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Re:U.S. Corporate Tax Rate Is 2nd Highest in Industrialized ... by cwan on Monday August 10, 2009 @12:20PM (#753304)
I've often wondered about this line of reasoning - that corporations "benefit" from a given nation and its infrastructure but the problem is that it's a two way street. The others use incentives put in place by government encouraging them to do things like research or investments. Local economies, consumers and nations themselves benefit greatly from corporations - both in the obvious point of jobs but even more so in the products and services they provide.

The report you cite at truthout also fairly points out that 80% of those companies paid no taxes because they didn't make any money. This doesn't take away from your point though that we have to ask what kind of society we want, but we also should be asking what's fair and also how services are provided.

Re:U.S. Corporate Tax Rate Is 2nd Highest in Industrialized ... by locopati on Monday August 10, 2009 @12:37PM (#753359)
The trick with 'no profit' is that it's possible for a company to tweak the numbers such that the books show 'no profit' while great profit was made and distributed in ways to allow that (some legal, some illegal, some gray area depending on interpretation). Big companies can take advantage of these rules much more easily than small ones due to a greater ability to allocate resources a legal dept that can explore these options.