You know the “As old as Ronnie Raygun”/Republican/Tea Party/Conservative/Libertarian/ Ayn Rand Fanboys talking point well by now. “Taxes are too high!” they all proclaim, especially on those loveable people known as Multinational Corporations that are America’s “Job Creators.” If only taxes were lower, we would all live in a “trickle down” utopia where (pardon me Garrison Keillor) “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”
Except as most of you know, the effective tax rate for wealthy individuals and corporations has been declining since the 1950’s ended, and somehow that utopia never appeared. Oh, you don’t know that? You think I may just be pulling “my facts” out of my [word that rhymes with sass]? If only I were. You want facts? Well here’s the facts ladies and gentlemen and Tea Party Fanatics: the biggest corporations in America pay less in taxes per capita than they ever have and their profits are higher:
A comprehensive study released on Thursday found that 280 of the biggest publicly traded American companies faced federal income tax bills equal to 18.5 percent of their profits during the last three years — little more than half the official corporate rate of 35 percent and lower than their competitors in many industrialized countries. […]
Using information from the companies’ own corporate filings, however, the study concluded that a quarter of the 280 corporations owed less than 10 percent of profits in federal income taxes and 30 companies had no federal tax liability for the entire three-year period.
The report is being released as corporations are pushing for a cut in their official tax rate, saying the current system puts American companies at a disadvantage with competitors abroad and encourages them to shift jobs and investments overseas.
WTF! These “Job Creators” who Republicans whine and moan about are so burdened by Big Government tax rates actually pay less taxes than their competitors in other counties? Well then, My Republican Friends, where’s all the JOBS these scofflaws outstanding Corporate Citizens were supposed to have created? The “official” unemployment rate (the one the government likes to talk about) last time I checked was stuck at 9% while many of these “overtaxed” corporations have been rolling in dough and paying their executives obscene salaries doing what they do best: making profits.
As part of its regular revisions to the national income accounts, the Commerce Department told us [July 29, 2011] that corporate profits in 2008, 2009 and 2010 were actually $343 billion higher than earlier estimated.
And personal incomes of American families were $265 billion lower over those three years than previously estimated.
One more thing: the gross domestic product was also revised lower. Read our story: “GDP grows a slender 1.3% in second quarter.”
According to the latest data, profits of U.S. corporations are at record levels even as the U.S. economy gasps for air. Profits have been totally divorced from the economic fortunes of the American people.
Except with all that cash they were also supposed to be creating jobs. I guess they didn’t get the memo that they were supposed to use those profits to be “Job Creators” did they, rather than become blood suckers, literally sucking the economic lifeblood out of the incomes of most Americans (you know, all those crazy DFHs who call themselves the 99%).
And they wonder why Occupy Wall Street and all the other Occupy Movements suddenly materialized out of thin air? They (I’m speaking of our good corporate buddies) wonder what those people down there in the streets are whining about? Life is good (for them anyway).
Except for that part where they are so, so overtaxed that they can hardly make ends meet.
Yeah, that’s some Grade AAA Bullshit, all right.
