Business for Shared Prosperity

East Valley Tribune (AZ)
Letter to the Editor, November 10, 2011

In response to the continuing inability of conservatives in Congress to effectively address the income disparity caused by a tax system designed to protect only the interests of the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations, small business owners have organized to lobby the ‘Super Congress’ to act in their interests as well.

Recent reports showing the number of America’s largest corporations paying NO corporate taxes has doubled in the past three years and some like Wells Fargo and Verizon have even collected $681 and $951 million respectively, in direct subsidies even after posting multi-billion dollar profits?

Jody Gorran, owner of Aquatherm Industries Inc., which employs 45 people in Lakewood, N.J. calls this “unconscionable” because it seems as though small businesses, who can not afford to hire dozens of tax accountants and lawyers to work to reduce or eliminate their tax liabilities, are “bearing the brunt of the tax burden.”

Three small business groups; Business for Shared Prosperity, the Main Street Alliance and the American Sustainable Business Council, sent a letter this week to super committee members requesting they work on “making the corporate income tax more equitable.”

Another report shows that the financial industry, whose inept and immoral ‘risk taking’ led America and the world into this current recession, have directly benefitted from $37.45 billion in tax subsidies from 2008 to 2010. All the while continuing to pay exorbitant salaries and bonuses to the same top executives who created this mess and who continue to move jobs and hide profits overseas. Wake Up America!

Rod Livdahl

Mesa

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