Tax time coming up

And I wish I had a dollar for every time some yokel on that arborist forum says corporations pay the lion's share of taxes in America.

PBS's Frontline reports, the General Accounting Office "estimates that illegitimate tax shelters cost the government more than $85 billion in recent years." Corporations are taxed at 35%, but with the help of shelters, large corporations pay less than half of that. And that means the average American is left holding the bag, paying about 15% more than they should. Last year, for example, "corporate tax revenues fell to only 7.4% of federal tax receipts, the second lowest level on record. (In the 1940s, corporations contributed almost half of federal taxes.)" ...The Senate is looking at closing a leasing loophole, which would create over $33 billion in new revenue....[and] conservatives are proposing to use that windfall not to fill budget gaps, but to enact more tax cuts for wealthy corporations. The Hill reports, "There is...a strong possibility that the new money could be used to pay for a set of [corporate] tax breaks that expire at the end of next year." One lobbyist, asked if the "new Treasury plan would open up new tax-cut opportunities, said simply, 'Big time.'" At a time when U.S. troops are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan without sufficient protective equipment, while the Administration is cutting funds for first-responders, underfunding the President's own No Child Left Behind legislation by $9.4 billion, freezing Pell Grants, eliminating job training programs and slashing the EPA budget by 7.3%, how can conservatives justify spending money recovered from unethical corporate practices to give companies another tax break?

Justify? Do they need to? God gave them their rights and a mandate to do business.

More here. And it is depressing. Tax shelters? You can buy them. Well, you can't.

La Belle and I watched a 60 Minutes program a while back on a corporate criminal who was actually suing the tax firm that sold him a bogus shelter he got caught using. The man was making multiple billions of dollars and wanted to avoid paying a few million (six, I think it was) in taxes. So he asked his tax firm for a bogus shelter. Got caught. Has the nerve to sue the tax firm trying to get back the money he paid for the shelter.

Sigh.