Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, attempted to vanish our outrage to the fact that companies avoid paying taxes which leaves the rest of us to pay. Above is a chart, provided by Huff Post Business and Business Insider, that reflects the minimal amount of corporate income taxes paid compared to the remaining income tax sources.
As you can see, the beige stripe, which reflects corporate tax percentage, is continuing to shrink as compared to 1950. The olive green stripe is growing larger than the beige stripe used to be, which represents the amount of payroll taxes paid to the federal revenue.
What this proves is that payroll taxes account for 35 percent of all tax receipts, up from 11 percent in 1950, and in the last six decades corporate income has drop approximately 26 percent to less than 10 percent of the total of federal revenue. As a result our personal taxes has risen exponentially to fill the void left unpaid by "big business".
Individual income tax, which has remained virtually unchanged in the last 60 years, accounts for 46 percent of the total federal income taxes.
If we are to assume that companies pay half of the payroll taxes collected, this would result in individuals are paying around 63 percent of the total tax burden, up from 45 percent in 1950. From 32 percent in 1950 to a paltry 17 percent in 2010, corporate contributions are definitely showing the unfairness in our current tax code. And we know if anyone can afford to find the loop-holes, it would be corporate America and not individuals.
With the tax laws written the way they are right now, we should not be upset that they allow Apple to keep as much as $102 billion in off-shore accounts, or that other companies are doing the same. We should be angry that the lawmakers have let these laws stand without revision and that the "new reform" will not only still allow the practice to stand, it might even encourage it to keep big business in this country alive and "healthy".
Corporate America pays a great deal of money to political campaigns and lobbying efforts to make sure their growing profits are kept off-shore. The profits you and I make possible by purchasing their products and services.
