"At the same time, the tax cuts for big business are fueling the federal deficit, which will be used by both Democratic and Republican politicians to call for further cuts in social spending. The February monthly federal deficit hit an all-time high of $234 billion this year, as a result of a 20 percent drop in corporate tax revenue. The deficit for the first half of 2019 is projected at $961 billion, and the deficit for the fiscal year ending September 30 is expected to reach $1.1 trillion, as bad as the deficits posted in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crash."
Buttigieg
Pushes Wealth Tax: ‘People in This Country Are Not Paying Their Fair Share’
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/04/01/buttigieg-pushes-wealth-tax-people-in-this-country-are-not-paying-their-fair-share/
Buttigieg Pushes
Wealth Tax: ‘People in This Country Are Not Paying Their Fair Share’
PAM KEY
1 Apr 201977
2:27
Monday on MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” 2020 Democratic
presidential hopeful Mayor Pete Buttigieg supported the idea of a wealth tax,
arguing that “some people” were not paying their”fair share.”
When asked if he would repeal the Trump tax cuts, Buttigieg
said, “Yes, at least the tax cuts on the wealthiest because that has blown a
huge hole in the treasury that my generation is going to be forced to pay.
We’re going to have to pay for it probably in the form of reduced services if
we don’t come up with revenue. There’s no need for some of these giveaways to
the wealthiest people in the country. But we also need to rethink the way that
our revenue is structured right now. That’s why I think at least three ideas
that have been floating out there among many people in the 2020 conversation
deserve to be part of a portfolio of revenue for the future. That would include
a wealth tax, some reasonable percentage on those who are sitting on the
largest amounts of wealth in this country. It would mean a financial transactions
tax to deal with the fact that people are, in some cases, making preposterous
sums of money off of millisecond transactions that don’t seem to contribute
very much to the real economy. If they do, fine, but that needs to be shared
with the country so that we can have a more robust infrastructure and education
and national security and all of the things that make the accumulation of that
kind of wealth possible. And we also need to reconsider the taxes for the
income brackets that are making the most.”
He continued, “You know, over the last probably 40 years,
Democratic and Republican politicians have accepted what you might call the
Reagan consensus, this idea that the only thing you would ever consider doing
to taxes is to cut them. And the only argument’s over whose taxes to cut.
Obviously, we want to keep taxes low and reasonable, especially for working
people struggling to get by and members of the middle class, but we also know
that some people in this country are not paying their fair share. And whether
it’s individual taxes like some of what I’ve been talking about or making sure
we use some kind of instrument, like perhaps sales apportionment, to get a
better share of U.S. corporate taxes now being hidden offshore or not
appropriately taxed when it comes to global business, we could be doing a lot
better to fill the treasury before it has to hit the working and middle class.”
US Tax Day 2019: Sixty giant corporations pay zero income tax
Dozens of giant US corporations, including 60 of the Fortune 500, used deductions, credits and other tax loopholes to avoid paying any federal income tax for 2018, according to an analysis issued by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). The report was published April 11, just in time for the April 15 deadline for most American working people to file their tax returns.
The 60 companies in the Fortune 500 who paid no federal income tax had net incomes just from US operations of nearly $80 billion ($79,025,000,000, to be exact). They include such household names as Amazon, Chevron, Deere, Delta Air Lines, General Motors, Goodyear, Halliburton, Honeywell, IBM, Eli Lilly, Netflix, Occidental Petroleum, Prudential Financial and US Steel.
Meanwhile, millions of moderate-income families are finding that their income taxes have either increased or their expected tax refunds have evaporated because of restrictions on the itemization of tax deductions, the imposition of a $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions and a cut in the mortgage interest deduction.
Nearly all of the 60 companies that paid no taxes qualified to receive a refund from the US Treasury, although most will not collect a check, instead using the credit to offset future taxes. But whatever the bookkeeping process, American taxpayers are effectively paying money to them, despite their vast profits. The biggest refunds include those going to Prudential, $346 million (added to its $1.44 billion in profits); Duke Energy, a whopping $647 million (added to $3.02 billion in profits); and Deere, $268 million (added to $2.15 billion in profits).
Among the report’s most outrageous findings:
Amazon more than zeroed-out its tax bill on $10.8 billion in profits, making use of accelerated depreciation deductions on equipment as well as favorable tax treatment of stock-based compensation for executives like CEO Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man in the world. The stock compensation deduction alone was worth $1 billion. Amazon will actually show a credit of $129 million from the US Treasury, not paying one cent in federal income taxes.
IBM is another corporate giant that has gamed the tax system by shifting earnings to its foreign operations to escape US taxation. The company reported worldwide profits of $8.7 billion, but only $500 million in the United States. It will reap a $342 million credit from the Treasury.
Delta Airlines accumulated $17.1 billion in federal pre-tax net losses as of 2010, partly as a consequence of a protracted crisis of the airline industry, partly as a result of the 2008 Wall Street crash. It has used these losses as well as the accelerated depreciation credit for purchase of new planes to “dramatically reduce their tax rates,” according to the ITEP report, receiving a credit of $187 million in 2018 despite net profits of more than $5 billion. According to Delta’s chief financial officer, the actual tax rate the company expects to pay going forward is between 10 and 13 percent, far below what a typical Delta worker pays on his or her income.
EOG Resources, a renamed remnant of Enron, perpetrator of the biggest corporate fraud in American history, can collect $304 million from US taxpayers on top of $4.07 billion in profits.
For one company, the federal tax refund would actually exceed net profits. Gannett made a $7 million profit, while showing an additional $11 million credit from the Treasury, giving the newspaper publishing giant an effective tax rate of negative 164 percent.
IBM’s tax rate was a negative 68 percent, while software maker Activision Blizzard and construction company AECOM Technology both posted effective tax rates of negative 51 percent.
Sixteen of the 60 companies made more than a billion dollars in net income on their US operations, to say nothing of foreign subsidiaries. Oil and gas producers and utilities comprised more than one-third of the total, led by Chevron and Occidental among the oil companies, and DTE Energy, American Electric Power, Duke Energy and Dominion Resources among the utilities.
The 60 companies profited enormously because the Trump tax cut bill cut the basic rate for corporations from 35 percent to 21 percent, while not eliminating the loopholes they had previously used to keep their taxes low. They had the best of both worlds, paying lower rates while still enjoying loopholes.
Overall, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, an arm of Congress, the cut in the corporate tax rate alone will pump $1.35 trillion into the pockets of the corporations over the next 10 years. For this year alone, corporate taxes have been cut by 31 percent.
For the 60 companies in the ITEP report, “Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes, as the new 21 percent corporate tax rate requires, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion, blowing a $20.7 billion hole in the federal budget last year.”
This figure by itself is an irrefutable answer to all the bogus claims—made to workers in every part of the United States—that there is “no money” to pay for needed social programs, for wage and benefit increases, or to hire additional workers to reduce overwork and understaffing. The $20.7 billion would pay for a $7,000 bonus to every public school teacher in America.
The bonanza that these 60 corporations are enjoying is three times the amount that Trump proposes to cut from the budget of the Department of Education. It is 10 times the total amount budgeted for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which provides services for more than 2 million Native Americans. It is nearly 20 times the budget of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which conducts workplace safety inspections.
The ITEP report, issued by a group with close ties to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal Washington think tank, warns of the explosive political consequences of the corporate plundering of the Treasury. “The specter of big corporations avoiding all income taxes on billions in profits sends a strong and corrosive signal to Americans: that the tax system is stacked against them, in favor of corporations and the wealthiest Americans,” the report says.
At the same time, the tax cuts for big business are fueling the federal deficit, which will be used by both Democratic and Republican politicians to call for further cuts in social spending. The February monthly federal deficit hit an all-time high of $234 billion this year, as a result of a 20 percent drop in corporate tax revenue. The deficit for the first half of 2019 is projected at $961 billion, and the deficit for the fiscal year ending September 30 is expected to reach $1.1 trillion, as bad as the deficits posted in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crash.
The number of
U.S. companies paying zero federal taxes DOUBLED when Trump's tax plan took
effect in 2018
as Ronald Reagan
MSNBC cable news host and former Republican Joe Scarborough expressed
amazement at the 2020 campaign launch of South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete
Buttigieg on Sunday.
https://townhall.com/columnists/salenazito/2019/04/09/how-pete-buttigieg-could-hurt-trump-in-the-rust-belt-n2544459
The number of
U.S. companies paying zero federal taxes DOUBLED when Trump's tax plan took
effect in 2018
·
60 large companies managed to escape 2018
taxes under Trump's new plan
·
Many of those corporations actually received
tax rebates totaling $4.3 billion
·
The businesses include: Amazon, Netflix,
Chevron, Delta Airlines, JetBlue Airways, IBM, General Motors, Goodyear, Eli
Lilly and United States Steel
·
The result is a $20.7 billion budget hole
that is adding to America's federal debt
President Donald
Trump's tax policy doubled the number of highly profitable
companies that were able to avoid paying any federal taxes in 2018, according
to a new report.
Amazon, Netflix,
Chevron, Delta Airlines, IBM, General Motors and Eli Lilly were among those who
managed to escape taxes for last year, according to the study by the
Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
'Instead
of paying $16.4 billion in taxes, as the new 21 percent corporate tax rate
requires, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion, blowing
a $20.7 billion hole in the federal budget last year,' the report says.
The
Washington, D.C. think tank analyzed America's 560 largest publicly held
companies, finding that 60 of them paid nothing in taxes for last year – double
the average of roughly 30 companies that got away scot-free each year from
2008-2015.
Republicans
in Congress pushed through the tax law signed by Trump in 2017, and its
policies favoring the richest Americans and most valuable U.S. companies took
effect in 2018.
Scroll down for the full list of companies and rebates
+2
·
This graph illustrates the amount of money that 60 of America's largest
companies were billed for taxes last year - along with the actual money they
ended up getting back instead of having to pay. Source: Institute on
Taxation and Economic Policy
The
change cut the tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent and allowed companies to
take advantage of deductions, tax credits and rebates. That change alone is
projected to save corporations $1.35 trillion over the next decade, according
to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
'We
know that there's this pretty glaring contrast between what the proponents of
this tax law promised back in 2017 and what it's delivering now,' lead
author Matthew Gardner told DailyMail.com.
'The
whole argument was that the reason companies were avoiding taxes is because tax
rates are so high,' he added. 'What we're seeing is that isn't coming to
pass.'
Collectively, the 60 companies that avoided
all taxes last year managed 'to zero out their federal income taxes on $79
billion in U.S. pretax income,' according to the study, which was first
reported on by the Center for Public Integrity and
NBC News.
For
example, the John Deer farm equipment company earned $2.15 billion before
taxes, yet owed no U.S. taxes and used deductions and credits to extract $268
million from the federal government.
Nationally,
corporate tax revenues decreased 31 percent in 2018 to $204 billion.
'This
was a more precipitous decline than in any year of normal economic growth in
U.S. history,' wrote Gardner, a senior fellow for the Institute on Taxation and
Economic Policy, in the report.
We know that there's this pretty
glaring contrast between what the proponents of this tax law promised back in
2017 and what it's delivering now.
-Matthew Gardner, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
Trump
had said that the corporate tax cut would pay for itself by sparking a business
boom that would create more jobs, thus generating growing income tax revenues
for the nation.
That
reality hasn't emerged. Instead the nation's budget deficit is higher than it's
ever been in this nation's history.
That's
despite Trump's campaign promise to eliminate the $19.9 trillion national debt
in eight years. So far it has ballooned 41.8 percent in the first four months
of the 2019 fiscal year (which runs October 1 – September 30.
The
Government Accountability Office announced in April that the 'federal
government's current fiscal path … (is) unsustainable.'
Presidential
economic adviser Larry Kudlow has said that 'economic growth' has 'paid for a
good chunk' of the tax cuts, and that the budget's outlook is 'not as bad' as
it's perceived.
+2
·
This table lists the amount of money that 60 of America's largest
companies were billed for taxes last year - along with the actual money they
ended up getting back instead of having to pay. Source: Institute on
Taxation and Economic Policy
Joe Scarborough: Mayor
Pete Buttigieg as Exciting
as Ronald Reagan
CHARLIE SPIERING
15 Apr 2019702
1:04
MSNBC cable news host and former Republican Joe Scarborough expressed
amazement at the 2020 campaign launch of South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete
Buttigieg on Sunday.
“In
a lifetime of following politics, the only time I have heard as excited a
reaction to a campaign as I heard today about Pete Buttigieg’s launch was
Barack Obama in 2008 and Ronald Reagan in 1980,” he wrote on Twitter.
Buttigieg officially
announced his run for president on Sunday.
“Yes,
it’s very early. But the reaction has been remarkable,” Scarborough added.
Scarborough
played a role in boosting Buttigieg’s national attention during a March
interview on Morning Joe.
Mika
and I have been overwhelmed by the reaction Pete Buttigieg got after being on
the show,” he wrote afterward. “The only other time in twelve years that we
heard from as many people about a guest was after Barack Obama appeared on
Morning Joe.”
In a lifetime of following politics, the
only time I have heard as excited a reaction to a campaign as I heard today
about @PeteButtigieg’s
launch was @BarackObama
in 2008 and Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Yes, it’s very early. But the reaction has
been remarkable.
Mika and I have been overwhelmed by the
reaction @PeteButtigieg
got after being on the show. The only other time in twelve years that we heard
from as many people about a guest was after @BarackObama appeared on Morning Joe.
How Pete Buttigieg Could
Hurt Trump in the Rust Belt
https://townhall.com/columnists/salenazito/2019/04/09/how-pete-buttigieg-could-hurt-trump-in-the-rust-belt-n2544459
Source: Greg
Swiercz/South Bend Tribune via AP
Pete Buttigieg is many things.
At just 37, he is the mayor of South Bend,
Indiana. He is a military veteran and a deeply religious gay man who is married
but also enjoys sandwiches from (anti-same-sex marriage) Chick-fil-A. He is a
Harvard-educated Rhodes scholar who speaks eight languages. He is the first
ever millennial candidate for president and, so far, the only Democratic
hopeful to appear on the "Fox News Sunday" show.
"I'm all of those things," said Buttigieg -- pronounced
"Boot-edge-edge" -- in an interview with the New York Post. "I
try not to have any kind of attribute ... be totally defining," he added.
Critics say these attributes are the very reasons why he can't beat Donald
Trump. His supporters say they are the very reasons he can.
Mayor Pete, as he likes to be called, strikes a tone that is kinder and
less combative than the insult-driven politics of Trump and the Democratic
Party's far-left members. His boyish good looks, intelligence and military
background are undoubtedly appealing, as is his faith.
"Scripture tells us to look after the
least among us, that it also counsels humility and teaches us about what's
bigger than ourselves," said Buttigieg, a devout Episcopalian. "It
points the way toward an inclusive and unselfish politics that I strive to
practice, whether I'm talking about my faith on the stump or not."
Mayor Pete's politics are already gaining traction. Since launching his
exploratory committee to run for president on Jan. 23, he has already raised $7
million for his campaign. A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 4 percent of
Democrats would vote for him -- the same number that supports Elizabeth Warren,
who has been a U.S. senator for six years.
The fact that he was born and bred in the
American Rust Belt is possibly his biggest asset.
"Our party can and should do better in the industrial Midwest,"
Buttigieg said. "I'm convinced that so many people in this part of the
country are already with us, much more than with the other party on issues, on
substance, on policy."
He said his experience in his hometown of South Bend proves there are
solutions that work besides a "promise to turn back the clock."
When Buttigieg was first elected to office in South Bend in 2011, the city
was on its knees. Job growth was nonexistent, and like many Rust Belt cities
with declining industry, it had been hemorrhaging jobs since the '70s.
First, he improved the cosmetics of the town by demolishing more than
1,000 abandoned homes, and then he focused on revitalizing it by attracting
hundreds of millions in private investment for commercial development.
You won't find Buttigieg ridiculing fellow Midwestern voters or taking
them for granted, the way Hillary Clinton's campaign did in 2015. After the
University of Notre Dame, based in South Bend, invited her to attend their
prestigious St. Patrick's Day event, her campaign declined, telling organizers
that "white Catholics were not the audience she needed to spend time
reaching out to," as The New York Times wrote.
Trump would go on to win those white Catholic votes in 2016 -- 52 percent
of them, according to Pew's exit polls, reversing the gains Democrats made when
Barack Obama earned their votes in 2008 and 2012.
Even so, Buttigieg's religious beliefs
haven't prevented him from taking progressive positions on major issues.
He supports abortions into the third trimester out of a belief in "freedom
from government," he said. And he won't rule out tax hikes. "If the
only way I can get all of us paid parental leave, universal health care,
dramatically improved child care, better education, good infrastructure and,
therefore, longer life expectancy and a healthier economy is to raise revenue,
then we should be honest about that," he said.
And although natural gas leads to good, solid jobs in the Rust Belt, he is
a big booster of wind and solar power. "I think the goal still has to be
focused on renewables," he said.
But just because Buttigieg has a progressive platform doesn't mean he'll
get an easy ride from far-left Democrats. Last month, the woke crowd at Slate
questioned the young mayor's credentials with a since-changed headline that
read "Is Pete Buttigieg just another white male candidate, or does his
gayness count as diversity?"
And just because Buttigieg is from the Rust Belt doesn't mean he can win a
general election in places like Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania,
especially when you compare his platform to Trump's.
"He has to share their values on bread-and-butter issues like lower
taxes, regulations and religious liberty," warned Dr. G. Terry Madonna,
director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin &
Marshall College. If he doesn't, "it would be very difficult for him to
win."
But Jeff Rea, a former Republican mayor from another Indiana town and
current president of the South Bend chamber of commerce, said nobody should
count out Mayor Pete. He and Buttigieg have been on opposite sides on a number
of projects but have "always found a way to come together for a
solution."
Buttigieg "is a very data-driven guy and also a very good man,"
Rea added. "That has helped him win over voters who might not like
progressive politics."
No mayor in history has ever run and won his or her party's nomination for
president, nor has anyone under the age of 43. Then again, no businessman had
ever done it until Trump came along.
Michael Wear, the faith adviser to Obama, told me he thinks Mayor Pete has
a chance.
"Things change," Wear said. "And, in America, anything can
happen."
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