Most US Companies avoid paying income tax

[Orange_Juice]

You mean all these corporations that are now getting bailed out by Socialism for the rich don't pay into funding that social safety net?

Wow, just wow

 

[RetiredGySgt]

You mean all these corporations that are now getting bailed out by Socialism for the rich don't pay into funding that social safety net?

Wow, just wow

Actually the rich DO pay and they pay the most, as the chart clearly shows.

 

[Paulie]

Actually the rich DO pay and they pay the most, as the chart clearly shows.

What "the rich" pay is different than what the corps pay. I think the point he was making, is that if corps really aren't paying that much in taxes, then it's ironic that they get bailed out via tax dollars.

 

[Orange_Juice]

While the wealthy have enjoyed this tax holiday, I'd just like to point out, we are heading towards $10 trillion in debt.

Remember when the tax cuts were going to pay for themseleves?

Rememnber when Iraq oil would pay for the war?

Remeber when George Washington chopped down the cherry tree?

 

[Paulie]

While the wealthy have enjoyed this tax holiday, I'd just like to point out, we are heading towards $10 trillion in debt.

Remember when the tax cuts were going to pay for themseleves?

Rememnber when Iraq oil would pay for the war?

Remeber when George Washington chopped down the cherry tree?

No, I don't remember any of that. My attention span only carries back to last night's Olympics.

 

[sealybobo]

Actually the rich DO pay and they pay the most, as the chart clearly shows.

2/3rds are not paying at all.

I just figured out who you are! Leona Helmsley's lap dog that she left $5 million dollars to.

Only the poor people pay taxes. Isn't that what she said?

And sure the rich pay the most in taxes, but they get the most back in loopholes and deductables. If you pay $10 in taxes and get $10 back, and I pay $5 in taxes and get zero back, then you can say you pay more in taxes than I do. That's how you lie without actually lying.

 

[Orange_Juice]

Actually the rich DO pay and they pay the most, as the chart clearly shows.

Hell, they own so much they should be taxed.

"In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% controlled 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation's wealth."



Now, who should pay the taxes? Most conservatives want the bottom 40% to pay. That just isn't reasonable

 

[editec]

Most of the doctors, lawyers, engineers and small successful business owners that I know do work hard, but they are not holding up our world on their own. Without the underpaid lower classes and illegal immigrants doing all the shit jobs in harsh conditions no white collar worker would put up with, working 2 and 3 jobs just to pay the rent and keep their families fed this economy would come to a dead standstill.

Excuse my hyperbole. I assumed you'd understood that for what it was.

Of course, the working classes at every level are necessary to a fuctional society.

I even credit the very VERY wealthy as having a positive benefit to society, as well.

This is a cpaitalist economy after all.

SOMEBODY has to amass enough capital to invest in the future industies and projects that we'll need, too.

 

[Paulie]

Hell, they own so much they should be taxed.

"In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% controlled 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation's wealth."



Now, who should pay the taxes? Most conservatives want the bottom 40% to pay. That just isn't reasonable

"most" conservatives?

THIS conservative doesn't want ANYONE to pay that much in taxes, if any at all. THIS conservative would rather govenrment cut spending enough so those taxes aren't necessary. Pre-2000 spending levels would require almost NONE of TODAY'S revenues.

 

[sealybobo]

Hell, they own so much they should be taxed.

"In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% controlled 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation's wealth."



Now, who should pay the taxes? Most conservatives want the bottom 40% to pay. That just isn't reasonable

But the rich fought back, and won big-time in 1980 when Reagan, until then the fringe “Voodoo economics” candidate who was heading into the election trailing far behind Jimmy Carter, was swept into the White House on a wave of public concern of the Iranians taking US hostages. Reagan promptly cut income taxes on the very rich from 70% down to 27%. Corporate tax rates were also cut so severely that they went from representing over 33% of total federal tax receipts in 1951 to less than 9% in 1983 (they’re still in that neighborhood, the lowest in the industrialized world).

The result was devastating. Our government was suddenly so badly awash in red ink that Reagan doubled the tax paid only by people earning less than $40,000/year (FICA), and then began borrowing from the huge surplus this new tax was accumulating in the Social Security Trust Fund. Even with that, Reagan had to borrow more money in his 8 years than the sum total of all presidents from George Washington to Jimmy Carter combined.

In addition to badly throwing the nation into debt, Reagan’s tax cut blew out the ceiling on the accumulation of wealth, leading to a new Gilded Age and the rise of a generation of super-wealthy that hadn’t been seen since the Robber Baron era of the 1890s or the Roaring 20s.

And, most tragically, Reagan’s tax cuts caused America to stop investing in infrastructure. As a nation, we’ve been coasting since the early 1980s, living on borrowed money while we burn through (in some cases literally) the hospitals, roads, bridges, steam tunnels, and other infrastructure we built in the Golden Age of the Middle Class between the 1940s and the 1980s.

We even stopped investing in the intellectual infrastructure of this nation: college education. A degree that a student in the 1970s could have paid for by working as a waitress at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant (what my wife did in the late 60s - I did so working as a near-minimum-wage DJ) now means incurring massive and life-altering debt for all but the very wealthy. Reagan, who as governor ended free tuition at the University of California, put into place the foundations for the explosion in college tuition we see today.

ThomHartmann.com - Roll Back the Reagan Tax Cuts

 

[Paulie]

SOMEBODY has to amass enough capital to invest in the future industies and projects that we'll need, too.

This is probably the best example of why "the rich" shouldn't be taxed out their asses.

I think some people are bleeding hearts, and they see the rich as an unfair combination to the not as fortunate. Just because the rich have done better for themselves financially, doesn't mean they should be raped for that ALONE.

They provide just as much for this country as the guy who would rather just spend his money on an X-box.

 

[sealybobo]

Hell, they own so much they should be taxed.

"In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% controlled 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation's wealth."



Now, who should pay the taxes? Most conservatives want the bottom 40% to pay. That just isn't reasonable

Or, as Glenn Simpson noted in the Wall Street Journal, "General Electric Co., for example, reported paying an effective tax rate of 19% last year on world-wide income, compared with 26% in 2003."

Corporations are taxed because they use public services, and are therefore expected to help pay for them - the same as citizens.

Corporations make use of a work force educated in public schools paid for with tax dollars. They use roads and highways paid for with tax dollars. They use water, sewer, and power and communications rights-of-way paid for with taxes. They demand the same protection from fire and police departments as everybody else, and enjoy the benefits of national sovereignty and the stability provided by the military and institutions like NATO and the United Nations, the same as all residents of democratic nations.

In fact, corporations are heavier users of taxpayer-provided services and institutions than are average citizens. Taxes pay for our court systems, which are most heavily used by corporations to enforce contracts. Taxes pay for our Treasury Department and other governmental institutions which maintain a stable currency essential to corporate activity. Taxes pay for our regulation of corporate activity, from assuring safety in the workplace to a pure food and drug supply to limiting toxic emissions.

Under George W. Bush, the burden of cleaning up toxic wastes produced by corporate activity has largely shifted from polluter-funded Superfund and other programs to taxpayer-funded cleanups (as he did in Texas as governor there before becoming President).

Every year, millions of cases of cancer, emphysema, neurological disorders, and other conditions caused by corporate pollution are paid for in whole or in part by government funded programs from Medicare to Medicaid to government subsidies of hospitals, universities, and research institutions funded by tax dollars through the NIH and NIMH.

Because it's well understood that corporations use our tax-funded institutions at least as heavily as do citizens, they've traditionally been taxed at similar rates. For example, the top corporate tax rate in the US was 48% during the Carter administration, down from the a peak of 53% during the Eisenhower and Kennedy years.

Today it stands at 35%, but in May of 2001 Bush administration Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill suggested there should be no corporate income tax whatsoever. This was the opening salvo in a very real war to have working people bear all the costs of the commons and governance, while the wealthy corporate elite derive most of its benefits.

ThomHartmann.com - Nobles Need Not Pay Taxes

 

[Ravi]

True. Some married women I know that have cheated, you wouldn't have guessed in a million years that they would be doing that. But the guys? You kind of can tell.

I'm speaking in general of course. Not always true but often is.

It's probably because it's easier for women to get sex, and men have to boast about it because it's more difficult for them. Poor things.

 

[sealybobo]

This is probably the best example of why "the rich" shouldn't be taxed out their asses.

I think some people are bleeding hearts, and they see the rich as an unfair combination to the not as fortunate. Just because the rich have done better for themselves financially, doesn't mean they should be raped for that ALONE.

They provide just as much for this country as the guy who would rather just spend his money on an X-box.

By cutting back on their tax burden, you have shifted the burden to yourself.

So explain to me why you should be paying more than you do now so the rich can pay less. That's your basic premise. They pay too much and you don't pay enough.

Or are you rich, and then I understand why you would want to lighten your load and put it on someone else less fortunate than yourself. But I'm assuming you are middle class.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

By cutting back on their tax burden, you have shifted the burden to yourself.

So explain to me why you should be paying more than you do now so the rich can pay less. That's your basic premise. They pay too much and you don't pay enough.

Or are you rich, and then I understand why you would want to lighten your load and put it on someone else less fortunate than yourself. But I'm assuming you are middle class.

They don't pay less then us you fucking retard.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

2/3rds are not paying at all.

I just figured out who you are! Leona Helmsley's lap dog that she left $5 million dollars to.

Only the poor people pay taxes. Isn't that what she said?

And sure the rich pay the most in taxes, but they get the most back in loopholes and deductables. If you pay $10 in taxes and get $10 back, and I pay $5 in taxes and get zero back, then you can say you pay more in taxes than I do. That's how you lie without actually lying.

Are you truly this ignorant? Taxes collected are AFTER any returns you stupid ass. After any deductions, it is HOW MUCH the Government has in the coffers after they tax us and settle up.

 

[Paulie]

By cutting back on their tax burden, you have shifted the burden to yourself.

So explain to me why you should be paying more than you do now so the rich can pay less. That's your basic premise. They pay too much and you don't pay enough.

Or are you rich, and then I understand why you would want to lighten your load and put it on someone else less fortunate than yourself. But I'm assuming you are middle class.

No my man, you obviously haven't read very much of my posts in "Economy".

I've never advocated for the less fortunate to pay more in taxes. I'm a Ron Paul supporter, I don't agree with MOST taxes. The name of my game is CUT SPENDING...To the point that NEITHER of us should need to pay much of what we pay now.

 

[Orange_Juice]

But the rich fought back, and won big-time in 1980 when Reagan, until then the fringe “Voodoo economics” candidate who was heading into the election trailing far behind Jimmy Carter, was swept into the White House on a wave of public concern of the Iranians taking US hostages. Reagan promptly cut income taxes on the very rich from 70% down to 27%. Corporate tax rates were also cut so severely that they went from representing over 33% of total federal tax receipts in 1951 to less than 9% in 1983 (they’re still in that neighborhood, the lowest in the industrialized world).

The result was devastating. Our government was suddenly so badly awash in red ink that Reagan doubled the tax paid only by people earning less than $40,000/year (FICA), and then began borrowing from the huge surplus this new tax was accumulating in the Social Security Trust Fund. Even with that, Reagan had to borrow more money in his 8 years than the sum total of all presidents from George Washington to Jimmy Carter combined.

In addition to badly throwing the nation into debt, Reagan’s tax cut blew out the ceiling on the accumulation of wealth, leading to a new Gilded Age and the rise of a generation of super-wealthy that hadn’t been seen since the Robber Baron era of the 1890s or the Roaring 20s.

And, most tragically, Reagan’s tax cuts caused America to stop investing in infrastructure. As a nation, we’ve been coasting since the early 1980s, living on borrowed money while we burn through (in some cases literally) the hospitals, roads, bridges, steam tunnels, and other infrastructure we built in the Golden Age of the Middle Class between the 1940s and the 1980s.

We even stopped investing in the intellectual infrastructure of this nation: college education. A degree that a student in the 1970s could have paid for by working as a waitress at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant (what my wife did in the late 60s - I did so working as a near-minimum-wage DJ) now means incurring massive and life-altering debt for all but the very wealthy. Reagan, who as governor ended free tuition at the University of California, put into place the foundations for the explosion in college tuition we see today.

ThomHartmann.com - Roll Back the Reagan Tax Cuts

Truman was considered a bad president when he left office because of hios low public opinion poll numbers, but has since been recognized as a pretty good one. Reagan was the opposite. He has been deified by the right--and they have the money to promote his God like stature. Yet as time passes and as the Bush presidency basically follows along the same Reagan economic platform I think it will be clear that Bush 41 was right, Reagonomics are VooDoo economics.


I'd also point out that Jimmy Carter started the process of ending the 1970's malise by appointing Paul Volker to the fed. I was watching that asshole George Will on book notes and he said the "Reagan/Volker economic plan." I was like, of brother. Carter started that and Reagan took the credit for it.

 

[Orange_Juice]

Or, as Glenn Simpson noted in the Wall Street Journal, "General Electric Co., for example, reported paying an effective tax rate of 19% last year on world-wide income, compared with 26% in 2003."

Corporations are taxed because they use public services, and are therefore expected to help pay for them - the same as citizens.

Corporations make use of a work force educated in public schools paid for with tax dollars. They use roads and highways paid for with tax dollars. They use water, sewer, and power and communications rights-of-way paid for with taxes. They demand the same protection from fire and police departments as everybody else, and enjoy the benefits of national sovereignty and the stability provided by the military and institutions like NATO and the United Nations, the same as all residents of democratic nations.

In fact, corporations are heavier users of taxpayer-provided services and institutions than are average citizens. Taxes pay for our court systems, which are most heavily used by corporations to enforce contracts. Taxes pay for our Treasury Department and other governmental institutions which maintain a stable currency essential to corporate activity. Taxes pay for our regulation of corporate activity, from assuring safety in the workplace to a pure food and drug supply to limiting toxic emissions.

Under George W. Bush, the burden of cleaning up toxic wastes produced by corporate activity has largely shifted from polluter-funded Superfund and other programs to taxpayer-funded cleanups (as he did in Texas as governor there before becoming President).

Every year, millions of cases of cancer, emphysema, neurological disorders, and other conditions caused by corporate pollution are paid for in whole or in part by government funded programs from Medicare to Medicaid to government subsidies of hospitals, universities, and research institutions funded by tax dollars through the NIH and NIMH.

Because it's well understood that corporations use our tax-funded institutions at least as heavily as do citizens, they've traditionally been taxed at similar rates. For example, the top corporate tax rate in the US was 48% during the Carter administration, down from the a peak of 53% during the Eisenhower and Kennedy years.

Today it stands at 35%, but in May of 2001 Bush administration Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill suggested there should be no corporate income tax whatsoever. This was the opening salvo in a very real war to have working people bear all the costs of the commons and governance, while the wealthy corporate elite derive most of its benefits.

ThomHartmann.com - Nobles Need Not Pay Taxes

And just the fact that they are corporations means they are using the government to protect their assessets, as in limiting liability of assessts.

 

[Orange_Juice]

They don't pay less then us you fucking retard.

As a percentage?