(at least it seems that way) The only way its ever going to change is getting business out of the direct hand of controlling the Government. As long as business is the only people able to hold government accountable, that will be the only people they listen to.
The war in Iraq is a prime example. Most people with half a brain know a prime impetus to go into Iraq is control of the oil and that is business being subsidized by tax dollars.
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-06/03bagdikian.cfmJune 03, 2002
Why Most Of Us Pay More Taxes Than Our Share
By Ben Bagdikian
If you have never heard of Vanuatu, or the economics of Andorra and Labuan, then you're one of us millions of ordinary citizens of the United States who, each year, pay a higher percentage of federal income tax revenues than is our true share.
The three places above are tax shelters for corporations and the very rich whose accountants do their homework the tax code of the United States and have the money to hire the shelter experts on the best hiding places in the world and the tax code loopholes for corporations and the truly rich in.
There has been jiggling of obscure tax code language accomplished by lobbyists and the unrestrained greed of the free market ideologues over the years, especially since the deregulation hysteria that started 30 years ago and has continued as a religious mission right up to the time that Enron turned belly-up. We're all stuck with the cost of cleaning up the mess left by billionaires and compliant politicians.
The Enron scandal made the Cayman Islands front page news. But the Caymans are only one of the many places that make it possible for some of the less disreputable corporations of the country to cut, eliminate or even get tax refunds in years when they make large profits.
It was the Caymans that Enron used in a reverse of the usual tactic. They ping-ponged subsidiary accounts among their subsidiaries, padding the expenses with each stroke until they had built up a "cost of operation" that let them sell electricity to, for example, California, for billions above the real cost and do it with the helpless gesture, "What can we do? Our costs have gone up."
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http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=3416&fcategory_desc=Media%20Lies,%20Bias,%20and%20Right%20wing%20influence98 percent of Florida Businesses Pay No Tax
By: Sydney Freedberg
St. Petersburg Times Date: 10/26/2003
Carnival Corp., Florida's 10th-largest public company with 4,220 South Florida employees and a $136-million state payroll, posted more than $1-billion in profits last year.
It also paid nothing in Florida corporate income tax.
Neither did Verizon Communications Inc., the phone giant that employs 12,500 people in Florida, or Saddlebrook Resorts Inc., the elite retreat in Wesley Chapel that is home to a famous tennis training center.
In fact, 98 percent of the estimated 1.5-million businesses in Florida paid nothing. And many of those that did pay found ways to reduce their tax bills.
At a time when Florida is scraping for every dollar to improve education, build roads and prisons and buy prescription drugs for the poor, Florida's corporate income tax is all but dead.
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On edit: wrong clip from link