If you listened to many conservative candidates over the last few months you would think that the American corporation is the most oppressed entity in the country.  According to Republican talking points, corporations are struggling with the unbelievably high corporate tax rate in America, which currently sits at 35%.  Numerous Republican candidates have advocated lowering the coporate tax rate, which they argue would stimulate the economy.  However, in reality corporations use a number of tax loopholes an fancy accounting to reduce their tax rate significantly.  As Rachel Maddow demonstrated last night, corporations like General Electric and Bank of America ended up paying $0 in federal taxes despite making billions in profits.

Just like individuals, corporations can take advantage of the tax code to reduce the tax rate they would otherwise have to pay.  The difference being that instead of hiring H & R Block to find them a $2,000 deduction, corporations hire the best tax attorneys in the country and pay them over $500 per-hour to reduce their tax bill by billions.  Over time, with the help of Republican legislatures and presidents, the tax code has been shaped to allow many corporations to avoid all tax liability.  The most infamous of these tax loopholes allows large corporations, like General Electric, to claim that all their profits are in overseas accounts, and therefore not taxable in the United States.  The result is that Bank of America (with a profit of $6.28 billion in 2009) and General Electric (with a profit of over $10 billion) paid no federal taxes in 2009.  The fact that Maddow called out General Electric is particularly brave on her part since that corporation actually owns the network that airs her show.  There are dozen of other corporations who, like GE and BOA, made large profits without paying any federal income tax.  Even the wildly successful Google corporation, which made over $60 billion in profits, paid only 2.4% in federal taxes.

While these corporations pay zero in taxes, the average middle-class family of four is paying about 4.6% of their income in federal taxes (again accounting for various deductions, credits, etc.)  That percentage does not include taxes paid to state and local government.  Social Security (approximately 7% of income) and Medicare (approximately 3% of income) are also not included.  Yet, as Maddow shows, Republican candidates seem very concerned about lowering taxes on the corporation, while not showing the same sort of zealousness for helping out middle-class Americans. 

Furthermore, if Republicans gain a majority in Congress, they have promised to accept nothing less than an extension of the Bush tax cut for all tax brackets.  In contrast, Democrats and the Obama administration have pushed for an extension of only the tax cuts for people making less than $250,000.  What this practically means is that Republicans would push not only for reducing the already low taxes on corporation, but also for reducing the taxes of the billionaire owners and CEO's of those corporations.

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