In Study, Most Companies Reported No Taxes
By LYNNLEY BROWNING
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/06/bu...print&position
early two-thirds of the companies operating in the United States reported owing no taxes from 1996 through 2000, according to a recent government study.
Foreign companies doing business here were more likely than American-based ones to claim they owed no taxes, according to the report released late Friday by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
Among American corporations, an average of 6 in 10 reported no tax liabilities on their United States income tax returns filed for the five years from 1996 through 2000, the study found. The percentage of American companies saying they owed nothing increased steadily but slightly in the period, to 63 percent in 2000 from 60.3 percent in 1996.
By contrast, among foreign companies doing business here, 71 percent reported no tax liabilities for each of the five years surveyed. In that period, the percentage of foreign companies claiming no United States tax liabilities rose to 73.3 percent in 2000 from 67.6 percent in 1996.
The study was based on an analysis of Internal Revenue Service data on taxpayer returns from companies across a variety of industries. It was prepared in response to requests by some members of Congress to explore whether companies, in particular foreign-controlled ones, are illegitimately lowering their tax bills.
The study said that age and size differences among companies could account for some discrepancy. Foreign companies doing business here tend to be younger, and thus have greater tax-deductible expenses. But the study also suggested that the use of tax shelters was a factor.
Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said in a statement on Friday that the study showed that loopholes in the tax code "enable foreign-based companies to move billions of dollars in profit overseas, on income generated in the United States."
Still, some tax experts said yesterday that the study offered a misleading view of tax avoidance.
Chris Edwards, director for fiscal policy studies at the Cato Institute, a research group in Washington that favors reduced government spending, said the study overstated the percentage of nontaxpaying companies because it computed tax liabilities relative to a company's total income, not to its net profit or earnings.
Total income, he said, does not take into account what he called normal and often-significant corporate deductions, like salaries and interest.
Daniel J. Mitchell, a tax policy expert at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy and research organization in Washington, said yesterday that an undefined number of companies in the study legitimately did not pay taxes because they did not have any taxable profits, because of cyclical and economic fluctuations.
"Having said that," he said, "there's no question that we have all sorts of complicated provisions in the tax code that make it very easy for clever lawyers and accountants to structure a company's affairs that makes it easier for them to avoid taxes."
hot damn
and its all legal.
add to that loss of revunue our deficit and the look at
our military budget of over 300billion(reported) freaking dollars and we are so screwed as tax payers it's insane.
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