This headline says it all: Most companies in US avoid federal income taxes.
This is a very interesting story.
Al Gore talks about "taxing what we burn; not what we earn," conveniently evading the question of taxing wealth.
Workers create ALL wealth--- with the exception of Mother Nature's unique form of help, the working class really does create ALL wealth... this is scientific truth; something which has been known for hundreds of years yet seldom mentioned except by Marxists.
People wonder why there is never any money for things we need--- socialized health care, public education, housing, public libraries, parks and recreation, road and bridge maintenance and infrastructure and child care; well, this story provides a big part of the answer... corporations are allowed to get away with stealing the wealth created by the working class without so much as even having to pay any taxes on this wealth.
This is by design... United States Senator Carl Levin doesn't have to look too far to find out how it is that U.S. corporations are absconding--- running off in secrecy--- without paying any taxes... Levin needs only look in the mirror because Democrats worked in a bi-partisan manner creating this opportunity for corporations to steal the wealth of our Nation; wealth created by the working class... stealing this wealth without even having to pay any taxes.
The CATO Institute has been the primary architect of such reactionary and regressive tax policies and working in cahoots with Brownstein/Hyatt/Farber/Schreck positions in government agencies and legislative staffs have been stacked with those who have been trained to have a mind-set to carry out this robbery in a manner even slicker than the robbery taking place at the gas pumps.
Of course, the politicians--- Republicans and Democrats--- are both feeding like pigs at the trough... at our expense.
Marxists, like myself, refer to the Democrats and Republicans as being the two-headed monster of big-business for a reason; and this is one of those reasons.
After reading this, no one should wonder why Democratic and Republican politicians tell us no-fee, comprehensive, all-inclusive, single-payer universal health care which is publicly financed and publicly administered is not affordable.
Well, when corporations can get away without paying a dime in taxes as the billion-dollar CEO's and Wall Street coupon clippers walk off with the profits is it any wonder nothing is left for government to meet the needs of society for things like health care, education and housing?
Anyone with an ounce of common sense understands that whatever wealth is created by the working class with Mother Nature's unique contribution, that is all society has to work with... when it comes to wealth there is one pie, no more.
How that pie gets divided up is what working people need to get concerned about.
It is not just big-business sticking their greedy fingers in the pie before it cools as they try to grab what they can without getting caught... the working class is supporting a monstrous military-financial-industrial complex of state-monopoly capitalism which is growing more expensive by the day to support as imperialist wars are waged for oil and to secure cheap labor markets.
Karl Marx pointed out long ago that when a Nation takes the wealth which has been collectively created by the working class and pumps this wealth into military spending and wars, that one might just as well take the money from your your pocket and throw it out into the ocean.
Capitalism has spun a web for the working class and the capitalist parasites are having a feast--- the working class is the victim and it is time for working people to tear this web apart and break free.
Now since it is close to Election Day, Senator Byron Dorgan talks about these corporations having to "pay their fair share." What a hypocrite; for years the guy has closed his eyes, covered his ears, and twiddled his thumbs knowing full well this was all taking place... we all knew it.
We expect the Republicans to do this; the Democrats on the other hand keep getting elected because, like Dorgan and this bunch of Democrats--- in order to get our votes they claim they are different from Republicans, when, in reality, the only difference is the Republicans do what they say they will do for the corporations and Democrats lie about what they say they will do for working people while after getting elected, the Democrats wring their hands and say they don't know how to stop the Republicans from doing what they said they were going to do.
The time has come for working class political independence. This is why I support the campaigns of Cynthia McKinney for President and Cindy Sheehan for United States Congress.
There is no such thing as a free bus ride... big-business is along for the ride without paying the "FARE;" and, no matter how anyone looks at it this scheme and way of doing things is not "FAIR."
This article published in BusinessWeek proves that the working class is paying the entire "F-A-R-E." And this, by design of both Republicans and Democrats, is not "F-A-I-R."
It is all about wealth; it is all about "fare" and "fair." Give the Democrats a dictionary, not your vote.
Something to keep in mind: To top it off, these same corporations paying no taxes, can't even pay workers real living wages--- and, they turn around and fight tooth-and-nail to prevent the minimum wage from becoming a real living wage.
If this doesn't provide some food for thought around the dinner table in working class households I don't know what would...
Alan L. Maki
The Associated Press
August 12, 2008
Most companies in US avoid federal income taxes
By JENNIFER C. KERR
WASHINGTON
Unlike the rest of us, most U.S. corporations and foreign companies doing business in the United States pay no federal income tax, according to a new report from Congress.
The study by the Government Accountability Office, expected to be released Tuesday, said two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, and about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.
Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales, according to GAO's estimate.
"It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who asked for the GAO study with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.
An outside tax expert, Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, said increasing numbers of limited liability corporations and so-called "S" corporations pay taxes under individual tax codes.
"Half of all business income in the United States now ends up going through the individual tax code," Edwards said.
The GAO study did not investigate why corporations weren't paying federal income taxes or corporate taxes and it did not identify any corporations by name. It said companies may escape paying such taxes due to operating losses or because of tax credits.
More than 38,000 foreign corporations had no tax liability in 2005 and 1.2 million U.S. companies paid no income tax, the GAO said. Combined, the companies had $2.5 trillion in sales. About 25 percent of the U.S. corporations not paying corporate taxes were considered large corporations, meaning they had at least $250 million in assets or $50 million in receipts.
The GAO said it analyzed data from the Internal Revenue Service, examining samples of corporate returns for the years 1998 through 2005. For 2005, for example, it reviewed 110,003 tax returns from among more than 1.2 million corporations doing business in the U.S.
Dorgan and Levin have complained about companies abusing transfer prices -- amounts charged on transactions between companies in a group, such as a parent and subsidiary. In some cases, multinational companies can manipulate transfer prices to shift income from higher to lower tax jurisdictions, cutting their tax liabilities. The GAO did not suggest which companies might be doing this.
"It's time for the big corporations to pay their fair share," Dorgan said.
