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Big Business, Little Taxes

A recent GAO report found that U.S.-based corporations are actually paying an average corporate tax rate of 12.6 percent and have shifted a tax burden of roughly $180 billion a year to working Americans who continue subsidizing the difference with cuts to government programs intended to fill the gaps created by unprecedented wealth income inequality.

Profitable companies with more than $10 million in assets paid an average rate of 12.6 percent of their global profits in 2010, the latest data available[...] That compares to the statutory corporate tax rate of 35 percent.

“When some U.S. corporations use unjustifiable loopholes and offshore gimmicks to avoid paying Uncle Sam, their tax burden is shifted onto hardworking American families and small business,” Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who commissioned the study, said in a statement, according to The Hill.“Today’s GAO report quantifies just how much of the corporate tax burden has been shifted onto other taxpayers: America’s large, profitable corporations are now paying a lower tax rate than our teachers and firefighters.”

You could say that over the past few decades, U.S.-based corporations have ‘pulled a 180‘ on overworked/underpaid people, and you’d have the data to prove it.

individual_corporate_income_taxes_1934-2016

People working for these corporations are subsidizing their own jobs, CEO salaries, bloated corporate executive boards, and any shareholder dividends. If they’re industrial polluters, it’s much worse, as hidden costs are deferred to the public in general.

So, next time you pay your taxes, send your company the bill. Tell Pat in Human Resources that you’re “pulling a 180.” They’ll know.