Tax Favoritism and Crony Capitalism

NPR steps up and calls attention to how the government favors some corporations over others when it comes to tax rates.

Just how broken is the corporate tax system? Consider the tax rate paid by two of America's biggest companies — Wal-Mart and General Electric. Wal-Mart paid 34 cents in taxes for every dollar of profit it made in the past three years. General Electric paid just 3.6 cents on the dollar.

Welcome to the mysterious world of the corporate income tax, says tax expert Len Burman at Syracuse University. "There are big companies that consider their tax departments to be profit centers," he says.

That's right; instead of concentrating on making light bulbs, power plants or whatnot, companies use the tax system to boost their profits.

Could it have anything to do with GE CEO Jeff Immelt being best buddies and advisor to President Obama? No. But if Haliburton paid so little in taxes during the Bush years liberals would have gone bat guano!