Amazon – and 56 other companies – took your taxes



[ad_1]

FILE PHOTO – Amazon President, President and CEO Jeff Bezos speaks at Business Insider's "Ignition Future of Digital" conference in New York, United States, December 2, 2014 REUTERS / Mike Segar / Photo File

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Bernie Sanders, 1%, is now a millionaire. So are Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. Big whoop. There is a crucial difference between these candidates for the Democratic nomination and the very fortunate, especially 60 huge American companies extremely profitable. Candidates faithfully pay federal taxes. Companies do not do it.

# p # 1_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

That's true. Sixty profitable companies paid no federal taxes in 2018, twice the number of years before the 2017 tax cuts came into effect. In fact, it's worse than that. Fifty-seven of these companies have applied for government rebates, which means that taxpayers like you and me have paid for their livelihood. They are unemployed societies. They claim to hate socialism if it is health insurance for all, but they love to love socialism when it comes to bringing them well-being.

# p # 2_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

Sanders, Harris, Warren and other Democratic nominees have paid their taxes because they are patriots. Most working Americans pay a fair share to support their country. True citizens pay for their country to prosper. They pay for the United States to afford to educate their citizens, open roads, exercise their courts, care for their most vulnerable and support their armed forces. They pay because they understand that they have a duty to the country that has fed them, that protects them and that they love them.

# p # 3_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

But too many American corporations, which the US Supreme Court has devoted to human rights, refuse to recognize their concomitant obligations. Businesses and high-net-worthers have called for the tax breaks that Republicans granted them in 2017. Big cats paid tens of millions of dollars to black money groups that served as cash cows for GOP candidates who Once elected, they managed these tax breaks.

# p # 4_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

Business groups and GOP apologists, such as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, insisted that tax cuts would be profitable. Mnuchin went even further, saying the cuts would reduce the $ 1 trillion deficit. Everything would be hunky-dory.

# p # 5_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

It was a lie then. And now, deception is exposed for the grotesqueness it has been. The US Treasury said corporations paid $ 92 billion less in federal taxes in 2018 than in 2017, a 31 percent drop.

# p # 6_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

To put this in perspective, decline is the second largest since 1934, during the Great Depression. The single biggest problem was 55% at the start of the Great Recession from 2008 to 2009.

# p # 7_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

Bad things happen when companies shirk their obligations. The first is that workers end up paying more costs. Last year, taxpayers contributed more than half of federal income tax revenues and corporations to only 7%. Just four years ago, business accounted for 11% and taxpayers 47%.

# p # 8_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

Another detrimental effect is the swelling of the public debt. The US Treasury Department said the deficit has increased by $ 113 billion, or 17 percent, in the first year of tax cuts, the largest increase since 2009, which occurred at the height of the Great Depression. recession. This black hole is expected to occur each year, the tax cuts remain in effect.

# p # 9_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

Republicans take these deficit figures – the deficits created by tax cuts – to demand compensatory budget cuts – cuts in social security, cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, cuts in food stamps and school meal programs , cuts to valuable programs for workers and the poor.

# p # 10_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

The deficits are widening as follows: Amazon, the online market, reported nearly $ 11 billion last year and instead of paying the low and current corporate tax rate of 21% on this income it taxpayers were asked to pay him $ 129 million. What they did. It was not a discount since Amazon paid no taxes. It was a big gift, a gift unwittingly removed from the pockets of the workers, wrapped in a blurred and flocked smiley bag and dropped directly into the company's coffers. It is a perverse transfer of wealth, from the poor to the middle classes, to the wealthy and the big corporations.

# p # 11_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

And taxpayers have not even received Amazon Prime in exchange.

# p # 12_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

Of the 60 profitable companies that do not pay any taxes, 57 received such payments from workers. Amazon was not even the biggest. Ten companies took more, including Duke Energy, which set an infamous record in ripping the most – $ 647 million. On a pre-tax income of about $ 76 billion, the 57 taxpayers forced taxpayers to give them $ 4.3 billion.

# p # 13_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

If, instead of exploiting all potential loopholes and avoiding all conceivable requirements, these companies had paid their taxes at the reduced rate of 21%, the US would have drawn $ 16.4 billion .

# p # 14_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

That's the money the country needs.

# p # 15_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

And it's not as if Amazon and her fellow welfare recipients were not delivering their goods on the roads built by workers' money, nor were they looking for software engineers trained in the public schools they were building. nor pleaded in court. that the tax dollars of the workers maintain.

# p # 16_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

Americans overwhelmingly support the repair of failed roads, bridges, airports and waterlines, using US-made products and unionized workers. In 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers awarded a rating of D to the country's infrastructure and estimated that the US needed to spend $ 4.5 trillion by 2025 to improve the structures upon which American commerce is based.

# p # 17_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

President Donald Trump and congressional majorities also want to improve infrastructure. But that never happens. And the reason is money. There is no money to do it, as many US companies use this infrastructure to make money, not pay taxes and ask the government to give them money.

# p # 18_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

Workers also use these roads, bridges and pipelines. But we pay. Yeah, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have made a lot of money writing and selling books over the past two years. In 2018, Sanders and his wife Jane reported to the IRS an adjusted gross income of $ 561,293, of which $ 393,000 was from the sale of books. They donated $ 19,000 to charities and paid a federal tax rate of 26%, which is well above the 21% rate applied to corporations, which do not pay it anyway. Bernie and Jane donated $ 145,840 to the federal government.

# p # 19_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

Other Democrats, looking for the party's candidacy for president, issued tax returns saying they had also paid their fair share. Kamala Harris reported a profit of about $ 1.9 million and an effective tax rate of 37% last year. Senator Warren, with an adjusted gross income of $ 846,394, paid 27%. Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who had the lowest adjusted gross income of Democrats who issued tax forms, $ 202,912, also logically paid the lowest rate, 15%.

# p # 20_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

Each of them paid more money and at a higher rate than the Amazon billionaire.

# p # 21_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

All rich people do not believe that it is wise to maintain a system that does not require 1% and profitable businesses to pay their fair share. A group of them, the patriotic millionaires as they call themselves, met this week in Washington to discuss better ways of calculating taxes and what will happen to this country if nothing changes.

# p # 22_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

They believe that the government should impose tax payments on the wealthy and businesses to ensure the survival of the very institutions and values ​​that helped the 1% to make millions and billions.

# p # 23_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

The crucial difference between you and Amazon is that you paid your fair share and that Amazon levied your taxes. So, no, roads and bridges will not be repaired this year either.

# p # 24_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

# p # 25_24 # ad ignored = NULL #

[ad_2]

Source link