(Original Post)
By Patty Murray, Wisconsin Public Radio
Two reports show some of the nation's--and Wisconsin's--largest companies pay little or no corporate income taxes.
The left-leaning group Citizens for Tax Justice looked at regulatory filings of 280 companies. It found many paid only about ten percent in federal corporate income taxes, and 30 paid nothing.
Those findings mirror a smaller report by the Institute for Wisconsin's Future which calls itself a non partisan research group. For the last five months the group has picked different Wisconsin companies and examine their state corporate tax filings.
In his October report researcher Jack Norman says three corporations paid no state income taxes since 2000 through 2009. Another paid three million dollars.
"It's especially a problem because all this crisis, the fiscal crisis of the government federal level and state level," he says. "And the difficulty of having enough money to support government programs. And there is a huge amount of wealth that is simply going untaxed."
Norman says corporations use legal tactics to reduce their tax liabilities, like setting up subsidiaries and moving taxable profits to states with lower burdens.
"So it's a very legal process and it's just the tax system is set up to be gamed and the people that take advantage of it have the resources to pay the top lawyers and accountants who can maneuver them through these legal intricacies," he says.
The data was culled from agencies like the Department of Workforce Development and the state Department of Revenue.