Bernie Sanders Vows to Crack Down on Greedy Corporate Tax Dodgers

[Ferd Berfel]

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/01/29/bernie-sanders-vows-crack-down-greedy-corporate-tax-dodgers

"In America today we are losing $100 billion in revenue every single year because large corporations are stashing their profits in the Cayman Islands and other offshore tax havens.'

Singling out what he dubs the "top 10 corporate tax dodgers," Bernie Sanders on Friday pledged to close loopholes that let huge corporations avoid paying their fair share in taxes.

The list (pdf) includes General Electric, Boeing, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Merck, and notes that several of the companies' CEOs, even as they sit on massive retirement savings, want to raise the eligibility age for—and make significant cuts to—social safety net programs like Medicare and Social Security.

"In America today we are losing $100 billion in revenue every single year because large corporations are stashing their profits in the Cayman Islands and other offshore tax havens," Sanders said during a swing through eastern Iowa three days before the state holds its first-in-the-nation caucuses.

For example, according to the Sanders campaign:

From 2008 to 2013, while GE made over $33.9 billion in United States profits, it received a total tax refund of more than $2.9 billion from the Internal Revenue Service.

G.E.’s effective U.S. corporate income tax rate over this six-year period was -9 percent.

In 2012, GE stashed $108 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying income taxes. If this practice were outlawed, GE would have paid $37.8 billion in federal income taxes that year.
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Hillary, on the other hand: