Most US Corps pay ZERO income TAXES

[disrupter]

Most companies in US avoid federal income taxes

By JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press Writer Tue Aug 12, 6:31 AM ET

WASHINGTON -

Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid NO [ZERO] federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005,

according to a new report from Congress.

The study by the Government Accountability Office, expected to be released Tuesday, said 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 [ZERO] 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.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080812/ap_on_bi_ge/corporations_income_tax;_ylt=A0WTUZRdvKFIKPAAEQis0 NUE

Now you understand why it is so important for them to distract you with the false patriotism of a needless & counterproductive war,

So they can rob you & this nation's treasury blind.

Know thy enemy.
It is global ex-patriot corporations,

looting your taxes & robbing your children even before they are born with deficits.

Undermining your wages & salaries by using & importing slave labor.

Know the faces of the traitors,
the vast majority of politicians in Washington.

Know their partners,
Lobbyists & 'Defense' thieves in & out of the Pentagon.

[Moby]

Thanks for posting this but feel free to check if it's already been posted.
http://dcjunkies.com/showthread.php?t=5624

[kres24GT]

All pay 0 taxes. Corporate taxes are a myth.

[Dale escondido]

Creative book keeping.
Just another benfit of a global economy. You know like spreading the wealth.:lmao2:
Has the first trillionare been created yet?
What comes after trillion?
We all need goals right.:D

[kres24GT]

For those who love big government, you are getting what you voted for. The wealthiest of the wealthy and the corporations will always benefit under big government. A free market with responsible educated citizenry is the only way to combat it. More regulations will only lead to more wealth and power for the elite.

[disrupter]

Our taxation system is a wealth re-distribution system,

it robs the poor, working & middle class & passes on to the ultra-rich criminal elite.

One of their tricks is to get a PO Box in the Caymans, Bahamas or Dubai & then 'offshore' all their domestic profits with accounting gimmicks.

they are nothing but economic parasites.

they have destroyed, undermined America's free market system with unfair, unfree government corruption system.

SirMoby i did scan to see if it was posted & didn't see it. apologies. it is a serious enough story to warrant a double post, yes?

[disrupter]

They benefit from the highways YOUR tax dollars pay for.
Rails, electricity, water infrastructure is all paid for by YOU the taxpayers, while they profit from it.

They benefit from US military police intimidation & even aggression,
and you pay in your taxes, your young people's lives & by robbing your children of their economic futures.

They loot the treasury on fat, do-nothing government contracts.

US Corporations are nothing but filthy parasites.

[Dale escondido]

Our taxation system is a wealth re-distribution system,

it robs the poor, working & middle class & passes on to the ultra-rich criminal elite.

One of their tricks is to get a PO Box in the Caymans, Bahamas or Dubai & then 'offshore' all their domestic profits with accounting gimmicks.

they are nothing but economic parasites.

they have destroyed, undermined America's free market system with unfair, unfree government corruption system.

SirMoby i did scan to see if it was posted & didn't see it. apologies. it is a serious enough story to warrant a double post, yes?

When big business becomes global the opportunity to hide or divert profits is staggering. They dont see America as anything but one of their markets.
The truth is if they can make more money why stay?
How can we force anyone that is loyal to money over anything else.
If we offer incentives as some countries they become richer but do stay, if not they leave.

[LadyMod at scam.com]

Republicans are pretty sure you're stupid. Don't be offended. After all, they have good reason to believe this since they got a certified moron elected President of the United States of America TWICE. Ah, but that's looking backward. Let's look ahead, because they sure are. And they are pretty sure they can get you to vote for John McCain too. I mean, after Bush, McCain almost looks up to the job. Just don't look too close.

They hope to get McCain elected the same way the got Bush elected -- by telling you scary tales. You know the kind of tales, like that the world is a dangerous place and how all kinds of "terrorist" types are lurking all around you just waiting for a chance to pounce. The "chance" terrorists are waiting for is for you to vote for a Democrat.

And then there's the economic scary stories. Like that there's a "tax and spend" liberal lurking under your kid's beds just waiting to steal their father's hard-earned money and send the entire family spiraling into poverty. And the big one... Democrats are taxing corporations out of the country. All of which are provably untrue if only some Democrat would take the effort to explain that to voters. Well, someone finally did just that:

Most corporations pay no U.S. taxes, GAO finds (http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1249465620080812?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews)
August 12, 2008

WASHINGTON: Many corporations pay no U.S. taxes, new report finds
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 today, said two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 to 2005 and about 68% of foreign companies doing business in the United States avoided corporate taxes over the same period.

Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales, according to the 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.

The 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 they may escape paying taxes because of operating losses or tax credits.


If Republicans have anything going for them it's chutzpah. And not just your run of the mill chutzpah, but industrial-strength chutzpah. They will try to scare voters away from voting for Obama because, they claim, he and his fellow Democrats will ruin all the great progress the Bush tax cuts produced and thrust the American economy into ... into...well, into just where they themselves have put it -- in the shitter. It's such a compelling story someone has even made it into a movie:


'I.O.U.S.A.,' premiering this month, spotlights the huge financial threat that looms. (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-iousa11-2008aug11,0,210248.story)
By Frank Ahrens
The Washington Post

August 11, 2008

A private equity billionaire, a former federal government official and a Baltimore newsletter editor have made a documentary film that they hope can do what an endless parade of policy papers has not: Persuade Americans that debt has created a looming economic crisis that would make the Great Depression look like a market correction.

The movie, "I.O.U.S.A.," premiering Aug. 21, is an 87-minute alarm on what it calls the tsunami of debt bearing down on the United States' future, caused by the rising national debt, the trade imbalance and the pending costs of baby boomers cashing in on entitlements.

Early reviewers have dubbed the film "An Inconvenient Truth" for the economy, meaning it's not exactly the feel-good movie of late summer 2008.

Except for budget wonks in love, it hardly counts as a date movie. The film's thrilling action sequence has a guy going to a refrigerator for a Tab. There are no car chases and nothing blows up.

Except, possibly, for the entire economic future of the United States.

"I.O.U.S.A." offers up as its action hero David M. Walker, former head of the Government Accountability Office. With movie-star looks that scream "accountant" rather than "Terminator," Walker has been the Cassandra -- or Chicken Little -- of America's growing deficit for some time. Last August, he compared the U.S. to the final days of ancient Rome, which he said was militarily overextended and fiscally irresponsible. Since 2005, Walker has been traveling the country on the catchy-sounding "fiscal wake-up tour," preaching his apocalyptic message to half-empty rooms, at least at the start. The tour picked up steam after Walker's message was featured in a "60 Minutes" piece in March 2007.

In March of this year, Walker resigned from the GAO so he could be even more vocal on the debt crisis, becoming chief executive of the newly formed Peter G. Peterson Foundation, set up by Peterson, co-founder of Blackstone Group, a major private equity player.

Their message: You probably know that the national debt is $9.6 trillion and rising. What you don't know is how bad things really are. If you include all the unfunded entitlement obligations -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and so forth -- we are actually in a $53-trillion hole, Walker says.

And it will only get deeper as we get older.

In an interview, Walker is full of grim one-liners, such as: "The debt has increased our risk of being held hostage by foreign lenders" and "Our situation is serious, and it is deteriorating with the passage of time" and "The financial condition of the U.S. is worse than advertised."

The nation's debt now accounts for 66% of the gross national product. But unless things change, the film argues that the cost of aging baby boomers will push that proportion to 244% by 2040, twice what it was at the end of World War II, our highest level of national debt. A debt that high, super-investor Warren E. Buffett says in the film, "could create real political instability."

At this point in the movie, we're wishing we'd rented "The Towering Inferno" instead. Happier ending.

The film generally skirts specific solutions -- it does not recommend one form of Social Security reform over another -- but suggests a broad entitlement overhaul, tough budget controls, conservation of energy and, at the no-duh level, not buying things you can't afford. In the interview, Walker said tax deductions and exemptions would have to be reduced and a national consumption tax should be considered.

The film will open in 400 theaters around the country Aug. 21, followed by a live video town hall meeting from Omaha, featuring Walker, Peterson and Buffett.


Stephen Pizzo
www.newsforreal.com


.

[Bill]

Ay LM's request to remove her thread as a duplicate, I decided instead to merge it with an earlier thread.

[disrupter]

Is stealing money the same as 'making' money?

If they produced anything except lies one could argue that in some microscopic measure they have 'earned' it.

But the collapsing banking system seems to be telling that tale.

IMO looting the US treasury & defrauding its people & robbing its children is not 'earning' it.
I would argue that is stealing it,
just like Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
& like Mugabe's economy it is faltering, if not collapsing.
Maybe the only reason it isn't collapsing [yet] is because some kinds of deep rooted integrity of people is too difficult to carry off.

<waiting for them to start trying to talk/lie people out of even those things>
oh ye of hypodermic tongues, neocon artist is thy name