Do big corporations pay fair taxes?

A while back I got into a vigorous discussion about whether GE paid zero taxes on its enormous profits, and got a rebate to boot. The conclusion seems to center on how one looks at financial reports. I guess it was a draw. But in the meantime Senator Bernie Sanders has released a statement which he titled, A GUIDE TO CORPORATE FREELOADERS. The following is a sample of what he found.

EXXON MOBIL 2009 profits totaled $19 billion, yet according to the Security Exchange Commission, it didn’t pay any federal taxes, and received a substantial tax rebate.

BANK OF AMERICA made $4.4 billion profits last year after it had received bailout funds, and got a $19 billion tax refund.

CHEVRON Made $10 billion last year and received a rebate of
$19 million.

BOEING Got a $30 billion dollar Defense Department contract and received a tax rebate of $124 million.

VALERO ENERGY Had sales totaling $68 billion and received $157 million tax rebate.

GOLDMAN SACHS Paid a tax rate of 1.1% on its $2.3 billion profits.

CITIGROUP Made $4 billion and paid zero in taxes.

The list goes on to include a number of similar citations. Obviously what statistics mean will vary depending on who is citing them, but Sen. Sanders didn’t just make up these figures. We accept the fact that corporations are in business to maximize profits. They all carry a sturdy cadre of lawyers and accountants whose job it is to search the tax code seeking to find any legal avenue open to them which will reduce their corporate liability. I can’t blame them. Any company that does not play by those rules cannot compete. One might wonder why Congress doesn’t tighten things up, just in the name of fairness. The answer is fairly simple. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you, nor do politicians chomp down on the sources of money it takes to get re-elected. A hundred years ago Upton Sinclair opined, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Nobody knows how much of our obscene national debt comes from tax loopholes. Plugging them is not the final or even the most important remedy to our serious problems. But neither is cutting education, gutting Social Security, delivering health insurance to private companies already grown fat, slicing the heart out of R and D projects, allowing America’s infrastructure to further deteriorate, shredding the social safely net, and exacerbating the mal-distribution of America’s wealth.

Anyone with stock holdings in American corporations, including minuscule holdings by this writer, will utter squeals of delight when the evening news announces another sturdy advance on Wall Street. We want American businesses to be profitable. So we are caught between an ethical hunger for economic equity and the hope of even a tiny rise in our personal portfolios. I, for one, admit to a bit of embarrassment that I may profit over what amounts to legalized fraud. It’s a tough task to be pure in an ambiguous world.

Nevertheless, all of us are in the same lifeboat which holds a limited amount of fresh water. When it is unequally shared, in the long run nobody is better off. Those with parched throats will not sit quietly by and die of thirst. Corporations ought to pay their fair share of the national expenses. And those individuals, who have profited enormously just by living and working here, should be required to pay back a healthy chunk of what America has allowed them to take out.

There is an American myth that says wealth is generated by hard work. Of course some is. But the larger truth is that most big wealth is generated, not by hard work, but by already existing big wealth. Money breeds money! If work did it, coal miners would be rich and bond holders and hedge fund operators would be insisting on a raise in the nation’s minimum wage.

I actually heard two Repubs bitching about corporations getting rebates, subsidies etc. Maybe there is some hope after all.

:rofl: