Sanders: ‘Absurd tax policy’ prevents companies from paying their ‘fair share’

Sanders’s comment came the same week the Government Accountability Office released a report showing U.S. companies paid 12.6 percent of their profits in federal income taxes in 2010, while the federal corporate income tax rate is suppose to be 35 percent.

{mosads}“At a time when corporate America and their allies in Congress are demanding lower tax rates, this report clearly shows that many multinational corporations are currently paying very little in taxes,” Sanders said. “In fact, some very profitable corporations like General Electric and Bank of America have, in some recent years, actually paid nothing in federal income taxes.”

Sanders regularly calls on his colleagues to stop protecting the interests of large corporations, which he says have too much power in Washington, D.C. He has also supported legislative efforts to stop the use of “offshore tax havens.”

“As a result of absurd tax policy, large corporations and the wealthy are avoiding more than $100 billion in taxes each and every year by stashing their cash in the Cayman Islands and other offshore tax havens,” Sanders said.