Common Dreams: Jayapal Calls for Crackdown on Wealthiest After IRS Chief Says Tax Evasion Costs US $1 Trillion a Year

Furthermore, another recent study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) showed that 55 U.S. corporate giants paid $0 in federal income taxes last year, and 26 of them haven’t paid a dime for the past three years—a time period in which the GOP’s “morally and economically obscene” tax cuts for corporations and wealthy Americans have been in effect.

Instead of paying a collective $8.5 billion in federal income taxes on last year’s profits of $40.5 billion, as mandated by the statutory 21% corporate tax rate, the 55 companies exploited preexisting loopholes and pandemic-related tax breaks to reduce their tax bills to zero, as the ITEP report explains. Not only did these corporations secure a zero-tax liability, they received a collective $3.5 billion in rebates, bringing the total amount of lost federal revenue to $12 billion.

It is for these reasons that Matt Gardner—author of the ITEP paper—argued, like Jayapal, that “stopping corporate tax dodging is just as important as a higher tax rate.” Read more

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