Speaking of taxes… How appropriate is the timing of this article.. Yup. That’s right. Maybe that might want to take away the depreciation writedown for you and me on our rentals, but they sure don’t want to do it for our corporations… Makes you wonder who/what really ends up paying a fair share..
Notice the last paragraph. Neither party gives a crap… We’re screwed.
Companies use popular provision to avoid income taxes
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than two dozen Fortune 500 companies paid no U.S. federal income taxes in recent years partly because of a corporate tax break that is broadly supported by Republicans and Democrats alike, a consumer group said on Monday.
In at least half of the cases cited by the group, companies made use of accelerated depreciation, a tax provision that allows increased deductions in the early years of the life of an asset.
Citizens for Tax Justice, which advocates steeper corporate taxes, said it surveyed major U.S. companies and found that 26 on average paid no net federal income taxes between 2008 and 2011, among them General Electric and Duke Energy.
“This isn’t fair to the rest of us,” said Bob McIntyre, director of the left-leaning tax research group.
“Things do not get changed in the tax code unless someone asks,” McIntyre said, blaming company lobbying for a failure to thoroughly overhaul the U.S. tax code in 25 years.
Accelerated depreciation will cost the U.S. Treasury $37 billion between 2010 and 2014, according to a recent estimate by Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation.
Still, both President Barack Obama and Republicans have backed an expansion of the tax break through bonus depreciation, which gives companies an even faster and larger first-year write-off. Many policymakers backing accelerated depreciation have cited the need to jump-start the economic recovery.
