Campaign for America & NextGenClimate.org & FairShake.US & RobertReich.org – 2014-04-16 00:02:20
http://signforgood.com/stopcorporatetaxgiveaways/
Sign the Petition: Stop the Corporate Tax Giveaways
Campaign for America & Sign For Good.com
(April 15, 2014) — Did you do your taxes? Did you pay what you owed? If you’re like most Americans, you did. There are serious consequences for tax evasion and most of us see it as our civic duty.
That is, unless you are a corporation. Many of the biggest multinationals and banks will do almost anything to avoid paying their fair share.
An army of lobbyists descended on the Capitol over the past several weeks. They are holding fundraisers, buttonholing staffers and enjoying private audiences with members of Congress.
The reason? Two loopholes that let corporations stash money offshore just expired and they want them renewed.
They don’t want a conversation or a fuss. They’d rather regular people who pay their taxes didn’t know what’s going on. That’s why we have to speak up.
Big corporations like General Electric, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup stash profits offshore and hire teams of lawyers and accountants to get out of paying their fair share of taxes. Many corporations manage to pay no taxes at all. These schemes and loopholes cost our country billions of dollars. They were created by lobbyists and put into law by politicians who forgot who they work for.
Now, just in time for Tax Day, lobbyists for the banking industry and big corporations are pushing for two of their favorite loopholes to be renewed. It’s up to us to stop them. Tell Congress to make big corporations pay their fair share of taxes — and start by ending these loopholes.
THE PETITION:
Congress:
Stop letting large corporations and banks like General Electric, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup hide their profits offshore to avoid paying US taxes. End the “Active Financing Exception” and the “CFC Look-Through Rule.”
To sign the petition, Click Here.
Endorsers:
AFGE
AFSCME
Alliance for Retired Americans
Americans for Tax Fairness
Campaign for America’s Future
Daily Kos
Democracy for America
National People’s Action
National Priorities Project
Rebuild the Dream
The Other 98%
USAction
(c) 2014 | Organized by AFGE, AFSCME, Alliance for Retired Americans, Americans for Tax Fairness, Campaign for America’s Future, Daily Kos, Democracy for America, National People’s Action, National Priorities Project, Rebuild the Dream, The Other 98% and USAction.
Tax Day — But Not for Big Oil
Tom Steyer / NextGenClimate.org
(April 15, 2014) — Today is tax day, and while Californians are paying their fair share of taxes, Big Oil is not. California is the only major oil producing state in the country that doesn’t ask oil companies to pay their extraction taxes — costing our state $2 billion a year. And this will not change unless we do something about it.
Watch our new video about California’s $2 billion Big Oil tax subsidy.
Make Big Oil Pay Its Fair Share
FairShake.US
Every year, Big Oil gets a $2 billion subsidy by not paying taxes when they take California’s state resources. That means Californians are sacrificing funding for schools, healthcare, and other essentials. Big Oil treats California like its private tax shelter. Don’t let it.
Why the Top 1% Pay a Much
Lower Tax Rate than You Do
Robert Reich / RobertReich.org
(April 15, 2014) — It’s tax time again, April 15, when our minds turn toward paying the taxes we owe or possibly getting a tax refund. But what we don’t think about enough is whether our tax system is fair. The richest 1 percent of Americans are now getting the largest percent of total national income in almost a century. So you might think they’d pay a much higher tax rate than everyone else.
But you’d be wrong. Many millionaires pay a lower federal tax rate than many middle-class Americans.
Some don’t pay any federal taxes at all. That’s because they’re allowed to deduct from their taxable income such things as large interest payments on mortgages for huge homes, also the costs of business entertainment and conferences (aka vacations at golf resorts), and gold plated health care plans.
Some also take advantage of tax loopholes that let them park some of their earnings in offshore tax havens like the Bahamas or the Netherlands Antilles.
And other loopholes that allow them to treat some income as capital gains — subject to a much lower tax rate than ordinary income. If you happen to be a hedge-fund or private-equity manager, there’s a capital gains loophole designed especially for you.
Consider the Social Security payroll tax and the situation is even more lopsided. That tax applies to every dollar of income up to a cap — which this year is $117,000. Anything earned above the cap is not subject to Social Security taxes at all — meaning anyone with a high income pays a much smaller percentage of it in Social Security taxes than most people do.
Put these all together and you see why Warren Buffet, the second richest person in America, pays a lower tax rate than his secretary, as he readily admits.
State and local taxes are even more regressive. The poorest fifth of Americans pay an average state and local tax rate of over 11 percent, while the richest fifth pay only 5.6 percent. This isn’t small change. State and local taxes account for about 40 percent of all government revenues.
Believe it or not, Republicans want to make all this worse by cutting taxes on the wealthy even more. Paul Ryan’s new budget doesn’t just slice Medicare, education, and food stamps. It also lowers the top federal tax rate to 25 percent.
When the rich are let off the hook in all these ways, the rest of America has to pay more in taxes to make up the difference — or have services cut because government doesn’t have the funds.
Robert B. Reich, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the 20th century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock” and “The Work of Nations.” His latest, “Beyond Outrage,” is now out in paperback. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause. His new film, “Inequality for All,” is now available on Netflix, iTunes, DVD, and On Demand.
Something Everyone Should Know on Tax Day
Robert Reich / MoveOn.org
