U.S. Corporations Do Not Pay Taxes - That's Why We're Broke

When George W. Bush took office, he cut taxes for rich people and corporations. And he kept cutting taxes for the wealthy despite the fact that he was conducting two separate and very expensive wars. In order to fund those wars, and to pay for the basic responsibilities of the government, Bush started borrowing money like a drunken wall street trader. The estimated deficit before this latest round of looting known as "bailouts" was already $500 billion.

The fact is that during the Bush years, the Bush government often allowed the corporations, the wealthiest group in the country, to simply stop paying taxes altogether, and failed to enforce the tax obligations. So corporations would set up a phony store-front offshore and claim that the income was earned by a foreign subsidiary, so they did not have to pay taxes inside the U.S.

When they were earning billions, they did not pay taxes. Once the insiders had looted their own businesses, and they saw that the Republicans were being voted out of office so the thieving good times would end, they lined up in front of Congress and demanded bailouts with taxpayer money, threatening that if we do not give them billions of dollars, they will bring our entire country down in complete economic ruin.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - August 12, 2008 - "Most U.S. and foreign corporations doing business in the United States avoid paying any federal income taxes, despite trillions of dollars worth of sales, a government study released on Tuesday said."

"The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005."

"More than half of foreign companies and about 42 percent of U.S. companies paid no U.S. income taxes for two or more years in that period, the report said."

"During that time corporate sales in the United States totaled $2.5 trillion, according to Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who requested the GAO study."

(Reporting by Donna Smith, Editing by David Wiessler)

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1249465620080812?sp=true