The dreaded deadline for filing federal income taxes is approaching very quickly, so many of you haven’t downloaded your forms should do it soon. When you hear about the huge tax bills that corporations avoid it may be tempting to throw out those forms. Obama’s budget speech yesterday talked of reform for the corporate tax break, let’s hope he does it, and then the average person might not begrudge their tax bill.
Let’s look at some of the breaks big business gets on their taxes. General Electric made a profit of $5.2 billion in 2010 but somehow they got a $3.2 billion refund that the government a huge deficit to deal with gave to them. That would go to funding some of the programs that will get cut. When you here stuff like this you may want to evade your bill and eventually need a tax attorney.
CitiCorp hasn’t paid federal taxes in four years even though they were bailed out during the financial crisis to the tune of $476 billion of taxpayer money. Last year their profits ended up being $6.6 billion. The average citizen who didn’t pay taxes for the last four years would have to hire a tax lawyer to help reduce their tax obligation.
Verizon Wireless got a refund despite their $8.4 billion profit, and Bank of America also made huge profits but pays less taxes than the average American household. Many American taxpayers who make a lot less than these corporations avoid their tax bills but find themselves in need of tax attorneys. Others simply make costly accounting errors while big businesses essentially get away with not paying their taxes.
