The top eight companies that spent the most on federal lobbying from 2007 to 2009 all saw their reported tax rates decrease from 2007 to 2010, according to a new analysis released Monday by the Sunlight Foundation.
The report notes that these top eight firms spent $540 million on lobbying from 2007 to 2009. They filed 332 lobbying reports that mentioned taxes and named 491 different tax bills in those reports.
The top eight companies that spent the most on lobbying were Exxon Mobil, Verizon Communications, General Electric, AT&T, Altria, Amgen, Northrop Grumman and Boeing. Exxon Mobil spent the most, some $81.92 million from 2007 to 2009.
AT&T recorded the largest tax reduction, with its tax rate falling from 34.0 percent to negative 6.4 percent from 2007 to 2010, or an estimated reduction of more than $7.3 billion. Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris, had the smallest decline from 2007 to 2010, with its rate declining from 28.9 percent to 27.4 percent. Six of the top eight companies saw declines of at least 7 percentage points.
The report comes as both President Barack Obama and Republican Party's presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney, have proposed lowering corporate tax rates. Obama has proposed lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent but eliminating loopholes and deductions. American manufacturers would get a bigger tax cut, having an effective rate of no more than 25 percent.
Romney has proposed cutting the corporate tax rate to 25 percent and repealing the corporate alternative minimum tax.
Despite the fact that the corporate tax rate is the highest in the developed world, few companies pay the full amount. A November 2011 study by the Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic policy found that the largest and most profitable 280 corporations paid on average an effective rate of 18.5 percent. Accelerated depreciation, use of stock options for compensation, industry-specific tax breaks, offshore tax sheltering and a weakened corporate alternative minimum tax were among the causes for the lower effective rates, according to that report.
To avoid arriving at tax rates driven by one-time charges, write-offs or expenses, the Sunlight Foundation took the top 200 companies that had reported tax rates that ranged from negative 50 percent to 50 percent in 2007 and 2010 and with a positive income in 2007.
The report noted that while it's impossible to tell exactly why these companies' rates fell, the likelihood of six of the top eight companies lowering their rates "by at least seven percentage points purely by random chance is less than 1 in 100,000."
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Lobbying not only gives an impression of the corruptibility of congress, it’s the living engenderment of corruption and the hallmark of a bought and paid for government.
With congress approval at 9% with the general public I’m sure the huge smiles on K Street that would beam from ear to ear would show that they approve 100% but why wouldn’t they? They get all they want all of the Read More... time.
Corporations are not people, they are super people endowed with all the rights of citizens and all of the control of the government, the SCOTUS, the Brave New World Think tanks they own and control and the crafted messages that ensue from them that food the corporate controlled airwaves and cable broadcasts.
Do you honestly think you live in a nation where you have a real say?
The only party that still manages to keep a modicum of distance from being completely owned is the Democratic Party but due to the all pervasive effect of the relentless corporate media, programming reality alongside of entertainment even they have been infiltrated with the corporate blue dog virus and are the only form of democrat electable in the most programmed and least informed states and districts.
If you see a Democrat from a staunchly conservative state in congress, rest assured that K Street money; corporate money and corporate media money want him or her there and have spent the money, time and effort to make it happen.
You see, America has the illusion of a Democracy but nearly all the laws hat pass the what should be hallowed halls of congress, have been paid for, written by and are to the benefit of K Street and the corporations it works for.
A growing example is ALEC whose sole purpose is to sell influence to houses of power on a state and federal level, then write the laws for their clients and see to it that the right palms ARE GREASED TO HAVE THEM ENACTED.
The joke is that people are in general the last to be considered for if a bill is written on their behalf, it is either blocked through filibuster, or if it manages to see the light of day, it is emasculated to remove any possibility of true benefit without a corporate profit percentage off of the top.
Yep! America is not a nation anymore, it’s a series of profit making franchises and nearly all of its citizens are treated like numbers on the profit or loss ledger.
Remove K Street from politics, ban lobbyists, take external money out of the political purchasing system, and all of these well fed politicians that are only in it for the money will pack up there carpet bags and decamp for home.
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Posted: 04/17/2012 8:09 am Updated: 04/17/2012 8:09 am