ECONOMY: Thirty companies paid no U.S. income tax 2008-2010: report > Reuters

Thirty companies paid no U.S.

income tax 2008-2010: report

By Kevin Drawbaugh

Thu Nov 3, 2011 1:56pm EDT

 

(Reuters) - Thirty large and profitable U.S. corporations paid no income taxes in 2008 through 2010, said a study on Thursday that arrives as Congress faces rising demands for tax reform but seems unable or unwilling to act.

Pepco Holdings Inc, a Washington, D.C.-area power company, had the lowest effective tax rate, at negative 57.6 percent, among the 280 Fortune 500 companies studied.

The statutory U.S. corporate income tax rate is 35 percent, one of the highest in the world; but over the 2008-2010 period, very few of the companies studied paid it, said the report.

The average effective tax rate for the companies over the period was 18.5 percent, said Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, both think tanks.

Their report also listed General Electric Co, Paccar Inc, PG&E Corp, Computer Sciences Corp, Boeing Co and NiSource Inc as among the 30 that paid no taxes.

(For a related graphic, click on r.reuters.com/ryb84s).

Corporations will say rightly that the loopholes that let them slash their taxes were perfectly legal, the report said.

"But that does not mean that low-tax corporations bear no responsibility ... The laws were not enacted in a vacuum; they were adopted in response to relentless corporate lobbying, threats and campaign support," the report said.

Some of the 30 companies disputed the report's findings.

A Pepco spokesman said it "pays all its required taxes."

Boeing paid its taxes "between 2008-2010 ... Our effective income tax rate was 26.5 percent, 22.9 percent, 33.6 percent in 2010, 2009, 2008," said a spokesman for the aerospace group.

PRESSING FOR MORE

As Congress and the Obama administration struggle with a sluggish economy and high deficits, corporations are pressing Capitol Hill for more tax breaks and a lower corporate rate.

Taxes are on the agenda of the congressional "super committee" tasked with finding at least $1.2 trillion in additional budget savings by November 23, but it is so far deadlocked across a familiar divide -- Republicans refusing any tax increases, Democrats defending social programs.

On Tuesday, a panel of budget experts warned super committee members they would fail the country if they did not meet their goal. Financial markets have been waiting for many months for signs that Washington can get its financial house in order, but few have been forthcoming.

The report referred back to the 1986 tax reform pushed through by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, who approved the largest corporate tax increase in U.S. history, largely by ending tax breaks, while cutting individual tax rates.

"Reagan solved the problem by sweeping away corporate tax loopholes," said the report, which was coauthored by Citizens for Tax Justice chief Robert McIntyre. His research 25 years ago played a key role in convincing Reagan reform was needed.

The industrial machinery business enjoyed the lowest effective tax rate during the study period, while the highest rate was paid by healthcare companies, the report said.

"Big Business is getting away with taxation murder," said Frank Knapp, vice chairman of the American Sustainable Business Council, a progressive business coalition.

"They pay little or no taxes on massive U.S. profits and then have the gall to lobby for ... a tax holiday to 'repatriate' profits they have stashed offshore."

MANY TAX BREAKS

What are some of the tax breaks that corporations enjoy? One big one is accelerated depreciation that lets them write off equipment faster than it actually wears out. Deductions on executive stock options help. So do tax breaks for research and development and for making products in the United States instead of overseas. Offshore tax shelters play a role, too.

Power group Duke Energy Corp was one of the 30 companies listed as paying no income taxes in 2008-2010.

Chief Executive James Rogers told Reuters that Duke cut its taxes thanks to accelerated depreciation, which he said helped the company build new plants and hire construction workers.

Rogers is a frequent spokesman for a coalition of large multinationals seeking a tax break that would let them bring foreign profits into the United States at a reduced tax rate.

Others among the 30 companies included power producer American Electric Power Co Inc (AEP), chemicals company DuPont and toymaker Mattel Inc.

Like Duke, AEP said it benefited from accelerated depreciation. A Mattel spokesperson said the report's claims were inconsistent with the company's public financial filings.

"DuPont complies with all tax laws and regulations in every jurisdiction in which it operates," said a DuPont spokeswoman.

The average effective corporate tax rate, as calculated by McIntyre's group, was about 14 percent before the Reagan reforms; afterward it shot up to 26.5 percent in 1988.

As companies found their way around the reforms, the effective rate fell back to about 17 percent by 2002-2003.

Unlike in Reagan's time, taming corporate tax breaks alone will not solve the deficit problem. Such breaks cost the government about $102 billion in lost revenues in 2011, a year when the federal deficit was an estimated $1.3 trillion.

Corporate loopholes are dwarfed by tax breaks that benefit individuals, such as the mortgage interest tax deduction -- a middle class sacred cow, on its own worth $104 billion.

Still, said the report: "If we are going to get our nation's fiscal house in order, increasing corporate income taxes should play an important role."

(Additional reporting by Matt Daily, Ernest Scheyder, Dhanya Skariachan in New York; Kyle Peterson in Chicago, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

via reuters.com

 

PUB: Five Points - A Journal of Literature & Art

Five Points James Dickey Prize for Poetry


Winner receives $1000 and publication in the Volume 15, number 3 issue

 

COMPLETE GUIDELINES:

  • Send up to three unpublished poems. Poems must be typed and no longer than 50 lines each. Simultaneously submitted work permitted.
  • Include your name and address on each poem.
  • $20 reading fee includes a one-year subscription to Five Points. Make checks or money orders payable to Georgia State University/Five Points.
  • Enclose two sufficiently stamped SASEs if you want to receive receipt of your manuscript and notification of contest results.
  • All entries must be postmarked by December 1, 2011.
  • We reserve the right to return any entry that does not meet the above guidelines.
  • Winner will be announced in Spring 2012.

MAIL YOUR ENTRY TO:
Five Points
James Dickey Prize for Poetry
Georgia State University
P.O. Box 3999
Atlanta, GA 30302-3999.

OR click here to submit your poems online

* Entries for the James Dickey Prize will be accepted between the dates of September 1, 2011 through December 1, 2011

Click here to pay reading fees

via fivepoints.gsu.edu

 

PUB: Sinclair Poetry Prize

$500 and publication by the Evening Street Press will be awarded for the best full-length manuscript of original poetry. The contest is open to poets who have already published book length collections as well as those for whom this is a first book. The winning poet will receive 25 copies from a press run of 250. Submissions accepted May 1, 2011 to December 1, 2011.

 Manuscript Requirements

  • ms. must contain between 48 and 84 pages of poetry (some of which may be previously published)
  • ms. must be typed (double or single spaced)
  • ms. pages must be numbered and a table of contents included
  • include an acknowledgements page
  • include one cover page that contains the title, your name, address, phone number, and e-mail address
  • include a second cover page that contains the title only
  • your name must not appear anywhere else on the ms.
  • SASE for results--manuscripts will not be returned

 Reading Fee

The $25 reading fee includes a one-issue subscription to the Evening Street Review.  Make check or money order payable to Evening Street Press. We reserve the right not to name a winner.

 Multiple & Simultaneous Submissions

 You may submit more than one manuscript.  Send multiple submissions in the same envelope, marked “Multiple.”  Each manuscript must include a $25 reading fee. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but we must be informed immediately if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere.

 

Mail entries (no email submissions, please) to Evening Street Press, 7652 Sawmill Road #352, Dublin, OH 43016-9296.

via eveningstreetpress.com

 

PUB: River Teeth -- Book Contest

River Teeth Literary

Nonfiction Prize Series

Congratulations to Lisa Catherine Harper, winner of the 2010 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize for A Double Life: Discovering Motherhood.

River Teeth's editors and editorial board conduct a yearly national contest to identify the best book-length manuscript of literary nonfiction. The winner will be announced in March of the prize year.  The winner will receive $1,000 and publication by the University of Nebraska Press.

All entrants will receive a one-year subscription to River Teeth with their submission fee.

The 2012 Contest Deadline is December 1, 2011.

General Guidelines:

  1. Manuscripts must be between 150-400 pages long
  2. Manuscripts must be double-spaced
  3. Include a title page with title only
  4. Include a cover page with title and contact information
  5. Include a $25 contest fee
  6. Postmark Deadline is December 1 , 2011.
  7. Mail entries to:

 

RIVER TEETH

Ashland University

401 College Ave.

Ashland, OH 44805

All Books Published by The University of Nebraska Press

 

http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu

 

via static.ashland.edu

 

INFO: Breath of Life—Miles Davis Quintet, Charles Lloyd featuring Maria Farantouri, and Amerigo Gazaway mashing up Fela Kuti & De La Soul

A wild and wonderful week featuring newly issued The Miles Davis Quintet (Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams), a stupendous concert recording from Charles Lloyd featuring Greek vocalist Maria Farantouri, and rounded out by Amerigo Gazaway’s mash up of Fela Kuti and De La Soul. Ah, the music, the music!

http://www.kalamu.com/bol/

 

__________________________

 

 

 

Charles Lloyd has long been known for his investigations of alternative modes of spiritual concentration, specifically transcendental meditation, but he achieves nirvana with this concert that features Greek vocalist Maria Farantouri and guest musicans Socratis Sinopoulos on lyra (a traditional string instrument that sounds like a violin) and Takis Farazis on piano/arranger, in addition to Lloyd’s regular bandmates Jason Moran on piano, Reuben Rogers on acoustic bass, and Eric Harland on drums. This is sacred music celebrating life itself, celebrating the strength and courage required to survive and overcome whatever would attempt to exploit and/or deaden life.

 

We often acknowledge western culture as Greco-Roman-based and make all kinds of philosophical and mythic connections between Greek antiquity and contemporary American existence. Throw the pseudo-philosophical simplicities out the window. This is music that is based in the struggles of two different cultures to overcome oppression.

 

Jazz was founded in the quest for freedom. And the Greek music chosen for this concert, even when based on centuries old folk music, is ultimately a reflection of contemporary Greek struggles against tyranny and economic exploitation. Built into both the Greek and the African American cultures are the use of lamentations as an expression of resistance, and a belief in the power of music to enable survival of otherwise unbearable hardships.

 

Moreover, not only is Maria Farantouri celebrated as a curator of Greek song who went into exile during the period of the Greek military takeover, she also returned to her homeland after the political departure of the military and in 1989 was elected to the Greek Parliament as Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) MP. The sociological and political concordances between these two seemingly separate cultures are real and deep.

 

You hear a mutual emphasis on freedom and beauty throughout this interlocking suite of songs that are deeply felt by Greek audiences and simultaneously sound very familiar to jazz audiences (even though in truth most of us are hearing this music for the first time and don’t have a clue to the literal meaning of the lyrics). The beauty of the Athens Concert is that the cultural constraints and our own limitations melt away as we grasp the illumination at the core of the music: real life is about celebrating existence and sharing love.

 

—kalamu ya salaam

CULTURE: Where Went Black Fatherhood?

"Dear Daddy"

- The pain of

fatherless women

 


A very painful documentary about the effects of the absence of a black father in the lives of eight young women. Although it's an African American documentary, the problem of the absentee black father is also an issue in many black European communities.

Dear Daddy is a feature length documentary about the life long effects of fatherlessness on women. The film follows the dramatic journeys of eight young women from the tough city streets of Washington,DC as they struggle to overcome poverty, poor educational systems, no healthcare, and the most difficult life circumstance they have been dealt… the absence of their fathers.
 

According to the blog of the film, 82.3% is the number of African American children born since 1990 that will not live in the same home as their biological fathers before graduating High School.

Check out the full story at http://whatblackmenthink.com

Needless to say, there are black men who do care for their families.

To end, a video from the UK about Black Fatherhood in the 21st Century

 

 

via afroeurope.blogspot.com

__________________________

 

Rough Cut

for the New Film

“Father’s Day?”

64

 

Squeaky Moore and Ashley Shante are making things happen with the new film, “Father’s Day?”  The film explores the impact of fatherless homes on Black Americans.  A behind-the-scenes clip is below.  The bottom clip is the trailer for the film.

 

 

 

>via: http://yourblackwoman.blogspot.com/2011/10/rough-cut-for-new-film-fathers-day...

__________________________

 

Charles Johnson

 

WHERE HAVE

ALL THE BLACK FATHERS

GONE?

E. Ethelbert Miller asks: In his essay "I Was My Father's Father, and He My Child": The Process of Black Fatherhood and Literary Evolution in Charles Johnson's Fiction" William R. Nash writes about the fatherless males in your work. This seems far from your personal experience and life. Since this theme appears in some of your early work can we conclude that you would not write about it today?


Charles Johnson: When I was growing up in a Chicago suburb in the 1950s, I was one of the few black kids in my neighborhood who had a father (and an excellent one, at that). Many of my black friends were being raised by single mothers. This was an extraordinarily painful social situation then, as it is now. I remember talking with one of my best friends about our future dreams just before we graduated from high school. He was a good kid, always joking and cheerful. But that day, as we stood on the sidewalk in front of my father's house, he confessed that he feared he wasn't smart enough to go to college. And then he said, "I don't even know who my fatheris." I was at a loss for words. Clearly, this confession hurt him. It was something---a burden, a pain, an ache---he carried every minute of every day, but never spoke about. (That friend enlisted in the Navy after we graduated, then became a minister.) Decades later, when my daughter brought one of her boyfriends by our house for the first time to meet my wife and myself, that childhood event was echoed when this young man said (later to my daughter) that ours was the firsthouse he'd been to in his thirty years of living where there was both a black mother and a black father.

Seventy percent of young black children today have no father in their homes. As newspaper columnist William Raspberry once put it, this is no longer a "problem." It is a condition. I remember talking once with my former editor at The New York Times Book Review about the plays of August Wilson. After some discussion, it became clear to both of us that the play August always wanted to write---but didn't---was one about the anguish he felt from childhood caused by the absence of his white (German) father from his life. ("He wasn't around much," was the way August put it, bitterly.) Why he didn't write about that is understandable. It's too painful. I remember, too, once giving an interview to a white woman reporter in my office in the English Department at the University of Washington. At some point during that interview, I mentioned my childhood and my father. And what did this woman say to me? "Oh! You had a father?" Pardon my English, but I've long regretted the fact that I didn't bitch-slap this person right then, right there, when she said that. I should have kicked her out of my office. (She was very lucky, believe me, that I try to live my life non-violently as a Buddhist. But remember: I grew up in the environs of Chicago. Bitch-slapping was a thought that crossed my mind but, thanks to vipassana and being raised right, I let it go to maintain Right Action and Right Speech. Black Buddhists have to practice such restraint in the white world all the time.)

Because I did have a strong black man as a father, one who was the most moral man I've every known. Who loved black people. Who taught me how to work, be a man, and take care of my loved ones. I thanked him all my life for that gift. The gift of his example, which I grew up seeing night and day. (Today, my South Carolina relatives remark all the time about how uncanny it is that I look so much like him, that they often think they're talking to my late Dad when they're talking to and looking at me.) But so many of our young black men today do not have their biological father living with them or significantly present in their lives. I've written many times, and in many places, that this situation profoundly destabilizes the black family. And that destabilizes the entire black community. 
Just yesterday, columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. of the The Washington Post, wrote in his piece "A Bargain For the American Family," that "The impact of the single-parent family on the well-being of children has sometimes been an explosive matter because it is often discussed in relation to the African-American community. Obama himself has made this explicit link...'We know that children who grow up without a father are more likely to live in poverty...They're more likely to drop out of school. They're more likely to wind up in prison. They're more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol. They're more likely to become teenage parents themselves.' Growing up without a father (Obama said) 'leaves a hole in a child's life that no government can fill.'...Black men do face a crisis...It does not demean the heroic work of dedicated single mothers to say that two-parent families have a better shot at prosperity."

 So, yes, in my fiction I've often grappled with this problem that is so raw, so  intractable, and so old that we usually prefer not to even speak its name. Rutherford Calhoun in Middle Passage and both Matthew Bishop and Chaym Smith inDreamer have never known their fathers. I've always wondered: How can you honor your father if you don't know who he is? How do you determine, then, whoyou are? Believe me, I will return in my fiction, today and tomorrow, to this genuinely dire sociological and existential characteristic---the Absent Father---of black life in America, because nearly all of our problems as a people can be traced to it. It was a problem that I did not have, personally. But it has left a deep scar, a wound, on so many black people, male and female, that I've known in my life. Actually, if we cannot repair this generations-old problem, then I am not optimistic about the future of black America.

Posted by Ethelbert Miller