Dozens of Top US Firms Have Avoided Tax Under Bush, Says Study

by Leroy Baker, Tax-News.com, New York

24 September 2004

According to the findings of a study conducted by pressure group Citizens for Tax Justice, 82 of America’s largest corporations avoided paying federal income tax for at least one year during the first three years of President George W. Bush’s presidency.

The CTJ’s report, undertaken in conjunction with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), examined the 275 profitable Fortune 500 companies with total profits of $1.1 trillion from 2001 through 2003. One-third of these supposedly paid no or federal income tax for at least one of those years.

Thanks to tax rebate checks from the US Treasury totalling $12.6 billion, the study claimed that 28 of these corporations actually enjoyed negative tax rates during the period in question.

For all 275 firms included in the study, the CTJ and ITEP calculated that the average effective tax rate fell from 21.4% in 2001 to 17.2% in 2002 and 2003.

“The sharp increase in the number of tax-avoiding companies reflects the results of aggressive corporate lobbying and a White House and a Congress eager to do the lobbyists’ bidding,” remarked Robert S. McIntyre, director of CTJ and co-author of the report with T.D. Coo Nguyen of ITEP.

Democrats seized on the findings, with John Kerry's economic adviser, Jason Furman claiming in a Dow Jones report that the results prove that President Bush is “utterly hypocritical” when he talks of second term tax reforms.

However, former Bush administration Treasury official Pamela Olson questioned the methodology of the study, commenting in the same Dow Jones report that the authors were “more interested in phony arguments about tax avoidance than about policies that put American workers back to work."

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