As I See It
Too many big companies pay no taxes
If you and I fail to pay our taxes, the taxman comes looking for us. But if you are a big corporation, our government is happy to make it easy for them to avoid paying taxes. That is clear with this week’s announcement that Amazon paid no federal income taxes last year, for the second year in a row. That is despite the fact that Amazon made more than $11 billion in 2018, double its profits from the year before. The company is certainly not alone. 18 major U.S. companies paid no federal income tax between 2008 and 2015. That list includes Xcel Energy, General Electric and Priceline. Combined, these 18 companies paid zero dollars in federal income tax over a seven year period. It is hard to blame the companies for doing what they can to increase their profitability. Rather, the blame falls on Congress which writes tax laws which allow these major corporations to avoid paying their share to Uncle Sam. Our federal tax code is filled with loopholes that allow companies to shift profits overseas. Other loopholes that allow for reduced tax obligations include write-offs, accelerated depreciation and credits for domestic manufacturing. Congress needs to tackle the job of rewriting the federal tax code so that hugely profitable companies are not allowed to get away with paying zero taxes. Because when they don’t pay their share, our share of the tax burden continues to rise.
Bill Feehan
February 16, 2019 at 9:15 am
You should start a small business. Then you might better understand how write-offs for losses, and accelerated depreciation are essential to growing a business and creating jobs. If a company makes investments that will allow it to grow there is a period of time where the company will lose money, or be less profitable, this is done with the knowledge that future earning may be higher as the company grows. The amount of taxes paid by a company to the federal government is small compared to the many taxes that are paid to state and local governments. Like property taxes, payroll taxes and most importantly the income taxes all their employees are paying. To simply say that because a company did not have a federal tax liability so it is not paying its “fair share” is wrong.