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Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Representation Without Taxation? Most Corporations Don’t Pay Their Taxes
Posted by Justin Jeffre
In 2004 Ralph Nader said that most corporations didn’t pay their taxes. He said 70% of transnational corporations don’t pay their taxes and 60% of major national corporations don’t pay their taxes. I was shocked and had to check his source. Today this new GAO study found 72 percent of foreign-owned companies went at least one year without paying taxes over an eight-year period and two-thirds of U.S. Corporations paid no federal income tax between ‘98 and ’05.
It’s bad enough that while worker productivity, CEO salaries and corporate profits have soared the average American worker is working longer hours and making less money than they did 30 years ago. But increasingly the tax burden is being shifted from the wealthy on to the shoulders of working class Americans.
When you factor in the massive amounts of corporate welfare, bail outs, the privatization (or corporatization) of the commons and all kinds of other shenanigans it seems clear that the American people have been had, hoodwinked and bamboozled. There’s an untold amount of corporate crime, fraud and abuse that corporations continue to get away with and none of our public servants have the courage to talk about it, much less do anything about it. Why? It’s the money stupid.
In 2000 even the Business press said that corporations had too much influence in Washington, but the undue influence of big money just continues to grow. I mean, who says no to not for profit health care and better mass transportation? Who says no to free education and ending the occupation? It’s the fictitious entities known as the modern day corporations and their bipartisan political minions that say no to the needs of our people while saying yes to their corporate paymasters.
Corporations were supposed to be our servants, but now they’ve become our masters. They are like modern day Frankenstein’s that are destroying our economy and our environment because they have no morals, no souls and certainly no loyalty to any nation or community.
Corporations must be tamed and put back in their place. This is supposed to be a government of, for, and by the people. We’re the ones paying the taxes and they’re the ones being represented by our government. It’s time for us to fight back and shift the power from the corporations to the people.
(Disclaimer: Justin Jeffre is a paid member of the Nader-Gonzalez campaign.)
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13 Aug 2008 at 11:37 pm | #
Good post. We are certainly becoming more of a corporatist state and we can see from Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, that free markets and free people do not always go hand in hand. The privitization that we saw in post-invasion Iraq was evidence of just how profitable privitization can be in everything from the natural resources to security operations.
China is another great example that free people and free markets do not necissarily go together. All you have to do is take a look at the rise of their surveillance society and how involved American corporations are in helping China to clamp down on the rights of their own population. China is quickly becoming a model for how capitalism can run free and produce huge profits for corporations while anti-democratic measures are imposed upon a population. Unfortunately the United States is taking lessons on how this is being done.
15 Aug 2008 at 04:08 pm | #
Here is the problem with this type of arguement.
If corporations pay their fair share should they be permitted to have their fair share of influence in government policy?
One should think about this.
What if we simply placed the free market beyond the reach of government?
If we went back to property right protection, this could be done.
15 Aug 2008 at 09:03 pm | #
No! Government is supposed to be of, for and by the PEOPLE, not the fictitious entities that are supposed to serve the people. The people that own corporations and work for corporations should be represented by government as well, they just shouldn’t have any undue influence because of their wealth.
Then there would be no regulation and you could go to the store and buy tainted meat like in the old days before there were some government regulations. You could argue that people would eveuntally stop going there but how many children would die? And wouldn’t all the stand up butchers that only put out meat that was safe be put out of business.
You had car makers putting out death traps before government regulations made them do safety testing and have standards. You would have slavery and child labor all over again in this country.
What makes you have so much faith in the free market? It certainly isn’t guided by the hand of God. Corporations only serve the purpose of making money, if they harm people or the environment they don’t really care.
15 Aug 2008 at 10:45 pm | #
Worth a looksie if you truely wish to see my point of view.
There are 5 parts:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DrTsaSUFfpo&feature=related
19 Aug 2008 at 10:55 am | #
Its not really accurate study.
19 Aug 2008 at 11:37 am | #
anon 5, the GAO has a lot more credibility than anonymous commenters that can’t even present a case as to why they think the study isn’t accurate. It’s findings were very similiar to an earlier study I also linked to.
19 Aug 2008 at 05:56 pm | #
Did you watch Mr. Jeffre?
19 Aug 2008 at 08:08 pm | #
Corporations never pay taxes. They take into account the amount of taxes they have to pay and you as a consumer pay the taxes for them in the framework of higher prices.
Any corporations that do pay taxes are really a hidden tax on the consumer.
You will find no argument from me that America’s tax structure is broken but I do not believe that adding more hidden taxes to the American people is the answer to this probelm
20 Aug 2008 at 02:01 pm | #
Have you ever ran a business? Let’s see off the top of my head the taxes my company pays, FICA tax, state unemployment tax, federal unemployment tax, city income tax, state business activities tax, federal income tax, and property tax.
now that report was specificly comparing foreign owned US companies with US owned companies. It is perfectly legitimate to use transfer pricing to reduce income in a high tax juristiction and increase it in a lox tax juristiction.
22 Aug 2008 at 06:43 pm | #
Mr. Scott Ryan, I watched the first one. I don’t think privatizing the commons will protect them. It’s a myth that the hand of the free market is guided by God.
paratrooperJJ, that study isn’t the first that reported pretty much the same findings. What studies are you basing your argument on. It didn’t say that no corporations pay any taxes. Small businesses still do and most big businesses don’t.