On tax day, some don’t pay

Vermont has a more interesting history than many may realize. It was in 1791 that the Green Mountain State was admitted to the Union, beating Kentucky by one year for the distinction of being the 14^th state. It might have made its entry earlier had its territory not been claimed by other colonies following the French and Indian War. Its territory was ceded to the British by the French following this conflict.

Vermonters didn’t recognize those claims, though. For 14 years, it was a self-proclaimed independent area known as the Vermont Republic. Not that its citizens didn’t take part in the war against the Brits. They did, just in their own inimitable way.  Vermont coined its own currency and abolished slavery well ahead of most other American states.

Vermont continues its maverick ways even today. Its junior U. S. Senator is Independent Bernie Sanders. Oddly enough, the man he was elected to succeed, Jim Jeffords, left the Republican Party in 2001 to also serve as an Independent. Sanders is one of only two independents in Congress now. Those years he served in the House of Representatives, he was usually the lone Independent in that chamber.

Senator Sanders was elected to the U. S. Senate in 2006. He has caucused with Democrats for purposes of committee assignments. And for the most part, he shares their ideological views, including opposing extending the Bush-era tax cuts that favor the ultra-wealthy of the nation. Senator Sanders contends that the tax laws are tilted heavily in favor of the wealthiest 1% of Americans and that the newly-elected Republican majority in the House of Representatives are intent on achieving a balanced budget on the backs of average Americans.

To offer up conclusive evidence of this, Sen. Sanders has compiled his Guide to Corporate Freeloaders. No need to use your imagination here. This is a group of incredibly wealthy companies that never have anything to fear from the IRS, and for a good reason. Thanks in all likelihood to their largess during both local and national elections, our laws are oozing with loopholes, exemptions, and tax-payer financed subsidies for the Greediest Americans.

Of course you know that the giant oil companies are well-represented on this list. Not that there are many of them around now; they’ve all merge to form super-huge mega corporations. And they all pretty much net super-huge mega profits, too. But that hasn’t cost them too much in federal taxes.

There are three on Sen. Sanders’ list: Exxon Mobile, 2009 profit of $19 billion, got $156 million back from the IRS; Chevron, $10 billion in profits, $19 million IRS refund; and Conoco Phillips, 2007-2009 profits of $16 billion, and got the standard $461 million deduction for oil companies. You’d think these behemoths would take pity on the other American taxpayers after getting by so easily, but if you’ve been by the gas pumps lately, you know better that that, huh?

Remember the trillion-dollar bailout of the banking industry? You know that last desperate act of Dub’yas administration? Bank of America and Citigroup both were recipients of this lavish expenditure of cash. Both profited handsomely: BOA, profit $.4.4 billion, refunded $1.9 billion; Citigroup, profit over $4 billion, yet no federal taxes.

One more thing: There are plenty more where these came from.