Corporate Deadbeats: How Companies Get Rich Off Taxes

A nice cover story in Newsweek from David Cay Johnston, worth remarking on because it’s written so clearly and is a powerful indictment of what’s going on in the corporate U.S. at the moment.

A sample from the article:

“How can a tax burden become a boon? Simple. Congress lets multinationals earn profits today but pay their taxes by-and-by. In effect, Uncle Sam is loaning these companies all that money they do not immediately turn over as taxes. And all of these loans come with the same attractive interest rate: zero.

Imagine how your bank statement would look if, instead of having taxes taken out of your weekly paycheck, Congress let you keep that dough in return for your promise to pay your taxes years or decades from now—and sometimes, never.

That’s the extraordinary deal Congress gives many big American companies now sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars of what are, essentially, interest-free loans.”

Now read on.