corporations are citizens now, aren’t they?

Jon Stewart’s I Give Up – Pay Anthing… on General Electric’s $3.2billion tax profit from 2010.

Yes, teachers, firefighters, and policemen are bankrupting our united states. And the federal government just can’t seem to make the time to do anything about it, seeing how we’re occupied with 3 wars. The greed of public service providers (and not government officials like politicians, they obviously deal with greater financial burdens, that’s why lobbyists and corporations pay them so much money under the table) will ironically bring our country down.

But the greed of companies like General Electric, and many other US owned corporations, only makes the righteous story of capitalism even nobler. It goes to show that it really is a struggle for these major corporations to keep the government off their money. As FDR said, “Taxes, after all, are dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society.” Maybe G.E and others just don’t want to buy into this society? I mean it’s already collapsed economically (and they surely didn’t have anything to do with that), who could blame them? But than the corporations who don’t pay taxes (or their fair share, even) shouldn’t be provided the services (or partial services) of those teachers, firefighters, and policemen. It’s only fair, and fairness is how they play…

fun, and interesting corporate tax rate tid bits:

• G.E.’s reported 2010 profits: $14.2 billion worldwide; $5.1 billion in the United States.
• Corporations compensation of federal revenue: mid-1950s: 30%; 2009: 6.6%.
• G.E. received a $3.2billion tax benefit for 2010. That figures out to a corporate tax rate of -63%.
• The latest data we have shows that in 2005, 2/3 of US controlled corporations paid no income tax.
• “Yet many companies say the current corporate tax rate level is so high it hobbles them in competing with foreign rivals.”—David Kocien for the NY Times. Really? I see a lot of US corporations on the list for the globe’s most profitable corporations in 2009 (including #1 [Wal-Mart]).
• “The IRS estimates that individuals and corporations currently hold $5 trillion in tax haven countries.”—Allison Kilkenny for Truthout
• Remember the American Jobs Creation Act signed into law by ol’ George W. in 2004? It didn’t really create jobs, but it contained more than $13 billion a year in tax breaks for corporations.

The corporations errrrr… I’ve been mistalking of the corporations: as the Supreme Court so righteously ruled, corporations are US citizens. To clear up any confusion about what that means for corporations, the definition of citizen from Merriam-Webster is: “a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it.” Which means those citizens should be contributing to this society. They shouldn’t be exploiting it for their Ferrari driving, vain, blackhearted benefits.

General Electric, and many other US corporations/citizens, need to hear the words of 18th century French economist Anne Robert Jacques Turgo if they still want to buy into this society: “The expenses of government, having for their object the interest of all, should be borne by everyone, and the more a man enjoys the advantages of society, the more he ought to hold himself honored in contributing to those expenses.”

Sites with more information on humanrobot taxes:

• The story of US Uncut looking to capitalize on the success against corporate tax greed in the UK.
• US Uncut’s website.
• The Paradox of Corporate Taxes in America.
• A chart of income taxes by country.
• Moveon.org’s petition to remove G.E.’s CEO Jeff Immelt from being the chair of the President’s Jobs Council.