Where Did America's Money Go?

Where did America’s money go? Let me just state right off the bat that it wasn’t to healthcare, education, children’s health insurance, Planned Parenthood, or any of the other so-called “entitlement” programs the GOP is raping and pillaging as part of their “stop spending” agenda.  America’s money has disappeared into the pockets of major corporations in the form of tax breaks, rebates and refunds.

Top Ten Worst Tax Evaders
from Senator Bernie Sanders

1) Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings. (Source: Exxon Mobil's 2009 shareholder report filed with the SEC here.)

2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion. (Source: Forbes.com here, ProPublica here and Treasury here.)

3) Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS. (Source: Citizens for Tax Justice here and The New York Times here. Note: despite rumors to the contrary, the Times has stood by its story.)

4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009. (Source: See 2009 Chevron annual report here. Note 15 on page FS-46 of this report shows a U.S. federal income tax liability of $128 million, but that it was able to defer $147 million for a U.S. federal income tax liability of $-19 million)

5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year. . (Source: Paul Buchheit, professor, DePaul University, here and Citizens for Tax Justice here.)

6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction. (Source: the company's 2009 annual report, pg. 112, here.)

7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department. (Source: Bloomberg News here, ProPublica here, Treasury Department here.)

8) Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury. (Source: Paul Buchheit, professor, DePaul University, here, ProPublica here, Treasury Department here.)

9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2006 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction. (Sources: Profits can be found here. The deduction can be found on the company's 2010 SEC 10-K report to shareholders on 2009 finances, pg. 127, here)

10) Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent. (Source: The New York Times here)

Now let’s imagine these tax evaders actually paid the current corporate tax rates, which according to Wikipedia are:

Taxable Income ($)	Tax Rate
0 to 50,000	15%
50,000 to 75,000	15%
75,000 to 100,000	$13,750 + 34% Of the amount over 75,000
100,000 to 335,000	$22,250 + 39% Of the amount over 100,000
335,000 to 10,000,000	$113,900 + 34% Of the amount over 335,000
10,000,000 to 15,000,000	$3,400,000 + 35% Of the amount over 10,000,000
15,000,000 to 18,333,333	$5,150,000 + 38% Of the amount over 15,000,000
18,333,333 and up	35%

           This rate structure produces a flat 34% tax rate on incomes from $335,000 to $10,000,000, gradually
           increasing to a flat rate of 35% on incomes above $18,333,333.

 
And, add back all those undeserved rebates and refunds…

Corporation	Taxable Income/Profit ($)	Tax ($)	Rebate/Refund ($)	Total ($)
Exxon Mobil	19,000,000,000	6,650,000,000	156,000,000	6,806,000,000
Bank of America	4,400,000,000	1,540,000,000	1,900,000,000	3,440,000,000
General Electric	26,000,000,000	9,100,000,000	4,100,000,000	13,200,000,000
Chevron	10,000,000,000	3,500,000,000	10,000,000	3,510,000,000
Boeing*	750,000,000	262,500,000	124,000,000	386,500,000
Valero Energy*	1,700,000,000	595,000,000	157,000,000 + 134,000,000	886,000,000
Goldman Sachs	2,300,000,000	805,000,000		805,000,000
Citigroup	4,000,000,000	1,400,000,000		1,400,000,000
CononcoPhillips	16,000,000,000	5,600,000,000	451,000,000	6,051,000,000
Carnival Cruise Lines	11,000,000,000	6,650,000,000		3,850,000,000
Total				40,334,500,000

*this is a little hard because I’m not sure what the taxable income would be on Boeing’s $30 Billion and Valero’s $68 Billion, so I’m calculating 25% of each of those numbers as profit.

That’s over 40 Billion dollars!! $40 Billion!!

This figure doesn’t even include repayment on the $800 Billion the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury gave to Goldman Sachs, the $2.5 Trillion they gave to Citigroup or the nearly $1 Trillion they gave to Bank of America. If these companies paid just 1% interest on those loans we’d be adding another $8 Billion, $25 Billion and $1 Billion respectively, bringing the total to more than $74 Billion toward paying down our national debt. So, why we are cutting much needed funding from the elderly and the poor while these corporations and their shareholders make money hand over fist and don’t pay their fair share?