Does Bank of America Pay Corporate Taxes?

Paying No Taxes and Loving It:
Nyaah, nyaah, niyaah!  Feel
the burn, libbies!  Har har har!

Zombie has an interesting presentation of the Tax Day protests in San Francisco.  Another phony left wing "populist uprising" is a group called US Uncut, who invaded a branch of Bank of America to put on a highly scripted song-and-dance demonstration.  Their message to B of A:  pay your taxes, because B of A doesn't pay any corporate taxes, they are tax dodgers, etc, etc.

The ignorant left often uses arguments that so-and-so corporation made 75 gazillion dollars in profits and yet paid no income taxes!!  Omigod, think of the free goodies those taxes would have bought for losers like us!  (Well the last sentence is implied if not expressly stated.)

Now I am a tax professional, but I don't know everything.  However, it seems to me that these claims against corporations are born of ignorance and hyperbole.  Corporations are heavily and regularly scrutinized by the SEC, the IRS and their outside auditors.  If these corporations were breaking the law regarding payment of taxes, they would soon be found out.

But let's say Bank of America and other corporations are not paying any taxes this year.  What would be some of the reasons?  Here are a few possibilities:

1.  Their "billions in profits" are actually their gross sales, not their net income.  Gross sales is not "profits."  Profit is what is left over after paying expenses, including salaries and taxes.  In all probability, ignorant leftists don't know the difference, couldn't count to five if they owned a Cray computer and as we all know, can't find their ass with both hands.

2.  The non-tax paying corporations actually have losses, not profits.  That means their expenses exceeded their income.  Corporations pay taxes on net profit (Sales minus cost of goods sold minus operating expenses = net profit).  In this lousy, Democrat produced economy, it is almost certain that many corporations are experiencing losses (which probably explains their massive layoffs of employees).  Again, refer to my comment above about liberals finding their asses with both hands.

3.  Corporations made a profit this year, but have accumulated losses from prior years.  Tax laws allow corporations to carry forward their prior year losses, and they may wipe out the current year profits and not owe any taxes because of it.

4.  Corporations have tax credits to offset their taxes.  Corporations get a credit for foreign taxes that they pay, so they are not taxed twice on the same income.

5.  Corporations file consolidated tax returns, that is, one tax return for the parent corporation and all of its subsidiaries.  Just because one of the corporations in a controlled group is profitable does not mean that all corporations in the same group are.  The losses of some of the corporations in the consolidation may be enough to offset the profits in others.  Moronic liberals may be focusing on only the profitable corporation while ignoring the unprofitable ones.

There is only one way to know the true story of whether Bank of America or any other corporation is not paying taxes, and that is to examine their tax return.  They generally file their taxes on Form 1120.  If anyone has a copy of Bank of America's tax return, I will be happy to take a look at it and see if I can explain it.  Warning:  it is likely to be quite thick.

Meanwhile, don't believe any hyperbole from ignorant liberals.  Even if they owned a Cray computer, they probably wouldn't even know how to plug it in.