ANOTHER GOP MEME IN DANGER

The tax-cons, like Norquist and Steve Forbes, have been complaining that American companies pay too much in taxes. If you look at the official tax rates, there's something to this argument but if you look at what the tax burden really is, it evaporates.

Many Firms Didn't Pay Taxes
Most Corporations Skipped Payments From '98 to '05, GAO Says

By David ChoWashington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, August 12, 2008; Page D02

About two-thirds of corporations operating in the United States did not pay taxes annually from 1998 to 2005, according to a new report scheduled to be made public today from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

In 2005, after collectively making $2.5 trillion in sales, corporations gave a variety of reasons on their tax returns to account for the absence of taxable revenue. The most frequently listed included the cost of producing their goods, salary expenses and interest payments on their debt, the report said.

Even a significant number of large corporations don't pay ANY taxes:

A greater proportion of large corporations pay taxes, according to the GAO. In 2005, about 28 percent of large corporations paid no taxes. Of the 1.3 million corporations included in the study, 998 were categorized as "large."