[News] 60 Top Corporations Paid $0 Federal Taxes Under Trump Tax Law

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/60-biggest-companies-paid-no-taxes_n_5cb01f75e4b0ffefe3ae2626 



  60 Top Corporations Paid $0 Federal Taxes Under Trump Tax Law

By Mary Papenfuss <https://www.huffpost.com/author/mary-s-papenfuss> - 
April 12, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

President Donald Trump 
<https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/donald-trump>’s new tax law aided 
corporations so radically that twice as many companies paid no federal 
taxes whatsoever in 2018, despite billions of dollars in profit, 
according to a new study <https://itep.org/notadime/>.

Amazon <https://www.huffpost.com/impact/topic/amazon>, Netflix 
<https://www.huffpost.com/entertainment/topic/netflix>, Chevron, Eli 
Lilly, Delta Airlines, General Motors, IBM and Goodyear were among the 
tax-free corporate titans, according to an analysis by the Institute on 
Taxation and Economic Policy <https://itep.org/>, a Washington think 
tank, released Thursday <https://itep.org/notadime/>.

The study found that 60 of some of the largest publicly held companies 
paid no taxes — compared with an average of about 30 each year 
<https://itep.org/the-35-percent-corporate-tax-myth/>from 2008 to 2015, 
before Trump and congressional Republicans 
<https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/republican-party> passed the tax 
law that took effect in 2018. The measure heavily favors corporations 
and the wealthy 
<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-tax-reagan-republican_b_5c3c9693e4b0bc885f74afc3>. 


The analysis is based on 2018 financial filings of the country’s largest 
560 publicly held companies.

The companies that paid nothing in taxes were “able to zero out their 
federal income taxes on $79 billion in U.S. pretax income,” according to 
the study <hhttps://itep.org/notadime/>, first  reported by the Center 
for Public Integrity <https://publicintegrity.org/> and NBC News.

Corporations reaped the benefits of a tax rate slashed from 35% to 21% 
in Trump’s tax law, and exploited various deductions, tax credits and 
rebates.

“Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes, as the new 21 percent 
corporate tax rate requires, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax 
rebate of $4.3 billion, blowing a $20.7 billion hole in the federal 
budget last year,” the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy report 
says.

Farm equipment manufacturer John Deere, for example, reported earning 
$2.15 billion in U.S. income before taxes. It owed no U.S. taxes in 2018 
and reported the government owes the company $268 million because of 
various deductions and credits, the report says.

The cut in the corporate tax rate alone will save corporations $1.35 
trillion 
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5695593-JCT-Cost-by-Provision-Final-Bill-12-18-17.html#document/p3> over 
the next 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

As for the nation, revenues from the corporate tax fell by 31% in 2018  
to $204 billion.

“This was a more precipitous decline than in any year of normal economic 
growth in U.S. history,” Matthew Gardner, Institute on Taxation and 
Economic Policy senior fellow, wrote in the report.

Trump insisted before his law was passed that the corporate tax cut 
would pay for itself. He argued that the giveback would trigger a boom 
in business operations that would lead to increased taxes on ballooning 
income, which would plug the giant hole in the budget.

But it hasn’t worked out that way. The nation’s budget deficit 
<https://www.huffpost.com/impact/topic/deficit> is now the biggest in 
history.

During his campaign, Trump vowed to eliminate the $19.9 trillion 
national debt in eight years. Instead, it jumped 41.8 percent 
<https://treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/search?startMonth=01&startDay=20&startYear=2017&endMonth=02&endDay=14&endYear=2019> in 
just the first four months of this fiscal year (which runs from October 
through September).

An April Government Accountability Office report 
<https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-19-314SP> called the “federal 
government’s current fiscal path ... unsustainable.” The cost of 
interest alone on the national debt runs $896 million each day. 
<http://fortune.com/2019/04/10/the-deficit-is-growing-far-faster-than-predicted/>

Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow insisted Thursday that 
“economic growth” has already “paid for a good chunk 
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-11/kudlow-says-trump-s-tax-cuts-already-paying-for-themselves>” 
of the tax cuts. The budget outlook is “not as bad as many people say,” 
he said.

Bloomberg pointed out that Kudlow’s declaration defies data 
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-11/kudlow-says-trump-s-tax-cuts-already-paying-for-themselves> from 
his own administration.

-- 
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