2/3 of US Corporations Pay No Income Tax

[georgephillip]

B of A was forced to buy up Merrill Lynch and tax cuts don't "cost" anything, doofus.

How much do budget deficits cost, Rich Bitch?

Deficits are caused by excess spending, fool.

And by tax dodgers.

 

[Oddball]

Wrong, dickless.

You don't go into debt if you don't spend more than you have on hand.

 

[American Horse]

Maybe you should read the whole article before posting?

But many of the companies the report found had paid no tax were likely small businesses that pay other taxes. Generally, many small firms, because they do not have shareholders, are able to shift corporate income to individual income.

In my opinion there should be no taxes on any of our businesses at all. All income to corporations/business should flow through to individuals and be taxed as individual income for income tax purposes. That in itself would incentivize corporations to invest in capital equipment to grow their businesses.

But the problem is the government wants to control how businesses spend their money, so that they can disallow certain expenditures, thereby creating “loopholes” which then are called welfare for corporations. That gives politicians power over corporations and a source of money from those corporations or businesses to either belay or promote more loopholes to level the playing field.

Also those loopholes can be used as rhetorical slams to motivate those corps to conform to the the desires of the politicians; as if regulations aren’t enough.

However, putting all that aside, pertaining to taxing, individuals can be held responsible for any luxury payments, or plush/lucrative benefits that flow through to them.

We who earn income, particularly as self employed persons, know what ought to be called income, and that it really is treated as income on our tax returns. Although, as I recall, Tom Daschle had some trouble understanding that a free limousine ride to work every day was income. In Tom Daschle’s case an ordinary audit, had he been subjected to one, would’ve revealed that he ignored income as it should be counted for purposes of taxation.

 

[kaz]

Wrong, dickless.

You don't go into debt if you don't spend more than you have on hand.

That's why he can't pay off his credit cards. The thinks he has an income problem, not a spending problem...

 

[Care4all]

Maybe you should read the whole article before posting?

But many of the companies the report found had paid no tax were likely small businesses that pay other taxes. Generally, many small firms, because they do not have shareholders, are able to shift corporate income to individual income.

In my opinion there should be no taxes on any of our businesses at all. All income to corporations/business should flow through to individuals and be taxed as individual income for income tax purposes. That in itself would incentivize corporations to invest in capital equipment to grow their businesses.

But the problem is the government wants to control how businesses spend their money, so that they can disallow certain expenditures, thereby creating “loopholes” which then are called welfare for corporations. That gives politicians power over corporations and a source of money from those corporations or businesses to either belay or promote more loopholes to level the playing field.

Also those loopholes can be used as rhetorical slams to motivate those corps to conform to the the desires of the politicians; as if regulations aren’t enough.

However, putting all that aside, individuals can be held responsible for any luxury payments, or plush/lucrative benefits that flow through to them.

We who earn income, particularly as self employed persons, know what ought to be called income, and that it really is treated as income on our tax returns. Although, as I recall, Tom Daschle had some trouble understanding that a free limousine ride to work every day was income. In Tom Daschle’s case an ordinary audit, had he been subjected to one, would’ve revealed that he ignored income as it should be counted for purposes of taxation.

Why is it that in our early years as a country... Corporate income taxes collected was the majority of taxes our country collected and now you want to eliminate them altogether and put the entire burden on to everyone with HIGHER INCOME TAXES on the individual....?

I'd like to see NO individual income taxes....think that will ever happen?

 

[Immanuel]

You Have More Money in Your Wallet Than Bank of America Pays in Federal Taxes:

"But it wasn’t teachers, fire fighters, policemen, and college students that caused the economic recession that has devastated government budgets — it was Wall Street.

"And as middle class workers are being asked to sacrifice, the rich continue to rig the system, dodging taxes and avoiding paying their fair share.

"In an interview with In These Times, Carl Gibson, the founder of US Uncut, which is organizing some of today’s UK-inspired massive demonstrations against tax dodgers, explains that while ordinary Americans are being asked to sacrifice, major corporations continue to use the rigged tax code to avoid paying any federal taxes at all.

"As he says, if you have 'one dollar' in your wallet, you’re paying more than the 'combined income tax liability of GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and the Bank of America'“

ThinkProgress>>

You and ThinkProgress make it sound as if BofA never pays any taxes. Funny thing is that a quick look at the financial statements of said company shows that to be incorrect.

BAC Income Statement | Bank of America Corporation Com Stock - Yahoo! Finance


Bank of America, Wells Fargo might not pay federal taxes for 2009 | McClatchy

"Oh, yeah, this happens all the time," said Robert Willens, an expert on tax accounting who runs a New York firm with the same name. "Especially now, with companies suffering such severe losses."

In 2007 and 2008 BofA paid their share of taxes, nearly $6.5 Billion. In 2009, they had some kind of adjustment that affected their tax situation which allowed them to regain nearly $2 Billion of that. I did not bother to look for what that adjustment was.

Obviously, ThinkProgress wanted its readers to get the picture that large corporations do not pay income taxes. They expected people just to take their word for it. I am certain that for what ever reason BofA took that adjustment it was legal to do so and I highly doubt there was anything illegal in their actions.

I would not hesitate that guess that you and I and everyone else reading this thread, do our best to legally reduce our taxes year by year... yet ThinkProgress seems to want to make BofA and other corporate giants out to be evil based on one year's tax filings that most likely were completely legitimate

Most corporations are small and can legally reduce their tax liability to nothing or almost nothing. The larger ones such as BofA, Wells Fargo, GM, Exxon etc. etc. etc. need extraordinary occurrences to do so and then when they enter those situations they are portrayed as villains.

Immie

ThinkProgress limits its observation to Bof A's 2009 income tax liability. A year the bank paid top execs between $6million and $30 million in total compensation, AND a year in which BofA would NOT even have existed without the US taxpayer.

"BANK OF AMERICA: In 2009, Bank of America didn’t pay a single penny in federal income taxes, exploiting the tax code so as to avoid paying its fair share. 'Oh, yeah, this happens all the time, said Robert Willens, a tax accounting expert interviewed by McClatchy. 'If you go out and try to make money and you don’t do it, why should the government pay you for your losses?' asked Bob McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice. The same year, the mega-bank’s top executives received pay 'ranging from $6 million to nearly $30 million.'”

Why should the government cover Bank of America's losses?

ThinkProgress did this because they want people to believe that large corporations don't pay taxes. Period! And it seems that they have plenty of individuals who are willing to jump on this bandwagon.

Like I said, I am quite confident that you do your best to minimize and/or eliminate your taxes. Why should the government subsidize your losses?

What the Bank pays its executives is irrelevant. Granted they seem to make more than they are worth, but the bank normally has the income to cover those expenses and those salaries are determined by the shareholders not the executives. If the executive does not produce then they suffer the consequences and may find themselves unemployed.

In 2009, BofA was hit with an adjustment to income that allowed them to recover some of the taxes they paid in prior years. This adjustment was based on the laws of this nation and if anyone is to blame for making those laws so convenient for BofA, it is the politicians we elect that should be shouldering most of the blame for that rather than the bank itself. Granted the banking industry has paid lobbyist to bring about favorable conditions, but it is the politicians themselves that bare the blame, not the banks.

Corporations use the tax laws of this nation to determine what taxes, if any, are to be paid in a given year. If those tax laws work out favorably for them in a given year then so be it

You use the tax laws of this nation to determine what taxes, if any, you are to pay for a given year. When you itemize your deductions, you reduce your tax liability in the same manner as BofA did in 2009 yet I don't see the people who do itemize deductions on personal income tax complaining about the right to do so, do you? The scale of your deductions may not compare to the scale of BofA's deductions but neither does your revenue. So, why should the government subsidize your expenses?

exploiting the tax code so as to avoid paying its fair share

What a crock of shit!!! Loaded language used to fool the reader. ThinkProgress makes it sound as if BofA did something illegal. BofA didn't exploit the tax code, they followed the laws of this nation just as you or I did for 2009. If they exploited the tax code by taking legal deductions, then I am sure any of us who actually filed our tax returns and sought out every legal deduction we could find, did as well. I suppose that puts us all in the same category of exploiters as BofA.

Immie

 

[Oddball]

Why is it that in our early years as a country... Corporate income taxes collected was the majority of taxes our country collected and now you want to eliminate them altogether and put the entire burden on to everyone with HIGHER INCOME TAXES on the individual....?

I'd like to see NO individual income taxes....think that will ever happen?

Difference being that those lawful duties, imposts and excises were collected to pay for specifically enumerated federal duties, not just thrown into a general fund.

That you're in favor of no taxes on individual production is a great start....Come, come to the dark side....We have cookies.

 

[Big Fitz]

Yep, nearly 2/3 of US corporations and 68% of foreign corporation pay no federal income tax.

Enjoying record profits and taxpayer-funded bailouts as the economy slowly recovers from a financial crisis, nearly two-thirds of US corporations don't pay any income taxes, instead opting to abuse tax loopholes and offshore tax havens. According to this study from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, 83 of the top 100 publicly traded corporations that operate in the US exploit corporate tax havens. Since 2009, America’s most profitable companies such as ExxonMobil, General Electric, Bank of America and Citigroup all paid a grand total of $0 in federal income taxes to Uncle Sam. Tax havens alone account for up to $1 trillion in tax revenue lost every decade, money that could be invested in K-12 education, colleges, public health, job creation and hundreds of other worthy public programs.

But this is not good enough for the GOP. They are urging Obama to seek further corporate tax cuts while cutting 60 billion dollars out of education and programs that serve the poorest of the poor.

Majority of corporations avoid federal income taxes - study - Aug. 12, 2008
US Uncut

Sounds like a great reason to end corporate taxes then, since almost nobody's paying them. Why waste the government time and money? Just to provide worthless government bureaucrat jobs of overpaid beltway plebes and union members?

End the corporate income tax, and end the waste.

Of course, there's the other option of dropping it to say a 10% flat tax, no loopholes for any business doing commerce in the US and call it a day. That'd probably do far better if we MUST tax corporations which then the costs are passed on to us the consumers anyway

 

[Care4all]

I think it should be a lower, flat tax for all corporations....with no loopholes.

all corporations pay the same flat rate on earnings....

We would probably collect more in corporate taxes that way, and it would be a level playing field for all corporations, global and domestic.

 

[Oddball]

I think it should be a lower, flat tax for all corporations....with no loopholes.

all corporations pay the same flat rate on earnings....

We would probably collect more in corporate taxes that way, and it would be a level playing field for all corporations, global and domestic.

Disagree, with a qualification.

All taxes levied should be for a specific enumerated power of the feds to spend. For example, fuel taxes to pay for roads and bridges.

 

[American Horse]

Maybe you should read the whole article before posting?

<SNIP>
In my opinion there should be no taxes on any of our businesses at all. All income to corporations/business should flow through to individuals and be taxed as individual income for income tax purposes. That in itself would incentivize corporations to invest in capital equipment to grow their businesses.
QUOTE]

Why is it that in our early years as a country... Corporate income taxes collected was the majority of taxes our country collected and now you want to eliminate them altogether and put the entire burden on to everyone with HIGHER INCOME TAXES on the individual....?

I'd like to see NO individual income taxes....think that will ever happen?

Because I believe in targetted taxes (take the gasoline taxes; appropriated for highways and roads) I believe all taxes should be as accurately targetted, and do as little harm as possible. If everyone had to pay some taxes, and I exclude FICA as a tax since it goes to individual benefits (a personal account), then everyone would have a stake in the taxing system. Corporate CEOs don't much care whether they are taxed or not, or regulated or not, since those elements in their competitive world enable them to play the system, and politicians equally enjoy the "game" and playing it for their own resumes.

We already do not tax individuals below a certain income level; what does that get us that other than a segment of the population who do not see the cost of government excesses.

No Care, there is no way we can survive as a nation without individual income taxes; our obligations are too great.

 

[Care4all]

I think it should be a lower, flat tax for all corporations....with no loopholes.

all corporations pay the same flat rate on earnings....

We would probably collect more in corporate taxes that way, and it would be a level playing field for all corporations, global and domestic.

Disagree, with a qualification.

All taxes levied should be for a specific enumerated power of the feds to spend. For example, fuel taxes to pay for roads and bridges.

too complicated to do it in that manner, imho...Oddball....

 

[Oddball]

I think it should be a lower, flat tax for all corporations....with no loopholes.

all corporations pay the same flat rate on earnings....

We would probably collect more in corporate taxes that way, and it would be a level playing field for all corporations, global and domestic.

Disagree, with a qualification.

All taxes levied should be for a specific enumerated power of the feds to spend. For example, fuel taxes to pay for roads and bridges.

too complicated to do it in that manner, imho...Oddball....

Not as complicated in throwing all the funds into a giant pile and having congressweasels squabble over it. The added problem in that model is that money collected for X could all too easily be diverted to Y.

 

[Care4all]

right now we have federal cig taxes to pay for the health care of other people's children....

corporations utilize ALL THE BENEFITS that individuals utilize in our communities...cops, firefighters, roads, wall street regulators, Port authority, airports, the Fed, water, homeland security, national Defense, congress expense and presidential expense, educational system, etc etc etc etc etc....

 

[Big Fitz]

I think it should be a lower, flat tax for all corporations....with no loopholes.

all corporations pay the same flat rate on earnings....

We would probably collect more in corporate taxes that way, and it would be a level playing field for all corporations, global and domestic.

Disagree, with a qualification.

All taxes levied should be for a specific enumerated power of the feds to spend. For example, fuel taxes to pay for roads and bridges.

I've no problem with that. Corporate taxes pay for corporate regulation for preventing abusive trade practices, weights and measures, labor protection and consumer protection. Gas tax for public roads and bridges but not mass transit or drunk driving enforcement.

I'd rather see the tax burden shift to excise taxes and tariffs anyway and put the funding of our massively downsized federal and state governments onto foreign nations anyway.

 

[boedicca]

right now we have federal cig taxes to pay for the health care of other people's children....

corporations utilize ALL THE BENEFITS that individuals utilize in our communities...cops, firefighters, roads, wall street regulators, the Fed, water, homeland security, national Defense, congress expense and presidential expense, etc etc etc etc etc....

Corporations employee people who pay taxes. The amount of income, FICA, SS, gasoline, utility, property taxes etc. paid by the employees who are paid by corporations is A Lot Of Money.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

ThinkProgress » ExxonMobil paid no federal income tax in 2009. (Updated)

Did you actually go and read the Forbes article they cite? It's not quite the picture your very biased blog painted.

But does it state that Exxon paid no federal taxes because thats the subject at hand.

No, it doesn't state that. ThinkProgress makes that claim, but Forbes does not. ThinkProgress added that bolded part of the quote themselves. That's the kind of deceptive crap that partisan Web sites pull. Below is what ThinkProgress is "quoting" Forbes as saying.

Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas.

And this is what Forbes actually said.

Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. Exxon has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas. Likewise, GE has $84 billion in overseas income parked indefinitely outside the U.S.

Though Exxon's financial statement's don't show any net income tax liability owed to Uncle Sam, a company spokesman insists that once its final tax bill is figured, Exxon will owe a "substantial 2009 tax liability." How substantial? "That's not something we're required to disclose, nor do we."

See the difference?

 

[American Horse]

I think it should be a lower, flat tax for all corporations....with no loopholes.

all corporations pay the same flat rate on earnings....

We would probably collect more in corporate taxes that way, and it would be a level playing field for all corporations, global and domestic.

Disagree, with a qualification.

All taxes levied should be for a specific enumerated power of the feds to spend. For example, fuel taxes to pay for roads and bridges.

too complicated to do it in that manner, imho...Oddball....

Some other targetted taxes or sources of revenue:

Schools from local property taxes - a well educated popoulation will be a more civilized population and less dangerous to the weak and vulnerable who seek residence in cities or villages.

Police and fire protection - these go to public safety as manifested by the collections of properties and owners within corporate limits or state boundaries
Trash collection within city limits from property taxes to maiantain a clean and safe environment.
(our own city requires the purchase of orange trash bags and that all trash be placed inside one or more)
Sewer rates within cities and counties
Building permit fees and planning petition fees to pay the cost of maintaining zoning boards and building inspection departments.

A moderate sized city near ours, especially welcoming to the retired demography, includes sewer and water in their property taxes. This seems wasteful, but its attractive to older folks to move into the city from their rural properties, thereby adding to the tax base for all purposes.

These are wieldy in local governments, not as much federally.

But transportation as a sector is especially applicable for targetting taxing revenues.

 

[Care4all]

right now we have federal cig taxes to pay for the health care of other people's children....

corporations utilize ALL THE BENEFITS that individuals utilize in our communities...cops, firefighters, roads, wall street regulators, the Fed, water, homeland security, national Defense, congress expense and presidential expense, etc etc etc etc etc....

Corporations employee people who pay taxes. The amount of income, FICA, SS, gasoline, utility, property taxes etc. paid by the employees who are paid by corporations is A Lot Of Money.

those things are utilized by the individuals in their own home life, that's what individual income taxes are for.... these protections and so forth, are ALSO provided for the corporation....probably even MORESO, than the average individual.

 

[Oddball]

right now we have federal cig taxes to pay for the health care of other people's children....

Right now, there is no enumerated power for congress to spend on such a program....Check your premise.

corporations utilize ALL THE BENEFITS that individuals utilize in our communities...cops, firefighters, roads, wall street regulators, Port authority, airports, the Fed, water, homeland security, national Defense, congress expense and presidential expense, etc etc etc etc etc....

Corporations (i.e. people) pay local taxes for things like fire and police services. Everyone who utilizes local services like port authorities, water & sewer and airports pay user fees for those amenities....Those aren't federally enumerated areas of operation, either.