lowering rates corporations pay is obscene. There should be a minimum tax rate for Corporations so they pay a legitimate amount of taxes. Many corporations pay zero or 'negative' tax rates.. The only way this should happen, possibly, is if their R&D budget was half their expenditures. Perhaps then they should enjoy significant tax breaks - but this would have to be for real, with legitimate review of their R&D expenditures.
Big Companies Paid a Fraction of Corporate Tax Rate
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/business/big-companies-paid-a-fraction-of-corporate-tax-rate.html?_r=0
The biggest, most profitable American companies paid only a fraction of the taxes they would owe under the official corporate rate, according to a study released on Monday by the Government Accountability Office.
Using allowed deductions and legal loopholes, large corporations enjoyed a 12.6 percent tax rate far below the 35 percent tax that is the statutory rate imposed by the federal government on corporate profits.
The findings come amid rising criticism of the tactics that some big companies use to lower their tax bills.
In May, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations examined the practices of Apple, in particular how the technology giant had used overseas subsidiaries to sidestep billions in taxes. At a hearing in late May on Capitol Hill, Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, insisted that the company had fully complied with tax laws and had paid all it legally owed, both here and abroad.
(more)
Corporate Taxpayers & Corporate Tax Dodgers, 2008-2010
(emphases my own)
http://ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers/
NEW REPORT: 280 Most Profitable U.S. Corporations Shelter Half Their Profits from Taxes.
[font color="blue"]
“These 280 corporations received a total of nearly $224 billion in tax subsidies,” [/font]said Robert McIntyre, Director at Citizens for Tax Justice and the report’s lead author. “This is wasted money that could have gone to protect Medicare, create jobs and cut the deficit.”
[font color="red"]
30 Companies average less than zero tax bill in the last three Years, 78 had at least one no-tax year.
Financial services received the largest share of all federal tax subsidies over the last three years[/font]. More than half the tax subsidies for companies in the study went to four industries: financial services, utilities, telecommunications, and oil, gas & pipelines.
U.S. corporations with significant foreign profits paid tax rates to foreign countries that were almost a third higher than they paid to the IRS on their domestic profits.
Full Report here
Read our Press Release with Key Findings
= new reply since forum marked as read