Happy Income Tax Day. I’m happy because my tax return has been filed.
What I’m not happy about is that many big corporations pay nothing or very little in taxes.
Did you know that?
- The United States loses approximately $100 billion in tax revenues every year due to corporations and individuals sending their money to offshore tax havens.
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General Electric appears to have paid no federal income taxes in 2010, although it reported profits in the United States of $5.1 billion. The biggest company in the country, GE has lobbied hard for tax breaks and loopholes in the federal tax code and shifted many of its profits to tax havens to avoid paying U.S. taxes. GE employs nearly 1,000 people in its tax department to help exploit those loopholes, but has laid off one-fifth of its U.S.-based workers since 2002.
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Goldman Sachs, which reported more than $2 billion in profit in 2008, was able to use its 29 tax haven subsidiaries to reduce its federal tax bill to just $14 million. That means that Goldman Sachs’ CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who made $42.9 million that year, earned more than three times the amount that the company paid in federal taxes.
See “The Tax Shell Game – How Much Offshore Tax Havens Cost You in 2010” by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund for more information.
Contact your representatives in Congress to let them know you’d like to see giant corporations pay their fair share.
