Wells Fargo has 58 subsidiaries in tax havens and spent $11 million lobbying Congress between 2008 and 2010. So even with $49 billion in U.S. profits during that same time period, the report says the company paid what amounts to a negative tax rate: receiving more in federal tax breaks than it paid in taxes.
[Note: This article was originally posted on January 19th, 2012. The IFNM website was attacked by hackers and many articles are now gone from the archives. As a public service, IFNM is now reposting said articles.]
As the economy tanked, some Fortune 500 firms raked in huge profits, all while benefiting from government tax breaks.
The new report is from the left-leaning U.S. Public Interest Research Group and Citizens for Tax Justice. They highlight companies they call “especially aggressive at dodging taxes and lobbying Congress: the Dirty Thirty.”
One-third of them are energy companies. Together, between 2008 and 2010, they reported $164 billion in U.S. profits. Yet the report says most paid what amounts to a negative tax rate, meaning they got more in tax rebates than they paid in taxes. And they spent close to half a billion dollars lobbying Congress.
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