AMT Case Studies: Who Are the Companies Complaining About the AMT, and What Do They Pay in Taxes?

October 29, 2001 04:20 PM | | Bookmark and Share

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Related CTJ Analyses
Analysis of Senate Stimulus Plan 10/29/01
Analysis of House Stimulus Plan 10/15/01
Impact of Accelerated Rate Cuts 10/15/01
$7.4 Billion in AMT Relief for 16 Corporations 10/26/01
Corporate Income Taxes in the 1990s 10/19/00

Last year, IBM reported $5.7 billion in pretax U.S. profits. Despite a supposed 35 percent corporate tax rate, IBM’s actual federal income tax bill was only 3.4 percent of its pretax U.S. earnings. Without the AMT, IBM would have paid a mere 0.2 percent.*

In 2000, Ford Motor Co. reported $9.4 billion in pretax U.S. profits, but it paid only 6.3 percent of that in federal income taxes.* The previous year, Ford paid only 5 percent on $9.3 billion in pretax U.S. profits. Ford’s annual report doesn’t offer full disclosure, but it appears that without the AMT, Ford would have paid virtually nothing in taxes over the past two years.

General Motors reported $2.9 billion in pretax U.S. profits in 2000. Despite the AMT, GM paid no federal income tax at all. Instead, GM got a outright tax rebate of $105 million.* In fact, over the past six years, GM has paid nothing in federal income taxes, despite $22.4 billion in pretax U.S. profits!

In 1998 and 1999, General Electric reported a total of $21.3 billion in pretax U.S. profits. It paid a mere 8.8 percent of that in federal income taxes. Without the AMT, GE’s tax rate would have been only 4.6 percent.

United Airlines earned $1.2 billion in pretax U.S. profits in 1998, but paid only 8.6 percent of that in federal income taxes. Without the AMT, United would have paid only 3.8 percent.

Comdisco reported $181 million in pretax U.S. profits in 1998, and paid just 6.1 percent of that in federal income taxes. Without the AMT, Comdisco’s tax bill would have been negative—it would have gotten an outright tax rebate from the U.S. Treasury.

*Updated to reflect tax benefits from stock options.
Compiled from corporate annual reports by Citizens for Tax Justice, Oct. 2001(updated Nov 2001).


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Senate Republicans Up “Stimulus” Ante to $220 Billion Over 3 Years

October 29, 2001 12:23 PM | | Bookmark and Share

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Senate Republicans have proposed even larger upper-income and corporate tax cuts than the bloated “stimulus” measure passed by the House last week on a party-line vote. Over the first three years, the Senate GOP measure would cut taxes by $220 billion, compared to $212 billion under the House bill. Earlier, there was a bipartisan agreement between the President and congressional leaders to limit additional stimulus measures to $50-75 billion.

  • More than half of the tax cuts proposed by Senate Republicans for next year would go to the best-off one percent of all taxpayers, whose average tax cut in 2002 would be $33,843 each.
  • In contrast, only 6 percent of the proposed 2002 tax cuts would go to the bottom three-fifths of taxpayers, whose average 2002 tax cut would be $67.

The GOP bill would (1) accelerate to 2002 the reductions in the top income tax rates scheduled to take effect in 2006; (2) repeal the corporate alternative minimum tax on large, profitable, low-tax corporations; and (3) allow corporations to write off an extra 30 percent of their equipment purchases (in 2002-04). In addition, the personal tax rebates sent out earlier this year would be extended to many taxpayers who were previously ineligible.

“Who would have thought that a national emergency would set off a feeding frenzy by corporations and the wealthy?” said Robert S. McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice. “And who could have imagined that so many of our nation’s elected officials would eagerly go along with this monstrous demonstration of greed?”


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The House’s $212 Billion Special-Interest Love Feast, from the American Prospect

October 22, 2001 04:22 PM | | Bookmark and Share

Special-interest zeal to co-opt the national crisis as an excuse for huge new upper-income tax breaks continues unabated in Washington, D.C.

As I write this, the House is on the verge of approving a bloated “stimulus” tax-cut bill that makes a mockery of the previous bipartisan agreement between congressional leaders and the administration that additional stimulus measures should be temporary and limited to a total of $50-75 billion. Instead, House Republicans have put forward a laundry list of new tax breaks, some explicitly permanent, that are officially expected to cost a staggering $212 billion over the next three fiscal years— and who knows how much thereafter.

With typical dishonesty, the bill’s backers are characterizing it as a $99 billion measure, by referring only to its first-year cost. Sadly, the press is going along with this charade.

Two-thirds of this latest round of GOP tax cuts would go to corporations. The individual tax changes, which include a 10 percent drop in capital gains taxes, are also sharply tilted towards the wealthy. Overall, almost three-quarters of the total tax reductions next year (including the benefits to capital owners from the corporate breaks) would go to the top tenth of all taxpayers. That includes the 41 percent that would go the bestoff one percent, whose average tax cut in 2002 would be almost $27,000 each.

Read the Full Report


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House GOP “Stimulus” Bill offers 16 Large, Low-Tax Corporations $7.4 Billion in Instant Tax Rebates

October 16, 2001 12:24 PM | | Bookmark and Share

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Related CTJ Analyses
Analysis of Senate GOP Stimulus Plan 10/29/01
Analysis of House Stimulus Plan 10/26/01
AMT Case Studies 10/29/01
Corporate Income Taxes in the 1990s 10/19/00

The “stimulus” tax-cut bill just approved by the House Ways and Means Committee calls for some $25 billion in immediate tax rebates to large profitable corporations that paid the low-rate “alternative minimum tax” over the past decade and a half because loopholes cut their regular income tax bills to little or nothing.

Some $7.4 billion of these corporate rebate checks would be made out to just 16 tax-avoiding Fortune 500 companies—each of whcih would get more than $100 million in rebates. (These companies reported a total of more than $42 billion in pretax U.S. profits last year.)

 

16 Corporations with More than $100 Million in AMT Credit Carryforwards at the End of 2000
Company AMT Rebates under the
House GOP Tax Bill,
$-millions
IBM $ 1,424
Ford Motor Co.* 1,000
General Motors 833
General Electric 671
TXU (Texas Utilities Company) 608
DaimlerChrysler** 600
ChevronTexaco 572
UAL (United Airlines) 371
Enron 254
Phillips Petroleum 241
AMR (American Airlines) 184
IMC Global 155
Comdisco 144
CMS Energy 136
Westvaco 112
Kmart 102
Total, these 16 Companies $ 7,407
Source: Corporate Annual Reports for 2000, except as noted.
*As disclosed by Ford to the Detroit News, Oct. 26, 2001.
**As reported by DaimlerChrysler to Automotive News
Citizens for Tax Justice, Oct. 26, 2001 (added Ford & Kmart)
  • Topping the list is IBM, slated to get a $1.4 billion rebate check. Ford is next at $1 billion, followed by General Motors at $833 million, General Electric at $671 million, TXU (Texas Utilities) at $608 million, DaimlerChrysler at $600 million, and ChevronTexaco at $572 million.

     

  • The 16 low-tax companies that would get more than $100 million each under the GOP-backed bill include five in the energy business, along with the three largest U.S. automakers. Two companies are in the airline industry, which is receiving $15 billion in grants and loans under already passed legislation.

     

  • The bill’s proposed total of $25 billion in instant rebates for profitable tax-avoiding corporations is almost twice as big as the $13.7 billion in added individual rebates that the tax committee decided to provide to 37 million, mostly low-income families and singles whose 2000 earnings were too low to qualify for the previous round of personal tax rebates.

Under the bill, the “AMT” would be repealed (to facilitate future tax sheltering) and corporations would be entitled to an immediate rebate of any alternative minimum tax they paid since the tax was established in 1986. In contrast, under current law, a company that pays the AMT can get a refund in a later year only if its regular income tax payments exceed the AMT that year. Many profitable companies have so many loopholes that they never pay enough in regular income taxes to use these “AMT credit carryforwards.”

 

 


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$212 Billion House GOP “Stimulus” Tax Bill Would Almost Double Bush Tax Cuts Over Next Three Years

October 15, 2001 05:28 PM | | Bookmark and Share

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The House Ways and Means Committee, on a party line vote, has approved a bill that over the next three years would almost double the size of the Bush tax cuts enacted last May. Officially, the new corporate and individual tax cuts are estimated to cost $212 billion over the next three fiscal years (and the actual cost is likely to be considerably higher).

A distributional analysis of the bill’s effect in calendar 2002 finds:

  • Forty-one percent of the tax cuts would go the best-off one percent of all taxpayers, whose average tax cut in 2002 would be almost $27,000 each.
  • Almost three-quarters of the 2002 tax cuts would go to the best off tenth of all taxpayers.
  • Only 7 percent of the tax cuts would go the bottom three-fifths of taxpayers.

Major items in the Ways & Means October 12 “stimulus” tax bill include:

Corporate tax cuts:

  • The largest corporate tax loophole under current law—accelerated depreciation—would be almost doubled, at an estimated cost of $109 billion over the next three years. Ostensibly, these additional tax subsidies will expire after 2004, but similar “temporary” measures enacted in the past have typically been routinely extended.
  • The bill would permanently repeal the corporate alternative minimum tax that now discourages corporate tax sheltering and forces some otherwise low- and no-tax large, profitable corporations to pay at least something in taxes. In addition, companies that paid the minimum tax in the past would get an immediate refund of those payments. This would officially cost $24 billion over 10 years, and more likely two or three times that much due to increased tax sheltering not reflected in the “official” estimate. A large share of this money would go to just a handful of companies, including IBM, General Motors, General Electric, and Chevron Texaco.
  • The bill would make it easier for corporations with “tax losses” to use them to apply for refunds of taxes they paid in the past, at a cost of more than $10 billion over the next three years. Like the increase in depreciation write-offs, this provision is technically supposed to expire after 2004.
  • An expiring current-law tax shelter for multinational corporations, notably General Electric and the major auto companies, which allows them to shift taxable profits off-shore through manipulations of interest payments would be made permanent. The estimated cost over ten years is $21 billion.

Individual tax cuts:

  • The top income tax rate on capital gains would be reduced from 20 percent to 18 percent.(1) Assuming no increase in realized gains, this would cut taxes by $10 billion in calendar 2002 alone (with three quarters of that going to the top 1%). If as some predict, realizations go up, then the upper-income tax savings will be even larger.
  • The cut in the former 28 percent tax rate to 25 percent, scheduled to take effect in 2006 under the Bush tax-cut bill enacted earlier this year, would be accelerated to 2002. (Unless changed, under current law the rate will be 27 percent in 2002 and 2003, 26 percent in 2004 and 2005, and 25 percent in 2006 and thereafter.)
  • Individual exemptions from the alternative minimum tax would be temporarily increased.
  • The 2001 tax rebates of $600 for couples, $500 for single parents, and $300 for childless singles would be extended to about 37 million couples and individuals who did not get them or got less than the full amounts. To qualify, a person or couple must have filed a tax return for tax year 2000. For those affected, the $13.7 billion in additional 2001 rebates would average about $350.

 


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Proposed Capital Gains Tax Cut Would Divert Stimulus Funds to the Very Wealthy

October 12, 2001 12:25 PM | | Bookmark and Share

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Related CTJ Analyses
Analysis of House Stimulus Plan 10/15/01
Impact of Accelerated Rate Cuts 10/5/01
Impact of Capital Gains Proposal 10/12/01

House Republicans continue to push for a reduction in income taxes on capital gains. The latest proposal, from Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), would cut the top capital gains rate from the current 20 percent to 18 percent. (1)

A distributional analysis of the Thomas proposal finds:

  • More than 70 percent of the proposed tax cuts would go to the best-off one percent of all taxpayers. The average tax cut for these taxpayers would be $5,356 in 2002.
  • Ninety-three percent of the tax cuts would go to the top 10 percent.
  • In contrast, for the bottom 80 percent of taxpayers, the capital gains tax reduction would be worth virtually nothing.

According to stock broker Charles Schwab, who is lobbying for a capital gains tax cut, the current 20 percent capital gains tax rate has led to “stock prices that [are] too high”—implying that a lower capital gains tax rate would depress the stock market. (2)

“Our country is in the middle of a war against terrorism, our economy is staggering, and all these guys can think of is more tax cuts for the rich,” said Robert S. McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice. “It’s just plain weird.”


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Bush’s Misguided “Stimulus” Plan

October 9, 2001 05:31 PM | | Bookmark and Share

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Supply-Siders Go to War

When Abraham Lincoln faced the dissolution of the nation in the early 1860s, he imposed new taxes on the wealthy to help pay to save the Union. When Franklin Roosevelt took America to war against the Nazis, he sharply increased taxes on businesses and the rich to help fund that crusade. Now George W. Bush is leading a new battle against international terrorism, and insists that as part of that effort, we need to cut taxes on corporations and the best-off Americans!

In late September, Bush and congressional Democrats seemed to have reached general agreement on what should be done to boost our sagging economy. The goal of saving the Social Security surpluses for the future would have to be put on hold for a while to deal with the current crises. But both sides said they accepted the advice of Alan Greenspan and other economists that additional stimulus measures should be temporary to avoid exacerbating our long-term fiscal problems, which are already keeping long-term interest rates too high. Moreover, they agreed, relief measures should be targeted to help those hit hardest by the downturn. It all sounded so “bi-partisan,” so surprisingly sensible. Had our 43rd President really grown up in office?

In early October, however, Bush changed his tune dramatically. He repudiated the consensus agreement that a stimulus package’s fiscal effects should be temporary. He nixed plans to help people who’ve lost their jobs and health insurance, in favor of a package limited exclusively to tax cuts. In short, rather than focusing on short-term assistance to people and areas that need it most, Bush now wants to give huge, permanent tax breaks to those who need help the least.

On the corporate side, Bush would repeal the corporate minimum tax that now discourages corporate tax sheltering and forces some otherwise low- and no-tax large corporations to pay at least something in taxes. This would officially cost at least $22 billion over 10 years, and more likely two or three times that much. He wants to let companies take even more excessive “accelerated depreciation,” that is, write-offs for capital expenses they haven’t actually incurred, thus permanently expanding what’s already the biggest corporate tax loophole by $265 billion over the next decade. And he proposes to make it easier for corporations with “tax losses” to use them to apply for refunds of taxes they paid in the past, with a 10-year cost of $15 billion.

Perhaps worst of all, Bush wants to speed up the reductions in the top personal income tax rates enacted earlier this year, so that they take full effect starting in 2002 rather than in 2006. If Bush gets his way, next year the top income tax rate would drop to 35 percent, compared to 38.6 percent under current law. The 35 percent rate would go to 33 percent, the 30 percent rate to 28 percent, and the 27 percent rate to 25 percent. The current 10 percent and 15 percent rates would remain unchanged.

The benefits of these proposed income tax rate cuts are extraordinarily skewed. Well over half would go to the richest one percent of all taxpayers, whose average 2002 tax cut would exceed $16,000. Four-fifths would go to the best-off ten percent. In contrast, for three out of four taxpayers, the president’s proposal would provide exactly zero in tax reduction.

If adopted, accelerating the income tax rate cuts would reduce taxes on the wealthy by $122 billion over the next four years. That’s bad enough, but the long-term budget and tax policy effects are even worse. Bush’s people disingenuously argue that speeding up the tax cuts would be only a “temporary” measure, since they’ll eventually happen anyway—a line that has fooled some gullible journalists. But the truth is that Bush and his advisors fear the growing public sentiment in favor of repealing the impending tax cuts in light of our new spending needs and long-term fiscal problems. They want to lock the tax cuts in now, before that sentiment becomes politically irresistible.

To be sure, Bush does propose a tax-cut sop for the Democrats. He’s finally willing to extend the 2001 tax rebates to some 35 million taxpayers who didn’t get them or got less than the full amounts because they didn’t owe enough in income taxes, although they did pay plenty in payroll taxes. This $11 billion or so in one-shot rebates will be welcomed both by the economy and those who receive the checks, but it won’t come close to justifying the huge negative effects of the rest of Bush’s tax proposals.

Our President’s supply-side zeal to co-opt our national emergency by showering more tax breaks on corporations and the wealthy must be resisted. His plan would use up funds that could otherwise go to help those most in need. It would be ineffective as a demand stimulus—indeed, it’s counterproductive, since by making our future fiscal problems even worse, it will push up long-term interest rates. Finally, it’s an outrageous slap in the face to ordinary, patriotic taxpayers who are so willing to sacrifice for the good of America.

Rather than speeding up his beloved future tax cuts, our President should admit that they’re unaffordable and call for their delay or repeal. Then he can get back to working with Democrats on an economic recovery package that actually makes sense.

—Robert S. McIntyre, October 9, 2001, Issue #19

 


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Administration Proposal to Accelerate Income Tax Cuts Would Overwhelmingly Benefit the Wealthy

October 5, 2001 05:32 PM | | Bookmark and Share

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Facing growing public sentiment to delay or repeal future tax cuts to address our nation’s economic and budget problems, the Bush administration is pushing for just the opposite. It wants to accelerate the scheduled 2006 reductions in the top income tax rates to 2002. If adopted, the measure would reduce revenues by $120-150 billion over four years.

  • Most of the new tax cuts would go to the richest one percent of all taxpayers, whose average 2002 tax cut would exceed $16,000.
  • Four-fifths of the tax cuts would go to the best-off ten percent.
  • In contrast, for three out of four taxpayers, the administration’s proposal would provide exactly zero in tax reduction.

“The administration’s attempt to use the current crisis as an excuse for further tax breaks for the wealthy is economically indefensible and a slap in the face to ordinary, patriotic taxpayers who are willing to sacrifice for the good of America,” said Citizens for Tax Justice director Robert S. McIntyre.

“Almost everyone understands that our economy needs both short-term stimulus to boost demand and long-term fiscal restraint to reduce current interest rates on mortgages and business investments,” McIntyre said. “Showering new tax breaks on the wealthy would be ineffective as a demand stimulus, and would make our future fiscal problems even worse.”

 


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