"Twenty-eight corporations enjoyed negative federal income tax rates over the entire 2001-2003 period. These companies, whose pretax U.S. profits totaled $44.9 billion over the three years, included, among others: Pepco Holdings (-59.6 percent tax rate), Prudential Financial (-46.2 percent), ITT Industries (-22.3 percent), Boeing (-18.8 percent), Unisys (-16.0 percent), Fluor (-9.2 percent) and CSX (-7.5 percent), the company previously headed by current Secretary of the Treasury John Snow.
In 2003 alone, 46 companies paid zero or less in federal income taxes. These 46 companies told their shareholders they earned U.S. pretax profits in 2003 of $42.6 billion, yet they received tax rebates totaling $5.4 billion. Almost as many companies, 42, paid no tax in 2002, reporting $43.5 billion in pretax profits, yet receiving $4.9 billion in tax rebates. From 2001 to 2003, the number of no-tax companies jumped from 33 to 46, an increase of 40 percent."

"In 2001, the Treasury paid corporations $40 billion in tax refunds, a third more than the 1998-2000 average.
Then in 2002 and 2003, after the law was changed to expand tax subsidies and make it easier for corporations to carry back excess tax breaks to earlier years, corporate tax refunds skyrocketed to an average of $63 billion a year - more than double the 1998-2000 average."

Lina says - US Gov should tax more everyone who is still hiring people, so everybody would be unemployed and can follow our new father to the grave...

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Global Cooling for the next 30 years!!! - Does not expire!!!

"IF YOU SAY SOMETHING long enough and loud enough, there's every chance people will come to believe it's true, especially if your opponents tire of rebuttals. This time-honored political strategy has been working overtime of late, as Republican presidential hopefuls romance the richer Florida retirees with appeals for cuts in corporate taxes.

You may have heard: U.S. corporations face one of the highest income tax rates in the world, though the mention of "rate" is often enough excised, so that what comes through is the assertion that corporations pay too much in taxes. This is simply untrue if your basis for comparison is the developed world. The truth is that while the 35% corporate income tax rate is high indeed, the creativity and global reach of U.S. corporations make them among the most lightly levied.

"Between 2000 and 2005, U.S. corporate taxes amounted to 2.2% of the GDP. The average for the 30 mostly rich member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development was 3.4%.
Why the disparity given the high federal rate, which rises to 39% counting state taxes? Part of the answer is that big U.S. companies have become expert at hiding profits in tax havens overseas. And many of the smaller ones simply pass through their income to owners who then report it on their personal returns.

According to one analysis, if so much corporate income hadn't moved to the personal tax rolls over the last 20 years, U.S. corporate taxes would account for 3.2% of the GDP, still a bit below the OECD average. "Usage of pass-through forms of business organization can be viewed as a form of 'self-help' corporate tax integration," writes Peter R. Merrill, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers."

"The income not squired away overseas or channeled to the personal returns still enjoys protection in the form of various tax breaks that depress the effective rate to 27%, according to the Treasury Department. Such breaks are expected to cost the Treasury $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years, reducing the corporate tax revenue by 25%.


Meanwhile, there's growing evidence that, despite the occasional crackdowns on especially creative tax accounting, routine corporate tax dodges are way up by historical standards, as multinationals play an increasingly profitable shell game."

Lina says, we should help other people, like share everything we have, until we will be poor like rats and there will World Piece ....

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Global Cooling for the next 30 years!!! - Does not expire!!!

Лина, можно по человечески без cut'n'paste??? Своими словами?
У меня малый бизнес, я "с него" живу, если одна из тех жирных корпораций которые ты описываешь соберет свои манатки и отвалит в Новую Зеландию оставив моих клиентов без работы, что ты будешь писать? Что Обама будет делать? Я не занимался спекуляциями на бирже, я не покупал дом с голой жопой надеясь продавать его втридорога, я открыл бизнес нужный людям, 15 лет существования это доказывают. Почему вы все знаете все на теории??? Взять и поделить? Забрать у богатых и отдать бедным? А где новых богатых брать? У Путина покупать олигархов?

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Хочу лето (или нормальную зиму)

"Почему вы все знаете все на теории??? Взять и поделить? Забрать у богатых и отдать бедным"
- - where on earth is she saying this?
I just see statistics...
I see evidence of corporate accounting manipulation.
We pay honest business taxes, we know how big the bite is, why wouldn't Pepsico ( or whatever Lina is quoting) not do the same?
And Gera, please, don't tell me I want to send everybody to poorhouse, we own family business and pay very competitive market wages ( as well as crazy business *and family taxes)
So, if you for once will try to understand some other positions - try to understand it not as some socialist stand, but as just desire for fairness.

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Happy New Year to all! Virtual hugs!

Oleg, chitaite vnimatel'no. Zachem im uezhat' kogda im i zdes' xorosho? Zaberut svoi manatki i v uedut v NZ? A tam, chto nalogov netu? A 300 mill consumers willing to max out their credit cards just to buy whatever they're selling, gde naiti? Ili tam netu svoix corporations i svoei competition?
I gde Ya zdes' pisala o tom chto nuzhno delitsa ili zabirat' iotdavat'? Pomoemu tam yasno napisano, chto corporations ne tol'ko dazhe svoudolu ne platyat, a esche i nazhivautsa na tax refunds.
I voobsche, Ya ne ponimau kak s odnoi storoni mozhno krichat', chto corporations platyat slishkom mnogo nalogov (xotya eto yavno ne tak), and in the same breath oppose the stimulus plan? Cto eto ne te zhe den'gi? Esli Vi, Oleg, schitaete chto Vash business postradal v etoi economy, tak chto bilo bi esli bi zakrilis' eti korporatzii, i esche bol'she ludei poteryalo bi rabotu?