Corporations paid no taxes in late 1990s

[question everything]

http://www.dailybulletin.com/Stories/0,1413,203~21482~2059300,00.html#

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

WASHINGTON - Most American and foreign corporations operating in the United States paid no income tax between 1996 and 2000, government auditors said Friday.

Using data collected by the Internal Revenue Service, the auditors found that 71 percent of foreign corporations paid no federal income tax. During the same time, 61 percent of American corporations paid no income tax. Among the largest corporations, American businesses were more likely to avoid taxation than foreign businesses.

The study was done by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Investigators also looked at companies that paid less than 5 percent of their total income in tax.

In 2000, the most recent year for which data was available, an estimated 94 percent of American corporations and 89 percent of foreign corporations paid less than 5 percent of their total incomes in taxes.

[NMDemDist2]

1. and we still had a surplus how did that happen? oh yeah we had people who

HAD JOBS then!

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

4. exactly!

[The Katts Meow]

2. Enron paid no taxes, and got some tax credits!

[realdeal22k]

3. Can we hit them with back taxes after November?

What if President Kerry pushed to get them to come clean and pay their fair share plus maybe some "late fees" :-)

[Barkley]

5. I wonder what % of households paid no taxes btw 1996 & 2000

I also wonder how many of the companies that paid no taxes were based California and how much state tax did they pay (if any)?

High tax is supposedly running businesses out of California...

Finally, I'd like get a list of the companies that paid no taxes and see who are their biggest campaign recipients.

This needs to be part of the election debate.

[papau]

6. GOP Congress ran horror story lies in 90's & shut IRS down

There is a report somewhere of how the GOP stories of IRS abuse were later found to be lies - but only after the GOP got their law passed, IRS funding priorities changed, and got the corporate/rich donations lined up for 2000.

[FlaGranny]

9. A personal friend found out that all the IRS horror stories

were not lies. She owned a small business and was tormented by an IRS agent until he was killed in an auto accident. After that happened, the case was settled easily by the new agent. And, NO, my friend had nothing to do with the auto accident.

Notice, I said she had a "small" busineness. If she had been Enron, I'm sure she wouldn't have had to pay taxes at all.

[papau]

17. IRS procedure is to request new agent/supervisor/appleal

Jerks exist everywhere. Your friend's experience not an IRS problem of excessive enforcement rules - indeed that is shown by the later settlement.

The IRS bill of rights and funding changes were set up to protect corporations and the rich - the GOP donors - and not out of sympathy for your friend's audit fight injustice.

[FlaGranny]

22. My friends problems took place a little BEFORE

the new kinder, gentler IRS. :-) But yes, the agent WAS a jerk and was going far beyond his authority. But that was part of the problem then. Individual agents got away with things like that and most people didn't know what to do about it.

The whole problem was caused by a bad accountant who wasn't filing on time, and penalties accrued.

[mulethree]

7. but but ... the tax cut

on dividends, wasn't that to save investors from the double taxation
they suffer from when a corporation pays taxes and then the investors
pay tax again on the after-tax dividends?

I always thought the double taxation was there to somehow compensate the people for the inevitable damage that's done by creating a monster that's only interest is profit and then limiting it's liability when it does monstrous things.

So basically the corporations don't pay, AND the investors don't pay?

Oh well I guess that makes sense ;-)

[papau]

18. Every dollar is taxed many times with income and transaction taxes

Indeed we have asset - property - taxes.

So double taxation gets the usual GOP score of zero on the logic scale.

Protect the rich and their main source of income - namely investment return via dividends or capital gains - is the only GOP logic in play - all the other reasons put out for any GOP action is just PR to be sold by the media.

[plurality]

8. And Kerry proposes we lower them more

What a great idea! How about instead of even asking them to pay taxes, we just give them money, aside from the billions they already get from us for buying their shit. Maybe then they would bestow us with the privilege of employement.

[w4rma]

10. 5% of 0 is still 0.

Lower the percentage for the headlines and close the loopholes on these tax dodgers (for the headlines and the tax money).

[Voltaire99]

11. Kerry's out to lunch on corporate taxes

Simply pathetic. He'd better change his tune on this one if he expects to animate progressive voters.

[papau]

19. Kerry retain $500 increase in child credit/2 stand. deductions for married

and to retain lowering of the bottom tax bracket from 15% to 10%.

Don't quite see the Kerry error/

or do you mean the corporate tax rate drop to 95% of the current tax rate - while closing loopholes that let 75% of the corporate income never get taxed?

[Chomskyite]

12. Question

Why does no page come up when I click on that link?

[burrowowl]

13. There were more middle-class

working and being taxed.
I recommend Kevin Philips: Wealth and Democracy

[cryofan]

14. Zero corp taxes are OK, but just tax heavily high income & unearned income

Just tax the rich and the investor class more heavily.

[papau]

20. Then all spending by the rich becomes corporate expense - a tax is

needed on corporations just to prevent the rich pay nothing situation.

[Nile]

15. But they pay plenty of other taxes and things.

Social security, Medicare and unemployment taxes just to name a few. And on top of that they pay benefits to their employees which are income tax deductions.

[papau]

21. SS tax is capped at about $7000 per year, Medicare tax misses 90%

of their income as it does not apply to investment income/capital gains,

Unemployment tax is also just a corporate tax - and indeed is capped at a small amount.

[nolabels]

16. Them tax dollars you pay mostly go to subsidize the corporations

(at least it seems that way) The only way its ever going to change is getting business out of the direct hand of controlling the Government. As long as business is the only people able to hold government accountable, that will be the only people they listen to.

The war in Iraq is a prime example. Most people with half a brain know a prime impetus to go into Iraq is control of the oil and that is business being subsidized by tax dollars.

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-06/03bagdikian.cfm
June 03, 2002

Why Most Of Us Pay More Taxes Than Our Share

By Ben Bagdikian
If you have never heard of Vanuatu, or the economics of Andorra and Labuan, then you're one of us millions of ordinary citizens of the United States who, each year, pay a higher percentage of federal income tax revenues than is our true share.

The three places above are tax shelters for corporations and the very rich whose accountants do their homework the tax code of the United States and have the money to hire the shelter experts on the best hiding places in the world and the tax code loopholes for corporations and the truly rich in.

There has been jiggling of obscure tax code language accomplished by lobbyists and the unrestrained greed of the free market ideologues over the years, especially since the deregulation hysteria that started 30 years ago and has continued as a religious mission right up to the time that Enron turned belly-up. We're all stuck with the cost of cleaning up the mess left by billionaires and compliant politicians.

The Enron scandal made the Cayman Islands front page news. But the Caymans are only one of the many places that make it possible for some of the less disreputable corporations of the country to cut, eliminate or even get tax refunds in years when they make large profits.

It was the Caymans that Enron used in a reverse of the usual tactic. They ping-ponged subsidiary accounts among their subsidiaries, padding the expenses with each stroke until they had built up a "cost of operation" that let them sell electricity to, for example, California, for billions above the real cost and do it with the helpless gesture, "What can we do? Our costs have gone up."
(snip)

http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=3416&fcategory_desc=Media%20Lies,%20Bias,%20and%20Right%20wing%20influence
98 percent of Florida Businesses Pay No Tax
By: Sydney Freedberg

St. Petersburg Times Date: 10/26/2003

Carnival Corp., Florida's 10th-largest public company with 4,220 South Florida employees and a $136-million state payroll, posted more than $1-billion in profits last year.

It also paid nothing in Florida corporate income tax.

Neither did Verizon Communications Inc., the phone giant that employs 12,500 people in Florida, or Saddlebrook Resorts Inc., the elite retreat in Wesley Chapel that is home to a famous tennis training center.

In fact, 98 percent of the estimated 1.5-million businesses in Florida paid nothing. And many of those that did pay found ways to reduce their tax bills.

At a time when Florida is scraping for every dollar to improve education, build roads and prisons and buy prescription drugs for the poor, Florida's corporate income tax is all but dead.
(snip)
On edit: wrong clip from link