Trump and the GOP: Always Taking Care of the Top Crust (Read: The Very Rich)

Proof Meets Pudding

This post states what is already painfully obvious vis-à-vis who and how Republicans help out the very wealthy and big businesses who in turn keep them in office to keep helping them (i.e., modern day symbiotic relationship: I scratch your back, you pad my campaign coffer). 

So, when you sit down to do your Federal taxes this year keep this reminder handy to the massive benefit that 91 top rung corporations paid zero taxes in 2018. Zero in layman terms means: nil, none, nada, zip, zilch, goose egg, and all the while Trump continues to praise that 2017 tax cut bill to high heaven.

Introduction to post: Under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), 91 profitable Fortune 500 companies paid $0 in taxes on U.S. income in 2018. That according to a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). Across all 379 profitable companies in the Fortune 500 the effective tax rate was just 11.3%, just over half the 21% tax rate under the law. 

From the report: “In 2018, the 379 companies earned $765 billion in pretax profits in the United States. Had all of those profits been reported to the IRS and taxed at the statutory 21% corporate tax rate, the 379 companies would have paid almost $161 billion in income taxes in 2018. Instead, the companies only paid $86.8 billion, roughly 54% of what they owed.”

I note like that Capital One TV commercial asks: “What’s in your wallet?” 

I mean as compared to that which the top crust pays, i.e., zero as this report shows.

Introduction of Some of the Impact from that Trump-GOP 2017 tax cut bill – FYI:

Declining Federal tax revenue has widened deficits, just as the national debt has ballooned up to now over $23 trillion.

All while those 91 giant corporations and companies were able to avoid paying taxes thanks to that Republican tax law, the IRS also pulled in roughly $2 trillion from individual tax returns (hint: yours and mine) – that is a leap of nearly $100 billion from the amount collected in 2017.

While a majority of Americans did get a tax cut, many also have bemoaned receiving smaller-than-anticipated refunds or even being hit with a surprise tax bill.

More impact since it will it will take years to see if the TCJA allows more and more companies to avoid paying taxes all the while Main Street hard-working Americans see benefit from that law:

This report shows five times the number of companies that avoided paying corporate taxes on average from 2008 to 2015. During that period, only 18 companies managed to pay 0% or less, with their total average effective tax rate over 8 years being roughly -4%. Now there are 91 such companies.

Whether things were made worse remains to be seems, but Congress doesn’t seem to have done anything to meaningfully repair the problem, e.g., Companies are not only paying less in taxes but Congress is forthcoming ready to give more tax breaks to that top crust. 

Harsh truth:

In 2018, IRS refunded businesses $60 billion for a net total of $202.7 billion collected from corporations.

In 2017, the IRS refunded roughly $45 billion for a net collection of $293.6 billion.

According to ITEP, tax subsidies for the 379 companies totaled $73.9 billion with half of the total tax-subsidy dollars — a total of $37.1 billion — going to just 25 companies.

ITEP’s research finds that each of those companies had more than $650 million in tax breaks last year. 

My 2 cents: Continue this article at the report’s main page here with excellent data and charts showing specific companies

And as I said keep this in mind as you prepare you 2019 taxes.

Pretty sad isn’t it? 

Thanks for stopping by.