Thursday, March 31, 2011

Bernie Sanders on Corporate Tax Evasion

 I love Bernie Sanders.  He's my Robin Hood and the champion of the ordinary American.  In this video he quotes chapter and verse and gives us the facts about  corporate tax evasion.  I love his sense of moral outrage. Indeed, I share it, as should you.

In the video below he points out some jaw dropping home truths.  If these were ordinary individuals, real people instead of corporate people, they'd be in jail. Shame shame shame  Corporations get a break but teachers, children and old folks get screwed. That seems to be the new American way.



Bernie's Top Ten Corporate Tax Evaders

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.
source:   The Daily Bail  


Watch the video and you too will share Bernie's outrage

1 comment:

mommapolitico said...

Gads, Girl, I'm sorry - I just posted yesterday, at the request of a fellow blogger, on taxing corporations. I used the "Bernie List" because I love him and he rocks my political world. I didn't see your post in my blogroll because when I moved over to my new domain, mommapolitico.com, I lost my entire blogroll! I hope I didn't steal your thunder.

Terrific post - Bernie is one of my heroes. He's the real deal, and he's dead-on - all we'd need to do is tax the big corporations and the rich a small percentage (one they actually pay, not the 35% they weasel out of...) and we'd have deficit reduction for years to come. I truly worry about how long the middle class can support our entire economy...the middle class is shrinking by the day.

Love your voice - keep speaking out, strong and clear. Great post, and my apologies for any overlap between our posts!