Everyone loves to get a tax refund. Even though it’s the government giving you your own money back, it’s a nice surprise at the beginning of the year to get a check in the mail. It’s certainly better than having to owe money, right? And while most people will grumble under their breath about having to pay taxes in the first place, those of us who do not watch Fox News fully understand that out taxes pay for many of the things we take for granted, like clean water, sanitation, the police, Facebook…
Wait. What? Facebook?!That’s right. You, the taxpayer, are paying for Facebook with your tax dollars:Earlier this month, the Facebook Inc. released its first “10-K” annual financial report since going public last year. Hidden in the report’s footnotes is an amazing admission: despite $1.1 billion in U.S. profits in 2012, Facebook did not pay even a dime in federal and state income taxes.
once again we are feeding the bears in the forest, i would think everybody trying to locate someone has done it by now, exchange emails and starve the beast that gets rich on your back.
Instead, Facebook says it will receive net tax refunds totaling $429 million.And how is a company with over a billion (with a “B”) dollars in profit getting a tax refund? Through the magic of tax loopholes!Facebook’s income tax refunds stem from the company’s use of a single tax break, the tax deductibility of executive stock options. That tax break reduced Facebook’s federal and state income taxes by $1,033 million in 2012, including refunds of earlier years’ taxes of $451 million.This is corporate welfare in its purest form. Facebook is “supposed” to be about connecting people but its real function is to exploit them, and now it’s exploiting the tax code to steal from us as well. That a company as profitable as Facebook pays no taxes is immoral in the first place.That it’s helping itself to half a billion (still with a “B”) in taxpayer money on top of its profits should be a criminal offense.
This is how the system is rigged to allow the rich and powerful to keep their money while taking more of ours. This is why we have greater income equality than ever before. This is the very definition of class warfare. For every penny Facebook and other major corporationsdodge with their taxes, that’s money added to OUR tax burden.
Remember when the GOP screamed and wailed about “takers?” You know, those people who don’t pay taxes because they’re poor but still benefit from government services? Isn’t it strange how this same metric is not applied to mega-corporations? The average American pays between four and five thousand dollars a year in taxes on a median household salary of $50,000.Based on those rough numbers, Facebook helped itself to the taxes of almost 10,000 households. Republicans cry about a mother of two “taking” a couple of thousand a year in food stamps to feed her kids but what’s a few hundred million between rich one percenters? They “earned” that money by bribing Congress to set up all those nice loopholes in the first place. Aren’t they entitled to the fruits of our labor now?
i've said this before those who paid in and most of those who haven't do to circumstances beyond their control are not takers, takers are those who legally or illegaly write laws that gives them in their words the right to strip you bear and milk what they can from the crust of bread they throw on the curb just to keep us able to be exploited a little more.
and those running around parroting "we need to take back our country", it never was taken their attitude toward their fellow Americans is what's losing it for them, what comes around goes around.
