The Corporations That Occupy Congress
December 26, 2011 by William
Filed under Government
December 26, 2011
Reuters
By David Kay Johnston
Some of the biggest companies in the United States have been firing workers and in some cases lobbying for rules that depress wages at the very time that jobs are needed, pay is low, and the federal budget suffers from a lack of revenue.
Last month Citizens for Tax Justice and an affiliate issued “Corporate Taxpayers and Corporate Tax Dodgers 2008-10″. It showed that 30 brand-name companies paid a federal income tax rate of minus 6.7 percent on $160 billion of profit from 2008 through 2010 compared to a going corporate tax rate of 35 percent. All but one of those 30 companies reported lobbying expenses in Washington.
Another report, by Public Campaign, shows that 29 of those companies spent nearly half a billion dollars over those three years lobbying in Washington for laws and rules that favor their interests. Only Atmos Energy, the 30th company, reported no lobbying.
Public Campaign replaced Atmos with Federal Express, the package delivery company that paid a smidgen of tax — $37 million, or less than one percent of the $4.2 billion in profit it reported in 2008 through 2010.
For the amount spent lobbying, the companies could have hired 3,100 people at $50,000 for wages and benefits to do productive work.
Click here for the full report.
Now, granted I’m no economist and am stating the amazingly obvious BUT…wouldn’t it just be cheaper to pay the taxes?
The benefit of a corporation is that if your company gets sued, only the company gets sued, the corporation is a fake person and must pay tax and every employee must pay tax also.
Therefore corporations should pay taxes twice instead of 0 times. Also with the profits they make they would have to pay billions in taxes, most people pay about 30% in tax, and then they get a 401k because they haven’t been told that to get a better non taxed things like giul, vul, jnl, roth ira.
They paid federal income tax rate of minus 6.7 percent on $160 billion of profit instead of paying 30% like most people do, and that would equal 48 billion.
For the amount spent lobbying, the companies could have hired 3,100 people at $50,000 for wages and benefits to do productive work. Thats 155 million so they save billions.