How long is the world really going to put up with this shit?

Bored. So, as you do, I rifled through the archaically old section of my archaically old bookcases and I found this piece of archaically old data. I wonder how long corporations have been doing this for?

17 MAJOR CORPORATIONS THAT PAID NO FEDERAL INCOME TAXES IN THE U.S. IN 1977

         Corporation Name           Worldwide Income    Federal taxes paid.

1. Commonwealth Edison                $361,589,000                           $0

2. American Electric Power              333,403,000                             0

3. Southern Californian Edison         317,174,000                              0

4. Rockwell International                   266,700,000                            0

5. First Chicago Corp.                          152,113,000                            0

6. Esmark                                                97,999,000                            0

7. Seaboard Coastline Industries          97,263,000                           0

8. Inland  Steel                                         88,507,000                          0

9. United States Steel                             87,200,000                          0

10. American Airlines                              83,089,000                         0

11. National Steel                                     45,806,000                          0

12. Eastern Airlines                                 34,737,000                           0

13. Republic Steel                                     33,848,000                          0

14. Pan American World Airways          33,489,000                          0

15. United Brands                                     17,714,000                           0

16. American Motors                                 5,616,000                           0

17. A & P                                                      5,046,000                          0

(Source:  Irving Wallace, David Wallechinsky, and Amy Wallace, The Book of Lists 2 (1980) ISBN 0-688-03574-4.)

The note in the book had this to add.

In 1977 Rockwell International received a refund at taxpayers’ expense of $115,300,000 and U.S. Steel received $113,400,000. The big oil companies paid an average tax rate of 11% while the largest banks paid an average rate of 7.1%. Although the legal tax rate for corporations is 48%, in actuality the average corporation pays only 17.2%, the same rate as that for a family of four with an annual income of $26,150.

Even back in 1977, you can see who was skimming off the cream back then. The list is dominated by electricity generators, steel makers, banks, and transport.

It is when you look at these numbers and then you fast forward 35 odd years that you begin to see why America is having a little debt trouble. Be interesting to see what other corporations in other developed countries were doing with their tax bills. Be interesting to see where all this so called global financial crunch really came from.

And its funny as to see after 35 years, big business is STILL queuing up for government assistance in the industries such as electricity, manufacturing, steel, transport, and banking.

And funnier to see governments paying them. Still. What’s that the conservatives go on about re money go rounds?

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A.Ghebranious  2011  (All Rights Reserved)