Corporate Traitors
The Decline of Corporate Taxes & the Subsequent
Rise of CEO Pay
By Scott Klinger, CFA, United for a Fair Economy
Executive Summary
“That’s un-American!” is the cry heard whenever the unwritten code of American values
is breached. Fairness, compassion and equal opportunity are hallmarks, and although you
might not be able to recite chapter and verse of the whole code, you know when it is
broken.
On this the 204th death anniversary of one of America’s most famous traitors, Benedict
Arnold, it’s time to consider whether some of America’s largest corporations that pay
little or no taxes, have indeed become traitors. Some of the un-American behaviors
exhibited by American corporations in recent years include:
•
Full retreat from their obligation to pay their fair share of the cost of
government. At the close of the Second World War, US corporations paid half
the cost of the federal government; by 2003 the corporate share of government
revenues shriveled to just 7%.1
•
Lobbying Congress for tax policy that grossly abuses the intended collection of
taxes for the good of the entire nation
Some companies, however, stand out. In 2003, ten large US corporations listed at the end
of this report each earned more than $1 billion in pre-tax profits, yet paid no federal
income taxes:
•
Collectively these ten Benedict Arnold companies earned $30 billion in profits
and paid their CEOs $126 million. The $12.6 million average pay of the CEOs
of these firms was 51% higher than the $9.6 million received by the average
large-company CEO as reported by Business Week.2
•
If these ten firms paid taxes at the 35% statutory tax rate, they would have
contributed more than $11.7 billion to the federal treasury instead of extracting
$3.3 billion in refunds, a $14 billion budget swing from just ten companies!
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The Corporate Benedict Arnold Awards
The “Taxes are the Real Enemy” Award: Boeing
The nation’s second largest defense contractor, Boeing, received the largest corporate tax
refund in 2003 — $1.7 billion. So large was Boeing’s refund that it exceeded the
company’s $1 billion in reported earnings, giving Boeing an effective tax rate for the year
of -159%, according to a report by Citizens for Tax Justice.3 (You’re not seeing things —
that is a negative tax payment; there are more to come in what follows.)
The “Taxes Aren’t PC” Award: IBM
Though IBM reported profits of nearly $14 billion between 2001 and 2003, they paid just
$260 million in federal taxes, a miniscule 1.3% effective tax rate. IBM’s CEO Sam
Palmisano’s 2004 pay package was not so anemic: he received $19.5 million, more than
double the $9.6 million average large-company CEO payday in 2004 according to
Business Week.
The “Something to Smile About” Award: Colgate-Palmolive
Toothpaste maker Colgate-Palmolive paid an average of just 12.3% of its $1.5 billion of
profits over the period 2001-2003 in federal taxes. Household products competitor
Procter & Gamble paid more than 26% of its income in taxes over the same years.
Colgate-Palmolive’s CEO Reuben Mark, a fixture on annual highest paid CEO lists, took
home $16.3 million in 2004, nearly 70% more than the average large-company CEO.
The “You’ve Got Mail – It’s a Refund Check from the Treasury”
Award: Time Warner
Publishing giant and AOL operator Time Warner reported more than $6 billion in profits
from 2001-2003, yet claimed federal tax refunds of $457 million over the period, for an
effective tax rate of -7.3%. Time Warner executives have often found themselves on lists
of highest paid executives and 2004 was no exception. CEO Richard Parsons’ take was
$16.2 million, $473 million more than the US Treasury’s net. Generous tax breaks
stemming from the company’s lavish stock option grants saved Time Warner $1.7 billion
in federal taxes over the three-year period.
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The “Our Taxes are Sinking Like a Piece of the Rock” Award:
Prudential Financial
One of the nation’s largest financial services companies, Prudential Financial had an
effective tax rate between 2001 and 2003 of -46.2%. They received a $1 billion refund on
their $2.2 billion in reported earnings. The company experienced significant tax breaks in
converting from mutual ownership (owned by policy holders) to public ownership by
investors. Prudential’s CEO A.F. Ryan was paid $12.4 million in 2004, 29% more than
the average large-company CEO in the Business Week universe.
The “Taxpaying Dysfunction (TD)” Award: Pfizer
Viagra maker Pfizer can’t get excited enough about paying taxes to perform. Though the
company’s pills and other drugs earned them more than $14 billion in profits between
2001 and 2003, less than $1.2 billion of that made it to the federal treasury, an effective
tax rate of just 8.2%. In contrast, competitor Merck paid 32.5% of its $12.7 billion in
income in federal taxes. Though Merck paid a tax rate nearly four times that of Pfizer,
Pfizer didn’t let that stop it from paying its CEO more than three times as much as
Merck. Pfizer CEO Hank McKinnell’s towering pay package topped $21.4 million in
2004, trouncing Merck’s Ray Gilmartin at $6.5 million. Pfizer’s CEO’s pay was 123%
more than that of the average large-company CEO.
The “Taxes are for Little People (& the Companies that Serve
Them)” Award: Saks
Elite merchant Saks Fifth Avenue got federal tax refunds each year from 2001 to 2003
despite reporting profits each year. Saks’ profits totaled $271 million over the three years,
resulting in an effective tax rate of -2.2%. In contrast, value merchants Costco, Best Buy
and Wal-Mart all come in near the top of the list of corporate taxpayers, with three-year
effective tax rates of 33.6%, 32.7% and 32.5%, respectively.
The Benedict Arnold Connection
Benedict Arnold died June 14, 1801, lonely and self-exiled in England. How did this onetime American hero arrive at such a reviled end?
His long years of courageous military service allowed him to acquire a considerable
fortune and much privilege. He used this standing to acquire a plum appointment as
Commander of West Point, a position he took in order to surrender the strategic Hudson
River fort to the British. The development of Arnold’s treachery is long and complex, but
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essentially centers around a "me-first" attitude that is all too resonant two hundred-plus
years later. He was unlike others of his time, who thought first of the Republic they were
risking life and limb to establish, and only second, if at all, of their own fame and fortune.
Ironically, Benedict Arnold’s death anniversary — June 14th — also falls on Flag Day,
the patriotic holiday on which Americans remember the sacrifice of those good citizens
who fought to save Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor, a battle that inspired Francis
Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner.
We stand today two centuries later at a point in time where other powerful and privileged
players are acting more like Benedict Arnold than star-spangled patriots. Large US
corporations have used their amassed power and privilege to press for changes in the tax
code that benefit them by shifting the cost of paying for government to smaller businesses
and individuals. Corporate tax departments have morphed from cost centers to powerful
profit engines. These corporate Benedict Arnolds, like their namesake before them, are
jeopardizing the nation’s security.
Corporate Welfare is Alive and Well and Destroying America
The turning of government from serving the needs of people to serving corporate
interests is nearly complete. In their tireless pursuit for endless gains in profit and fat
executive pay packages, corporations which once proudly contributed to the public
coffers in order to sustain the society that sustained them, today use their political muscle
and accounting prowess to avoid contributing to the public good. In another time, such
behavior — turning one’s back on the country that instilled greatness in themselves and
others for short-term personal and corporate gain — might have been regarded as
traitorous. But no more.
Today, corporate tax avoidance that annually skims tens of billions of dollars from
federal and state treasuries is legal. Corporate shirking of public responsibility has been
aided by powerful myths that have convinced the broad public that corporate tax cuts lead
to investment and job creation, and that US corporations are overtaxed relative to
international competitors. Neither myth is true, yet most Americans have been taken in
by the spin-doctors’ work.
It wasn’t always so. In the early years of our American republic, corporate interests paid
the bulk of taxes through tariffs that supported the federal government. With the passage
of the federal income tax in 1916, individuals began to share the burden of paying for
government. By the beginning of the Second World War, corporations were paying half
the federal government’s expenses, individuals the other half. By the 1950s, corporations’
defrayment of federal government expenses declined to 25% and in the 1960s to 20%. By
1990, the corporate share of government’s cost had shrunk to 11%, and in 2003 to just
7%. 4
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A similar picture arises when we look at state taxes. State corporate income taxes
averaged 0.47 percent of gross domestic product between 1978 and 1989 and declined to
just 0.29% of GDP over the 2001-2003 period, according to State Corporate Income
Taxes 2001-2003, a study by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) and the Institute on Taxation
and Economic Policy.5
By law, large corporations are supposed to pay 35% of their profits to the Treasury as
federal corporate income tax. Yet more than 60% of US corporations paid no federal
income taxes at all, according to a 2004 study by the General Accounting Office.6 Last
year, CTJ released a study on federal taxes paid by 275 of the nations largest companies.
Collectively, these companies reported $1.1 trillion of corporate profits between 20012003. The CTJ study found that 82 of the 275 companies paid no federal income tax in at
least one of the three years studied, and 46 paid no tax in 2003 alone. The average
effective tax rate paid by the 275 companies over the three year period was 18.4% — just
over half the corporate statutory rate, and less than the effective tax rate paid by many
middle class American taxpayers.7
Cheatin’ Corporations Flourish while States Flail
Most states also have corporate income taxes. The blended average of the states with
corporate income taxes is 6.8%. Another CTJ study entitled “State Corporate Income
Taxes” found that 252 large companies paid just 2.3% of their nearly $1 trillion in state
taxes. If they had paid at the full 6.8% blended rate they would have paid $67 billion in
state taxes, rather than the $25 billion they actually paid between 2001-2003.8 This
additional $41 billion could have closed much of the state budget gaps that presently exist
in 35 states.
Executive Excess
In a popular cultural context where corporations claim they cannot remain competitive
unless they receive tax breaks, we see executive compensation among corporate Benedict
Arnolds that far exceeds the pay packages at other large companies. In 2003, ten
companies reported more than $1 billion in profits to their shareholders, yet paid no
federal corporate income taxes. Some received cash refunds from the federal government.
Despite being on the public dole, these ten companies managed on average to pay their
CEOs $12.6 million in 2003, 51% more than the pay of the average pay of the 365 largest
corporations.9
Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld, Jr. took home a $19.7 million paycheck10 while his
company claimed $39 million in tax refunds, despite earning $1.8 billion in corporate
profits. If Lehman paid the full federal taxes on its earnings, the federal coffers would
have had $630 million more, and Mr. Fuld perhaps a bit less.
SBC Communications Chairman Edward Whitacre, Jr., pulled in $22.2 million in 200311,
while his company exacted $476 million from the federal treasury despite more than $8.9
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billion in reported profits. If SBC had paid the full corporate tax on its earnings, the
federal government would have gained $3,110,000,000 for a net gain of nearly $3.6
billion.
But the corporate Benedict Arnold grand prize goes to the nation’s second largest defense
contractor, Boeing, which received more than half its revenues from government
contracts while at the same time claiming $1.7 billion in federal tax refunds, outpacing its
$1 billion in reported profits. At least Benedict Arnold had the decency to take himself
off to England. Boeing remains entrenched on American soil, ready and able to
economically betray the society they publicly pledge to serve.
Hard Times for All Americans
The American public, lulled by a PR snow job that makes the sale of the Brooklyn Bridge
pale in comparison, have so far remained silent on this topic. And on the few occasions
when citizens’ voices have been raised, they have been ineffective, unsupported as they
are by costly national marketing campaigns or administration officials leveraging the
bully pulpit. Yet our corporate Benedict Arnolds’ dual pillaging of the Treasury —
stiffing the nation on taxes owed while lavishly over-paying a few individuals to continue
such unwarranted behavior — is hobbling our nation at a difficult time in our history.
Budget deficits are spiraling toward the trillion-dollar mark. Fiscal instability is rampant.
Enormous cuts in spending on crucial programs and services that benefit all Americans
have already been made, with more planned. Opportunities for all Americans are
evaporating on a daily basis as a result of this hemorrhaging of national revenues.
How Are Corporations Able to Avoid Taxes?
There are several factors playing out at the beginning of the 21st century that are
contributing to the scenario painted in this report.
1) Changes in the Tax Law – The tax acts of 2002 and 2003 both contained
accelerated depreciation enhancements, allowing companies to write off as
expenses their investments in plants and equipment at a much faster pace than
these things wear out. CTJ estimates that accelerated depreciation savings alone
accounted for more than $70 billion in tax savings over three years for the 275
companies studied. Two-thirds of the savings went to just 25 companies, led by
SBC Communications which alone saved $5.7 billion on taxes over three years.
Verizon saved $4.4 billion, Exxon Mobil $2.9 billion, Wachovia $2.7 billion and
General Electric, $2.6 billion.12
2) Perverse Stock Option Accounting – Up until now, the tax laws allowed
generous deductions when companies paid employees with stock options, even
though these companies were not required to show these option costs as expenses
on their income statements. Virtually all of the companies in the CTJ study
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received stock option benefits, collectively totaling $32 billion over the three
years ending in 2003. Microsoft alone saved more than $5 billion on its three-year
tax bill, with Time Warner, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup each
saving more than $1 billion. The top 25 companies received nearly two-thirds of
the stock option benefits.13
3) Offshore Tax Sheltering – More than 40% of the world’s privately owned assets
are now in one of 90 tax havens around the world. While some of those assets are
there for legitimate business purposes, the great majority are there for one purpose
— avoiding the payment of taxes. While corporate criminals Enron and Tyco
International are best known for these abuses — with Tyco alone saving $600
million a year after shifting its headquarters to a mail-drop in Bermuda — scores
of other companies are playing this game. They are aided by the tax consulting
arms of the nation’s major accounting firms. The US Treasury estimates that
corporate off-shore shelters cost the federal government between $30 and $70
billion a year.14
4) The Evisceration of the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax – While the
AMT for individuals is catching millions of unintended victims in its snare, the
corporate AMT is all but extinct, paid by only a few companies a year. Enacted in
the mid-1980s amidst a public outcry against large, profitable corporations paying
no taxes, the teeth of the corporate AMT laws were extracted by pro-corporate tax
changes signed into law by the Clinton Administration in 1993 and 1997.
The Myths Underlying Corporate Tax Breaks
Myth # 1: Corporate Tax Breaks Increase Investment and
Stimulate Job Growth
This widely popular myth has led a public increasingly starved for good jobs to
enthusiastically embrace corporate tax breaks. If only the myth were true! To the
contrary, not only did US private non-residential investment fall 7% between 2001 and
2003, according to the Commerce Department, but those companies receiving the
greatest accelerated depreciation tax savings saw their investment decline the most.
According to CTJ, the 25 largest beneficiaries of accelerated depreciation deductions tied
to new investment cut their total property, plant and equipment spending by 27% between
2001 and 2003. The other 250 companies in the study saw their investment spending fall
just 8%.15
Similarly, corporate tax cuts are no panacea for job growth. The ten corporate Benedict
Arnold companies (those paying no taxes in 2003) collectively employed 765,500 people
at the end of 2003, and added an anemic 1,518 jobs, a 0.2% increase, in 2004.16 Job
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growth in the corporate Benedict Arnold companies was even worse than the anemic
1.1% job growth delivered by the economy as a whole.17
Myth #2: High US Tax Rates Impede Competition
This myth, also widely believed, is a major force behind tax-cutting furor. But again it is
untrue. The US economy in general is significantly undertaxed relative to other
industrialized countries. Federal, state and local taxes comprised 24.2% of US Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) in 200318. Only Mexico was lower among the 30 Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member nations, representing the
industrialized nations of the world.
A similar picture is true when it comes to corporate taxes. According to CTJ, in 1965 US
corporate income taxes accounted for 4.0% of GDP, compared to 2.4% in other OECD
nations. By 2002, the situation had flip-flopped, with US corporate taxes slashed to just
1.6% of GDP and corporate taxes in other industrialized nations rising to 3.0% of their
GDP.19 Major trading partners such as Japan, France, the United Kingdom and Canada all
generate about 3% of their GDP from corporate taxes, a rate nearly twice that of the US.
Only two OECD members have lower corporate taxes as a percent of GDP than the US
— Ireland and Germany.20
The reality is that corporate tax avoidance schemes impede competition between large
companies. To an even greater degree, such schemes erode competition between large
multinational firms and small family-owned enterprises.
Corporate tax breaks are distributed — and harvested unevenly — even among big
companies. In 2003 Golden West Financial, an Oakland-based savings and loan, paid
31.9% of its income in federal taxes (and 4.7% more in California state taxes), while its
significant competitor across the San Francisco Bay, Wells Fargo, paid just 12.5% of its
$9 billion in 2003 profits as federal tax (and only 1.5% of its income to sustain the
California state government).
Things get even worse when looking at the increasingly non-level playing field that exists
between big business and small family-owned business as a result of the unchecked
growth of corporate tax avoidance. While the effective tax rate for large corporations has
shrunk to 18%, small business owners continue to pay taxes at their owners’ marginal
individual tax rate, generally either 27% or 34%.
Thus, while small businesses are at a size disadvantage in everything they purchase, from
health insurance for their employees to copy paper for the office, one of the biggest
disadvantages comes in what they pay to sustain government. Looming budget deficits
have put many important programs on the chopping block, including the popular and
successful Small Business Administration 7A loan program, another victim of the fiscal
instability born of tax avoidance.
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Ironically, this skewed tax structure is even being used to transfer local tax revenues from
small community businesses to offer large multinational companies tax credits and even
direct payments to entice the big corporations into a community.
Myth #3: Corporate Innovation Drove the Incredible Profit
Growth of the 1990s
While there is no doubt that many of the technological discoveries throughout the 1990s
were a significant profit driver, another significant, yet invisible, profit driver was the
political profits that evolved from increasingly concentrated economic and political
power in the hands of large corporations.
As investments in research and development were scaled back, investments in lobbyists
and aggressive accounting firms were increased, turning the backwaters of corporate tax
departments into the sexy engines of earnings growth over the last decade. Investors were
paying record prices for stocks based on the understanding that companies were building
better mousetraps and operating more efficiently, when really what was going on was
companies were learning new ways of turning their backs on their obligations to society
through the machinations of beefed-up tax departments.
Executives learned that lower taxes meant higher earnings and stock prices, and thus
greater CEO pay rewards. In fact, given the significant role that stock options play in
corporate tax avoidance, executives quickly caught on that the more executives were paid
in stock, the lower the tax burden and the higher the earnings, justifying even higher pay
the next time around.
Reclaiming the Flag from the Corporate Benedict Arnolds:
Seven Solutions
Although the systematic abuse of our own tax codes, and the massive public relations
effort to convince Americans this abuse is actually good for our country that it entails,
can seem overwhelming and impossible to counteract, there are actually a number of
steps patriotic Americans can take to curtail and end the abuse.
1) Reform and simplify the corporate tax code. Adopt a progressive corporate tax in
which the largest companies pay the highest rate. Lower the statutory corporate tax
and eliminate corporate tax breaks. Cut taxes on small businesses sharply, freeing
them to be the drivers of innovation and job growth that they have always been.
2) Reclaim the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax, requiring cash payment each year
by all profitable corporations.
3) Withdraw from tax treaties which are corporate tax havens. While there will be a hew
and cry from the corporate Benedict Arnolds about the sanctity of international
treaties, they need look no further than to the Geneva Convention or Kyoto Treaty to
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see how easy this is to do for other matters of national importance. At the least,
Congress should adopt strict new standards banning transactions with tax haven
countries where no economic reason other than avoiding taxes is the motivating
factor.
4) Ban companies which have outstanding federal tax obligations from receiving new
federal contracts. More than 27,000 Department of Defense contractors — more than
one out of ten — have outstanding tax debts to the US Treasury totaling more than $3
billion, according to a recent General Accounting Office study.21
5) Adopt the Income Equity Act, which limits the deductibility of corporate pay to no
more than 25 times the pay of the lowest paid worker. This would stop corporations
from getting tax deductions for excessive corporate pay and establish a reasonable
business expense for pay, similar to what already exists for items like corporate
entertainment. Corporations could still pay executives whatever they wished, but
shareholders, not taxpayers, would pay the full cost of excessive pay.
6) Require increased transparency and disclosure to shareholders of corporate tax breaks
and corporate cash tax payments to various government bodies.
7) Increase the penalties for accounting firms selling abusive tax shelters. Presently the
fine is $1,000, a risk accountants are all too willing to take on products that generate
tens of millions of dollars of revenue. One accounting official likened the fine to
getting a parking ticket — a small cost of doing business.
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Companies with more than $1 Billion in 2003 Profits
That Paid No Federal Income Tax
Company
2003
Profits
(Billions)
2003
Federal Tax
(Millions)
Effective
Tax
2003
CEO Pay
CEO Pay as %
of Average CEO
Pay
Boeing
$1,069
-$1,700
-159.0%
$3,105,046
37.4%
Public Services Group
$1,369
-$208
-15.2%
$2,452,229
29.5%
FPL Group
$1,282
-$181
-14.1%
$7,065,728
85.1%
AT&T
$2,723
-$343
-12.6%
$16,576,273
199.7%
SBC Comm.
$8,941
-$476
-5.3%
$23,945,262
288.5%
Disney
$1,764
-$59
-3.4%
$7,254,775
87.4%
Time Warner
$4,224
-$140
-3.3%
$13,612,593
164%
Pfizer
$6,088
-$168
-2.8%
$28,123,947
338.8%
Lehman Brothers
$1,825
-$39
-2.1%
$19,786,439
238.4%
Burlington Northern
$1,226
-$18
-1.5%
$5,366,574
64.7%
Notes: Data is derived from company proxy statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and can
be found at <www.sec.gov> search for Form DEF 14A. CEO pay calculations include salary, bonus, restricted
stock, long-term incentive plan, other annual compensation (include private use of company aircraft, financial
planning grants, country club fees and other perks), other compensation as reported to the SEC and the present value
of stock options granted, using inputs as chosen by each company. In the case of Pfizer where two options values
were presented we have used the lower value represented by 5% long-term stock appreciation.
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Resources for Continued Learning
•
“Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years”, Citizens for Tax Justice, September
2004, available for free download: www.ctj.org
•
“State Corporate Income Taxes 2001-2003”, Citizens for Tax Justice, February
2005, available for free download: www.ctj.org
•
U.S. General Accounting Office (www.gao.gov)
“Challenges Remain in Combating Abusive Tax Schemes” GAO Report 04-50
(12/19/2003)
“Tax Shelter Services Provided by External Auditors” GAO Report 05-171
(2/24/2005)
•
Johnston, David Cay, Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax
System to Benefit the Super Rich — and Cheat Everybody Else, Portfolio
Hardcover, 2003.
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End Notes
1
Robert S. McIntyre and T.D. Coo Nguyen, Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years,
Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, September
2004, Washington DC. All citations of corporate tax rates in this paper stem from this
report.
2
Louis Lavelle, “A Payday for Performance,” Business Week, April 18, 2005, p. 78. All
citations for CEO pay in this report come from Business Week’s annual compensation
survey that accompanied this article.
3
“Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years”, pp, 16, 47.
4
“Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years”, p8. and John D. McKinnon “60% of US
Firms Escaped Taxes During Boom” Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2004
5
Robert S. McIntyre and T.D. Coo Nguyen, “State Corporate Income Taxes 2001-2003”
Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, February
2005, Washington, DC, p. 3.
6
“60% of US Firms Escaped Taxes During Boom”.
7
“Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years”
8
State Corporate Income Taxes 2001-2003” p.1.
9
“A Payday for Performance”
10
Company proxy statement (see www.sec.gov, search for Form DEF 14A for ticker LEH)
11
Company proxy statement (see www.sec.gov, search for Form DEF 14A for ticker SBC)
12
“Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years”
13
“Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years”
14
“Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years”
15
“Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years”, p. 12.
16
Company Form 10-K statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission
(www.sec.gov)
17
Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Department of Labor, “The Employment Situation:
December 2003,” (released January 9, 2004)
http://www.bls.gov/schedule/archives/empsit_nr.htm
18
Citizens for Tax Justice, “International Tax Comparisons 1965-2003”
http://www.ctj.org/html/oecd05.htm. Gross Domestic Product is the value of all of the
goods and services created by a nation’s economy.
19
“International Tax Comparisons, 1965-2003 (federal, state & local)”, Citizens for Tax
Justice, www/ctj.org/html/oecd05.htm
20
Citizens for Tax Justice “2002 Corporate Taxes as a % of GDP”
http://www.ctj.org/images/oecd052.gif
21
US Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), “Hearing on DOD Contractors Who Cheat on Their
Taxes and What Should Be Done About It” (press release), February 12, 2005.
www.levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=217991
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