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Big firms’ tax dodges are an insult to Americans
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BIG corporations have been trying to push farmers around since the 19th century. But farmers have always pushed back: More than 100 years ago, the Grange and National Farmers Union were organized to save farming families from corporate abuse.
Now some US corporations are practicing a new form of abuse. They are avoiding paying their fair share of taxes by changing their corporate address, usually to a tax haven country. Burger King is the latest company to try this dirty trick, called an “inversion.” I call it desertion.
But Burger King isn’t going anywhere. Its restaurants won’t disappear and its executives won’t move to its new “home” in Canada. The company will continue to take advantage of everything that makes the US a great place to do business. It just wants to pay less for that privilege, sticking the rest of us with the tab.
Burger King says that it’s not claiming to be a Canadian company so it can dodge taxes here in the United States. But experts say that claim is a “whopper.”
Some people argue big corporations are forced to use accounting tricks because they pay too much in taxes. Lobbyists try to convince members of Congress to focus on what corporations are supposed to be paying, not what they’re actually paying.
Loopholes in tax code
But let’s focus on this fact instead: The tax code is so riddled with loopholes that most of the Fortune 500 paid a lower tax rate (under 20 percent) than many middle-class families, between 2008 and 2012. Over those five years, 26 huge, profitable US corporations paid nothing in federal income taxes.
As an Iowa farmer, I don’t expect to get something for nothing.
So when large corporations use accounting tricks to pay zero taxes I get more than a little ticked off.
A recent Public Policy Polling survey found that Iowans disapprove of corporate inversions by a more than 3-1 ratio. And more than two-thirds of us specifically disapprove of Burger King turning its back on America.
When corporations dodge their fair share taxes, they deprive our communities of the resources needed to thrive. There is less money to spend on education, transportation, police and fire services and federally funded agricultural research. And there is less money to help family farms when they need it.
Iowans understand that when someone cheats the system there is a price to pay. The same poll found that by an 8-1 ratio, Iowans are more likely to vote for “a candidate who wants to close tax loopholes and use that money to create jobs by improving our roads, bridges and schools.” Wide majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents all agreed with this position. I’m not a politician, but I think I’d be paying attention.
When corporations abandon their US corporate “citizenship” to avoid paying their fair share in taxes, they are insulting anyone who ever served our nation. Like many other families, mine is honored by several generations who served in America’s wars.
Farmers are tied to their land by more than a deed. Place matters to us. So does taking care of our plants and animals, and our friends and neighbors in need. We find it offensive when others — in this case big corporations — break their bonds to our country just to make a quick buck. Iowans know it’s wrong.
It’s time for our politicians to stand up and say what they think.
Petersen is a hog farmer in Clear Lake and past president of the Iowa Farmers Union. Copyright: American Forum
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