Representation without taxation

Money in Politics - and out of the general fund...

It is the end of the year, so those of us who do deductions on our taxes are running the mental checklist of donations and other deductions to be completed before the calendar turns to another year.  My deductions don't even register as a pittance compared with those of corporations - both in scope and in percentage of earnings.

I recently came across an article from Rolling Stone magazine from a few months ago talking about inversions - American companies that buy out smaller foreign companies in order to claim their citizenship - and avoid US taxes.  In the words of President Obama, these companies, "don't want to give up ... all the advantages of operating in the United States.  They just don't want to pay for it."

The quote from the article that really got me?  "Last year the IRS finally collected more in tax receipts than it did before the crash in 2007... (but) Corporations paid nearly $100 billion less in federal income taxes last year than before the Great Recession... corporate profits and corporate tax collections are now trending in opposite directions.  Profits were up $93 billion last year - to a high of $2.1 trillion, according to the Commerce Department.  Yet corporate tax payments actually fell last year by more than $15 billion."

So, wages are flat, corporate profits are up, corporate taxes are down but tax collections are up.  Someone is paying the increase in tax collections!  That means that while corporations are seeing increased profits and paying less taxes, you and I are shouldering the tax burden without seeing an increase in pay.

Check out the article, The Biggest Tax Scam Ever.  Journalist Tim Dickinson explains it all way better than I can, including how the corporate tax reductions are perpetrated.  Leading us to... a New Year's Resolution!