Ten giant U.S. companies avoiding income
taxes: Sen. Bernie Sanders list
By Lynn
Sweet on March 27, 2011
WASHINGTON---With federal
income taxes due in a few weeks, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont
independent allied with Democrats, on Sunday released a list of ten big
profitable U.S.
companies paying little or no taxes. Sanders wants to
close the loopholes that make this tax avoidance legal. Some people call the
income tax system with generous loopholes for big companies corporate
welfare or corporate entitlements. As Congress returns to work
this week--after yet another break--to negotiate over big budget cuts--with
social safety net programs facing reductions--Sanders is pushing for
corporations to pay more of a fair "share."
The Bernie Sanders
Ten, per release....
1) Exxon Mobil made $19 billion
in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually
received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings.
2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax
refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and
received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of
nearly $1 trillion.
3) Over the past five years,
while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1
billion refund from the IRS.
4) Chevron received a $19 million
refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.
5) Boeing, which received a $30
billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124
million refund from the IRS last year.
6) Valero Energy, the 25th
largest company in America
with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check
from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax
break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.
7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only
paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3
billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S.
Treasury Department.
8) Citigroup last year made more
than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5
trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.
9) ConocoPhillips,
the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in
profits from 2007 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through
the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.
10) Over the past five years,
Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal
income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2011/03/ten_giant_us_companies_avoidin.html