Most companies in US avoid federal income taxes
August 12, 2008 00:25 EDT


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Government Accountability Office is set to release a report that says most U.S. corporations pay no federal income taxes.

And most foreign companies that do business in the U.S. aren't paying corporate taxes.

The study says about two-thirds of American corporations paid zero income taxes to Uncle Sam between 1998 and 2005. An even higher percentage of foreign corporations avoided federal corporate taxes. At the same time, says the GAO, the firms had trillions of dollars in sales.

The study was requested by Democratic Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota. Dorgan says, quote, "It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country."

The report doesn't name names and the congressional agency didn't investigate why corporations aren't paying corporate or income taxes. But the GAO says it could be because of operating losses and tax credits.

I think they also said when they cut it by size, that the largest corporations are paying taxes. A much larger proportion of the smaller ones (I'm thinking a lot of the start-ups) that aren't paying. I know the large corporations do what they can to minimize the taxes they pay but since I do the same thing, I'm hard pressed to critcize.

Most of the corporations in this country are relatively samll companys incorporated for one reason or another. Mostly to make it easier amd less costly to pass the company onto the owners family Inheritance taxes etc. When those companys , corporations make money the money goes to the stockholders and those stockholders pay taxes. The two democratic senatora Dorgan and Levin are anti business anti anything that has made this country great. They like almost all democrats want to comfiscate all private property in the united states and revive the USSR.