Big Corporations are people too. I know this because the Supreme Court told me so. They have all the rights that you and I have, and often more (they can afford more after all). For example, lots of big corporations rarely have to pay taxes. Corporations like — well like Bank of America and Wells Fargo, for example:

This tax season will be kind to Bank of America and Wells Fargo: It appears that neither bank will have to pay federal income taxes for 2009.

Bank of America probably won’t pay federal taxes because it lost money in the U.S. for the year. Wells Fargo was profitable, but can write down its tax bill because of losses at Wachovia, which it rescued from a near collapse. […]

“Oh, yeah, this happens all the time,” said Robert Willens, an expert on tax accounting who runs a New York firm with the same name. “Especially now, with companies suffering such severe losses.”

Bob McIntyre, at Citizens for Tax Justice, said he opposes the government giving corporations such a break. […]

Wells Fargo was profitable in 2009, with $8 billion in earnings applicable to common shareholders. But its tax payments were reduced because of Wachovia’s losses.

Wells netted an overall tax benefit of $4.1 billion in 2009. It got a benefit worth nearly $4 billion from the federal government, and another worth $334 million from state governments. It had an expense of $164 million in foreign taxes. Wells did record an overall income tax expense of $5.3 billion, but that was offset by the tax benefits of the Wachovia losses. […]

McIntyre, at Citizens for Tax Justice, co-authored a report in 2004 related to carrybacks, after the Bush administration expanded many corporate tax breaks. The report examined 275 of the country’s largest companies and found that nearly one-third paid no federal income taxes in at least one year from 2001 to 2003. The companies overall were profitable in those years, but took advantage of tax breaks.

“If you or I lose money in the stock market, we don’t get to carry back our losses to any significant degree,” said McIntyre. His group works on closing tax breaks for corporations.

“Getting a refund from the past, that’s just weird,” he added.

You know, my family suffered a lot of “severe losses” and unusual expenses too this year. Unfortunately, most of them are not tax deductible. In my next life I think I want to come back as a major multi-national corporation. It may not be a more evolved species, but it sure gets treated like one by our government.

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