The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

Singing the Tax Time Blues

Apr 11, 2016

April 15th this year comes on April 18th, but it’s still the same unhappy day: tax day.

But not everyone is unhappy, for example Fortune 500 corporations with financial officers and accountants who scheme–using tax laws voted by Congress to let them scheme.

Tax day is a big bonanza for them. For 2015, 27 of these big corporations–including General Motors, United Airlines, American Airlines, Hewlett-Packard, E*Trade and Loews Hardware–paid NO taxes, even though they made a profit. In fact, they got tax CREDITS of 13 billion dollars. That means they can use the 13 billion to pay no taxes in the future, because these are credits against tax liabilities owed.

And the real kicker: these 27 companies combined took in PROFITS of 30 billion dollars, that is, 82 million dollars per day just in profit–and didn’t pay a dime in taxes.

Happy April 15th to Corporate America!