Questioning corporate taxes ‘Offshoring’ costs each Bay Stater $608 a year

Questioning corporate taxes
‘Offshoring’ costs each Bay Stater $608 a year

By Jerry Kronenberg  |   Tuesday, April 19, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Business & Markets

Photo by Faith Ninivaggi
Local activists want Goldman Sachs to pay more tax.

Dozens of protesters staged a Tax Day rally outside the Wall Street giant’s Boston offices yesterday, opposing loopholes they say Goldman and other corporations use to avoid taxes.

“We think profitable corporations should be paying their fair share of taxes,” said Deirdre Cummings of U.S. Public Interest Research Groups, the activist organization that co-sponsored protests with the group MoveOn.org at corporate offices around the country.

The organizations also released a study estimating individual taxpayers forked over an extra $100 billion in 2010 due to corporate “offshoring,” in which companies book profits at foreign subsidiaries to minimize U.S. tax bills.

U.S. PIRG and MoveOn calculated that offshoring added $608 to the average Bay State tax filer’s bill this year.

The study found that Goldman, which didn’t return calls seeking comment, made $2 billion in 2010, but used 29 foreign subsidiaries to help cut its U.S. corporate taxes to just $14 million.

Other companies paid even less.

General Electric has faced a firestorm of protests in recent days following word that it paid zero 2010 corporate taxes despite booking $5.1 billion of profits in America alone.

“We think it’s important that the public realizes there’s a shifting of the tax burdens going on,” said Cummings, whose group left Goldman a mock $168 million tax bill.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1331783