55 corporations paying no federal tax last year spent $450 million on lobbying and campaigns

[Hassin Bin Sober]

12. This is from 2006 but still just as true: Spending Millions To Save Billions

https://www.citizen.org/article/spending-millions-to-save-billions/

Spending Save Billions

Executive Summary

Members of a handful of super-wealthy families have quietly helped finance and coordinate a massive campaign to repeal the estate tax.

These families – the members of which own the first and third largest privately held companies in the United States and hold about a 40 percent share in the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart – stand to save a whopping $71.6 billion if their bid succeeds.

They have relied on their fortunes, the resources of their companies and their business connections to marshal a massive anti-estate tax juggernaut that has reported nearly a half-billion dollars in lobbying expenditures ($490.3 million) since 1998.

The families also have helped finance outside groups that have spent millions on fear-mongering ad campaigns intended to sway public opinion against the estate tax. These ads have shamelessly retailed myths that the estate tax is responsible for wrecking small businesses and family farms, and that regular Americans should fear a crushing tax bill when their loved ones die.

In fact, only about one-quarter of one percent of all estates will owe any estate taxes in 2006. And the American Farm Bureau, a member of the anti-estate tax coalition, was unable in 2001 to cite a single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability – and that was back when the exemption level was only a fraction of what it is today.