like the data storage manufacturer Seagate (market value $15.9 billion) and Public Storage (market value $29.5 billion). Many of the companies USA Today identified in its analysis as paying negative rates make the list because they lost money, but several were profitable. Previous analyses have shown that the typical corporation pays a lower effective tax rate than most middle-class families, and a far lower one than the statutory corporate tax rate against which business interests disingenuously rail.

Getting to a zero percent tax rate despite turning a profit requires creative accounting, but not lawbreaking. The corporate tax code allows companies to avoid tax liability even in years when they turn a profit. Some of the profitable companies on the newspaper’s list, such as General Motors, achieved a zero percent rate by banking tax credits from previous years when business was bad. But the more common gambit involves moving revenues from parent companies to offshore subsidiaries based in tax haven countries in the Caribbean, Europe, and elsewhere.

Such offshoring of profits has caught the attention of policymakers in the United States and Europe this year, with the focus predominantly on Apple Inc. The U.S. tech giant not only avoided the American tax system, but managed to shelter about $100 billion in revenues from any taxes at all. That scheme relied upon a loophole in Irish law which that country’s government says it intends to fix, but the narrow change proposed by Ireland’s finance minister will not address the larger problem of corporate tax avoidance.
(more)

Large Companies find ways to Zero Tax Rate

Despite widespread groans about the recent disclosure that Apple is finding ways to cut its federal tax bill, an analysis shows the computer giant is one of scores of corporations largely dodging the taxman.

A surprising number of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500, 57, have found ways to pay effective tax rates of zero, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from S&P Capital IQ.

The effective tax rate is a popular measure used by investors to compare how much companies pay in tax relative to profit.

CEO PAY: Executive compensation skyrockets on soaring stock market

The news comes months after after the Government Accountability Office released a report showing that companies in 2010 reported an average effective tax rate of 12.6%, well below the 35% federal corporate tax rate.
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[think]

1. K&R /nt

[DJ13]

2. KNR For views

[antigop]

3. k&r nt

[kestrel91316]

4. Too big to tax, eh? I say seize their assets and jail their BoD.

[Igel]

5. First make what they're doing illegal.

Then wait for them to break the law.

Otherwise we wind up making Assad look like a good guy, and Pinochet a saint.

Although that's usually how they do or did it. They spot something they find reprehensible, tailor the law to make it possible to inflict the punishment they want on the people whose assets they wanted or whom they wanted to punish, and then go in to punish them.

Or we can just ask Obama to give himself plenary powers by executive fiat and see if it's true that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. With no safety net if it is true.

[King_Klonopin]

6. A friend of mine commented that it didn't make sense to increase corporate taxes

because "corporations would then just pass on the cost of taxes to us",
the (powerless) consumer.

It sounded logical for about a nanosecond. But I quickly felt a horribly
powerless feeling, down in my gut: This is coercion, so fundamentally
immoral, and we are no more than hostages for the greedy and the evil.

What my friend described, my soul tells me, is economic blackmail. The
sad part is, although this corporate behavior is completely manipulative
and abhorrent, we have no power to stop them from strong-arming us
(except if we stop buying their shit; but my car runs on gas, I need
medicine, and I am addicted to cable and telephone) In fact, they bought
the protection of our Government.

Either way, tax or no tax, we will get screwed -- handed a bill which they
should be paying. The "Free Market's" repulsive and corrupt underbelly is
revealed for what it truly is. Blackmail. Extortion. Manipulation. Greed.

I told him that we should, at least, stop subsidizing them. Subsidies are
yet another example of blackmail -- i.e. "give us money or you may end up
paying even more if you don't."

What will they do when they finally kill the Golden Goose and milk the
milk-cow dry?

[Cal33]

7. And of these loving, caring and "Christian" companies, some of them not only pay no

taxes, some of them even receive government subsidies -- at taxpayer expense! And
the executives of these corporations feel themselves superior to the run-of-the-mill
American people.

Somehow, at bottom, I feel that this is happening because we, the people, are
allowing it to happen. These crooked execs. are fighting hard to get what they
want, and they do get what they strive so hard for - even though it's crooked.
We, the ordinary people, don't fight hard - if at all - for fairness and justice.
Maybe we expect our elected representatives to do it for us!. (Needless to say,
with a few exceptions, these are hopeless expectations!) But Big Business is one
step ahead of us -- they use dirty tricks like bribing our representatives. So we
don't get fairness and justice.

Generally speaking, we get what we put our efforts into. And we don't get what we
don't fight for. THE BUCK DOES STOP RIGHT HERE. There is no other way.

The question boils down to: Are we willing to fight for fairness and justice for ourselves
and our children? Nothing else will stop crooked corporations from spreading their evil
and greed. And this fact has been staring at us all in the face for a very long time. If
we are not willing to fight for fairness and justice, we won't get fairness and justice, and
we shouldn't grumble when we get sucked dry of our last red cent!

This decision is ours to make. No one else can do it for us. This buck cannot be passed.