tax loopholes

In a video address to the American people over the weekend, President Barack Obama called out big corporations offshoring their taxes at the expense of middle class taxpayers. The president looked to reignite the debate that has stalled out in Congress over closing loopholes that he says "threatens to undermine the progress" of the country's recovery.

Big companies have discovered a loophole that lets them avoid paying their taxes. These tax-dodgers are holding $2 trillion-plus of taxable profits outside of the U.S., on which they could owe as much as $700 billion in taxes. What could our country do with this $700 billion it is owed? These companies discovered that they can move jobs, factories, labs, call centers and profit centers out of the country and by doing that they can avoid paying U.S. corporate taxes.

Global companies are not interested in raising living standards in a particular country or improving any nation’s competitiveness. Their singular goal is to maximize returns to their investors. The success of these corporations has inverted the economic need for competition — from the private sector to the public, from benefiting the consumer and worker to their detriment.

Multinational corporations have built their businesses on the backs of American taxpayers. Yet they've turned around and mocked us with declining tax payments, low wages and dwindling retirement support.

Corporations have simply stopped paying their taxes, perhaps using the 2008 recession as an excuse to plead hardship, but then never restoring their tax obligations when business got better. The facts are indisputable.

Advocates delivered half a pie to every Pennsylvania legislator Tuesday. Why half a pie? To remind them that a decade of large tax cuts for businesses has left schools, health care services and local communities with a smaller share of the state budget pie.