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Dayton
Business Journal...
Tax
group
names ‘Dirty Thirty’ companies
by DBJ
Staff
Saturday,
January 21, 2012
U.S. Public
Interest Research Group and Citizens for Tax Justice has released a
list of 30
corporations that spent more to lobby Congress than they did in taxes.
The report,
Representation without Taxation: Fortune 500 Companies that Spend Big
on
Lobbying and Avoid Taxes, focuses on an area the group that corporate
power and
influence is on full display: corporate tax policy.
“By
exploiting loopholes and special provisions in the tax code, 280
consistently
profitable Fortune 500 companies paid about half the statutory
corporate tax
rate while spending $2 billion to lobby Congress on tax policy and
other
issues,” according to the groups.
The report
also looks at what it calls the “Dirty Thirty” particularly aggressive
tax
avoiders that spent more on federal lobbying than income taxes between
2008 and
2010.
“Corporations
should not be able to shirk their tax burden by using gimmicks to game
the tax
code,” said Dan Smith, U.S. PIRG Tax and Budget Associate, who
co-authored the
report. “When corporations don’t pay, ordinary taxpayers and
responsible small
businesses are left to pick up the tab. The fact that so many
corporations can
spend more money lobbying than they pay in taxes makes a mockery of our
tax
code and our democracy.”
The “Dirty
Thirty” companies all told made $163.7 billion in profits while paying
zero
dollars in federal income taxes and collecting a total of $10.6 billion
in
various tax rebates. Meanwhile, they collectively spent $475.7 million
in
lobbying expenses for the three year period
“On the
second anniversary of Citizens United, corporate tax dodging should be
seen as
a cautionary tale. In the wake of that disastrous decision, special
interest
influence will only continue to grow and policy will reflect that
unless we get
corporate money out of elections,” added Blaire Bowie, U.S. PIRG
Democracy
Advocate.
“Many
lawmakers insist that there is a budget crisis and that Americans must
sacrifice some of the essential public services they depend on. But
Congress
has yet to make sure corporations pay their fair share in taxes,” said
CTJ
director Robert McIntyre. “The most plausible explanation for this
inaction is
the power of corporate money in politics. Campaign contributions and
highly-paid lobbyists give corporate executives a louder voice than the
millions and millions of working families who wonder why they pay more
in taxes
than GE, Boeing, Wells Fargo,
Verizon, and dozens of other huge, profitable corporations, all put
together.”
Many of the
companies on the list have operations in the Dayton region, including
Navistar
International Corp.
, which has a
truck assembly plant in Springfield, and Duke Energy, which services
power
customers in Warren and Butler counties.
In a report
released this week, Pepco Holdings Inc. was named the top company on
the list
with what the group said was a -57 percent effective tax rate.
Based on
corporate taxes, U.S. PIRG claims that between 2008 and 2010, Pepco
paid a
negative federal tax rate, which returned $508 million in tax rebates
despite
making $882 million in domestic profit over the same period.
Bob Hainey,
manager of media relations at Pepco, told the Washington Business
Journal that
Pepco paid $1.2 billion in real estate taxes, payroll taxes, personal
property
taxes, delivery taxes, use taxes and gross receipts tax between 2008
and 2010.
“Over the
three-year period noted in the report, (Pepco) invested approximately
$2
billion of capital into its operations of which over 50 percent of this
amount
was allowable as a current deduction against taxable income,” Hainey
said in a
statement.
He also
states that policy actions such as accelerated depreciation are
economic
incentives, not “loopholes” that “policy makers put in place to achieve
economic objectives stimulate investment and create jobs.”
Read this
and other articles at the Dayton Business Journal
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