Two weeks ago it was announced that the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate in the world sparking furious debate from Fox News types concerned about corporate well being. At RAN, we decided to dig a little deeper to see whether the corporate tax rate really is unfairly penalizing multi billion dollar corporations. Our discovery? The actual corporate tax rate may not matter when corporations don’t pay anything close to it anyway.
By Becky Tarbotton, published on Rainforest Action Network’s The Understory
RAN’s new “Top 10 Dirty Corporate Tax Dodgers of 2011” infographic reviewed top bank, oil and coal companies: Bank of America, Citi, JPMorganChase, Wells Fargo, Chevron, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Arch Coal, Alpha Natural Resources and Peabody Energy. We found that none of these ten companies paid anything close to the 35% corporate tax rate. In fact, Bank of America and Alpha Natural Resources paid no taxes at all.
Collectively, these ten corporations made a profit of $189.178 billion while only paying $13.34 billion in taxes in 2011. If they had paid the 35% corporate tax rate it would have put $52.87 billion back into the economy. It begs the question, what do the rest of us get while the government allows big business to game the system?
We need to do two things— Support “Move to Amend’s” air-tight proposal for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, and eliminate all political donations except small, individual contributions that may be magnified with public funding in some ratio as needed to conduct effective campaigns.
Right now, big money largely determines who our candidates are…… and we wind up with a choice of candidates who are all beholden to special interests. So, either way we vote, whether D or R, we are voting for candidates who are in the pockets of special interests. The two measures above will once again make politicians responsible and accountable to voters.
What about Amazon.com? By dodging sales tax in dozens of states, they unfairly compete with independent “brick and mortar” local stores. Their “free” shipping comes at the expense of overworked and underpaid warehouse laborers who’re hired through temp agencies so they can’t get fair benefits, and who are fired if they try to unionize or demand decent working conditions.
Yes, you’re right, we need to keep the pressure on all of the corporate tax dodgers. Have you seen this action from yesterday? http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2012/04/18/demonstrators-occu-pie-amazon-to.html