Ummm kinda wondering how they can get "millions", if not "billions" in tax refunds if they haven't paid taxes to begin with?
Just askin....
Dixie
Well that's all done through the magic, and yes it is legal, of offshore paper work and 'banks' such as we have seen in the Panama Papers as just one example.
It gets deep and confusing for the layperson, and that is on purpose so you can't figure it out easily, but there are all kinds of tax breaks for corporations, even 'tax breaks' for moving jobs out of the USA and setting up in other countries.
So when GE or whoever closes a factory in the USA and opens one in China or some other low wage, no benefits, no regulation country they can write off the cost of closing the American factory and all the costs related to opening the new one in China on their American taxes.
And if it shows a 'profit loss' on paper, they are then entitled to a 'tax rebate' via a subsidy.....
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Offshore tax sheltering. The high-profile congressional hearings on tax dodging strategies of Apple and other tech companies over the past couple of years told lawmakers and the general public what some of us have been pointing out for years: multinational corporations and their accounting firms have become increasingly aggressive in seeking ways to shift their U.S. profits, on paper, to offshore tax havens to avoid their U.S. tax obligations. This typically involves various artificial transactions between U.S. corporations and their foreign subsidiaries, in which revenues are shifted to low- or no-tax jurisdictions (where these corporations are not actually doing any real business), while deductions are created in the United States.
Accelerated depreciation. The tax laws generally allow companies to write off their capital investments considerably faster than the assets actually wear out. This “accelerated depreciation” is technically a tax deferral, but so long as a company continues to invest, the tax deferral tends to be indefinite.
The Sorry State of Corporate Taxes | Citizens for Tax Justice they pay low
Tax subsidies for the 288 companies over the five years totaled a staggering $364 billion, including $56 billion in 2008, $70 billion in 2009, $80 billion in 2010, $87 billion in 2011, and $70 billion in 2012. These amounts are the difference between what the companies would have paid if their tax bills equaled 35 percent of their profits and what they actually paid.
• Almost half of the total tax-subsidy dollars over the five years — $173.7 billion — went to just 25 companies, each with more than $3.7 billion in tax subsidies
• Wells Fargo topped the list of corporate tax-subsidy recipients, with nearly $21.6 billion in tax subsidies over the five years.
• Other top tax subsidy recipients included AT&T ($19.2 billion), IBM ($13.2 billion), General Electric ($12.7 billion), Verizon ($11.1 billion), Exxon Mobil ($8.7 billion), and Boeing ($7.4 billion).
The Sorry State of Corporate Taxes | Citizens for Tax Justice Size of the Corp
Recently
Bill spoke with Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, who argues that we must reform the tax code and stop subsidizing tax dodgers. A
recent report by Americans for Tax Fairness suggests that corporate taxes are near a 60-year low — and that’s partially because corporations have become adept at not paying their share.
10 Corporate Tax Dodgers You Should Know About | BillMoyers.com
According to the CCH Standard Tax Reporter, the U.S. tax code began with about 400 pages in 1913. Twenty-six years later there were still only 504 pages, but then it exploded to 8,200 pages by 1945.
It got to over 60,000 pages before the end of the first term of President George W. Bush, and it has now reached over 72,500 pages by the end of the third year of President Barack Obama’s current term of office.
The exact total is now apparently at least
72, 536 pages as of this message.
The Isaac Brock Society | What is the REAL Size of the U.S. Federal Tax Code
