For the Corporate 1 Percenters, a 50 Percent Tax Discount

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/08-6

Over a quarter century ago, in 1984, the Washington, D.C.-based Citizens for Tax Justice released its first in-depth report on how much America's top profitable corporations were actually paying in taxes.

America's top companies, this initial study found, were paying only 14.1 percent of their profits in taxes, less than a third of the corporate tax rate then in effect.

That startling report left a bit of an uproar in its wake. Corporate tax loopholes would go on to figure prominently in the 1986 tax reform debate. The tax legislation eventually enacted would plug a host of them.

But the 1986 tax reform legislation also slashed tax rates on high personal incomes. Corporate earnings now faced a higher tax rate than the income wealthy Americans reported on their personal tax returns.