You pay your taxes. Why don’t they?

We pay taxes. Why don't they?

Yesterday was tax day in every state but Massachusetts, and it’s a good time to remember that while working people will pay their fair share, corporations will not. 

This Great Recession was caused by a Wall Street gone wild with mortgage trading trickery and risky credit market maneuvers that brought our economy to the brink of collapse in 2008. Economist have also shown that the budget deficit – both at the national level and within numerous states – is the result of huge tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations.  

And while Republican governors in 12 states are coming after the wages, benefits and pensions of middle-class Americans to make up for their budget shortfalls, big businesses this year are getting a free ride – again.  

These politicians are being driven by deep-pocketed corporate interests and are making decisions day after day that are bad for working families. And if you are one of the millions of Americans who lives in these states and struggles every day just to make a better life for your family, you have to wonder why these guys are so focused on taking away your rights and your standard of living when so many of their political donors are having banner years. 

So while you dutifully pay your taxes, consider this: multi-billion dollar companies such as General Electric and Verizon are paying no taxes at all.  

According to a March 24 article in the New York Times, General Electric made profits of over $14 billion in 2010, with $5.1 billion from the U.S. Yet GE paid $0 in taxes and in fact is claiming $3.2 billion in returns. Verizon made $12 billion in profits last year, but has paid $0 in taxes for two years, according to grassroots organization USUncut.  

And the countries six largest banks – Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley – pay little or no taxes at all, averaging about 11 percent among them in 2009 and 2010, according to a new report from the Public Accountability Initiative.  

America’s corporate tax rate is 35 percent, but corporations use a range of loopholes, offshore tax havens and creative accounting methods to shelter their profits from Uncle Sam. In fact, the Government Accountability Office found in 2008 that “two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005.” 

Many of these companies and their Republican allies are pushing legislation for a “tax holiday” so they can bring the money they’ve stashed in overseas banks back to the U.S. at a substantially lower tax rate. They claim such a gift would help them invest in the U.S., pay dividends to stockholders and create jobs. But U.S. Treasury Department notes that the last time a tax repatriation holiday was extended to the multinationals, in 2004, none of these touted benefits came to pass.  

Protests against the tax-dodgers broke out across the country in recent weeks, including the UAW’s demonstration at the Bank of America on March 24. The following weekend, people in more than 40 cities around the nation joined a day of action against the corporations whose unpaid tax bills are causing our economy to crumble and our state legislators to come for your wallets.  

On April 18, hardworking Americans across the country presented tax bills to the corporate tax dodgers robbing our nation. 

We can't afford any more tax giveaways for millionaires at the expense of seniors, people with disabilities, women, children and working families. Some politicians are playing partisan games and rewarding their rich donors at the same time they are cutting essential services and making teachers, nurses, firefighters and their families pay the price. It's about political choices. And it's time to drop the games and start fixing the economy by putting people back to work.