USA/Tax Breaks—
Walt Disney Studios entrance on Buena Vista St., Burbank
By Eric Galatas, producer, Colorado News Connection, a bureau of Public News Service.
A new report from the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen showed 88 corporations, reporting a combined $105 billion in pretax income last year, paid no federal income taxes after spending $852 million on political campaigns and lobbying.
Eileen O’Grady, researcher for Public Citizen, said the companies saw a combined 3,000% return on their spending by avoiding nearly $22 billion in taxes they would have had to pay if not for laws passed during the first and second Trump administrations.
“What we’re seeing here is a self-reinforcing loop, where corporate cash buys policy, and policy pays cash back,” O’Grady asserted.
Colorado firms Antero Resources, Liberty Energy, and Liberty Media, along with the Walt Disney Company in Burbank, were among the corporations featured in the report, which used data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
Proponents of tax cuts have long argued that companies can use those savings to grow their businesses and boost federal tax revenues by raising wages and creating jobs.
The companies in the report avoided paying the minimum corporate tax rate of 21% through accounting strategies such as accelerated depreciation. They also collected close to $5 billion in tax rebates, bringing their total combined tax breaks to just under $27 billion.
O’Grady pointed out nearly a third of the corporations featured in the report did the opposite of creating jobs.
“We found that of the 88 corporate tax dodgers, 25 of those companies instituted mass layoffs that totaled about 21,200 workers,” O’Grady reported.
The GOP’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act made tax breaks passed in 2017 permanent, in part by cutting more than $1 trillion in health care and food assistance programs.
O’Grady argued Congress could generate enough revenue to help make life more affordable for families in Colorado and across the U.S. The report recommended resetting corporate tax rates to 35% and closing tax loopholes, including offshoring profits and tax deductions for executive bonuses.
