WORST TAX CHEATERS

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT) Consider the good Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders. Always the people’s champion, he’s called for closing corporate tax loopholes to raise more than $400 billion over a ten-year period. He’s also introduced legislation that would impose a 5.4 percent surtax on millionaires and yield up to $50 billion per year. In the House, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky introduced the Fairness in Taxation Act, which would create new tax brackets for millionaires and billionaires. (According to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, the most popular way to reduce the deficit is through a surtax on millionaires, preferred by 81 percent of Americans!) Sanders is also relentless in countering the lies about corporate tax rates. He speaks of the ten worst corporate income tax avoiders: Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009, paid no federal income taxes, and received a $156 million rebate from the IRS; Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, even though it made $4.4 billion in profits and was handed a nearly $1 trillion bailout by taxpayers; General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the US over the past five years, and received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS; Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after taking in $10 billion in profits in 2009; Boeing received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon and a $124 million refund from the IRS last year; Citigroup made more than $4 billion in profits last year and paid no federal income taxes—it also received a $2.5 trillion taxpayer bailout.