Welfare reform? Start with billions in profits but NO taxes

Time Warner Cable had $4.3 billion in profits in 2014 and paid less tax than you did. What did you pay? Time Warner paid NOTHING in federal taxes.

It gets better (or worse, depending on your viewpoint).

CBS had $1.8 billion in profits and got a federal income tax REBATE of $235 million.

Mattel hasn’t paid a penny in federal income taxes for five years and in 2014 got a tax REBATE of $46 million.

Prudential paid NOTHING on $3.5 billion in U.S. profits.

Ryder, the truck rental guys, had an 0.3% NEGATIVE tax rate in 2014 and NEGATIVE 0.5% for five years.

15 companies paid no federal income tax on $23 billion in profits in 2014, and paid almost no federal income tax on $107 billion in profits over five years. All but two received federal tax rebates in 2014.

How do these companies get by with this?

1. Accelerated depreciation, writing off the cost of capital investments much faster than they wear out. That costs America $42.8 billion a year.

2. Writing off the value of executive stock options for tax purposes. Cost to America: $2.3 billion a year.

3. Active financing, which lets multinational corporations pay taxes to no country. Cost to America: $7 billion a year.

Yet all the hue and cry is about “welfare” for the poor, such as tax stamps. But nothing about billions in “welfare” for the filthy rich.

So who foots the bill for corporate “welfare”?

Look at your IRS 1040 and you have your answer.

To read the entire article, click on http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2015/04/fifteen_of_many_reasons_why_we_need_corporate_tax_reform.php