Tax Day: Make Them Pay!

Tomorrow, on April 18^th, 2011, at noon, my husband and I will be protesting outside the FedEx office at High St. in Columbus downtown.  We have joined thousands of working class American tax payers who are demanding corporate tax dodgers to pay their taxes.

It may sound too political to you, but it is very personal to us.

Our children’s education is being hit the hardest by the lack of federal and state money.

In respond to the cut to the school funding, the Hilliard City School District Board of Education has approved a $ 3.8 million cut in the budget of school year 2011-1012. This cut would eliminate 51.5 teaching and classified positions, reduce the pay of an additional 247 positions and eliminate various middle school sports and academic programs. Gifted children program would be canceled for elementary schools too.  This is very serious for all parents with younger children.

In order to avoid this cut, we are forced to pass a 6.9 million levy on May 3^rd (Issue 7 on ballot). This levy will cost us an additional $ 216 per year per $ 100,000 home value. This is in addition to a levy that we passed in last election. This is also on top of rising gas prices, higher utility bills, rising insurance, and way higher college tuitions that we are supposed to pay for our two college students next year.

As we look through our pockets and our expanses, we know we are already maxed up.  If we choose to pay for better education, we have to cut our groceries, or gym, or something else that is as important as having a good school with competitive programs and sports.

While we are squeezing our household budget to fit this new levy in, we are still paying our taxes to fulfill our civic responsibility. Paying taxes is not just an option to us; it’s a must, regardless of our financial crisis or situations.  

FedEx, on the other hand, does not go by this rule. It reported over $1.9 billion in U.S. profits, but paid only $1 million in federal corporate income taxes over the last 2 years, for an effective tax rate of .05 percent. At the same time, they spent nearly $42 million lobbying Congress. They have 21 subsidiaries in tax havens including 3 in the Cayman Islands and 3 in Ireland.

FedEx is not the only “US Tax Dodger.” Bank of America, Verizon, General Electric, Boeing, and Citigroup have not paid any taxes in 2009. Like FedEx, ExxonMobil also pays effective rates of less than 10 percent, even though the official corporate tax rate is 35%, according to www.ips-dc.org.

According to US Uncut’s website: 

Since 2009, America’s most profitable companies such as ExxonMobil, General Electric, Bank of America and Citigroup all paid a grand total of $0 in federal income taxes to Uncle Sam. Tax havens alone account for up to $1 trillion in tax revenue lost every decade, money that could be invested in K-12 education, colleges, public health, job creation and hundreds of other worthy public programs.

If Bank of America paid their fair share of taxes, we could ‘uncut’ $1.7 billion in early childhood education (Head Start & Title I)

If Verizon paid their fair share of taxes, we could ‘uncut’ $4 billion in job training and construction programs (Job Corps & GSA).

When FedEx does not deliver on its fair share of taxes, we are forced to cut $373 million in teacher training programs (Americorp)

Since 2006, General Electric has made $26 billion in profits and paid not one penny of federal corporate income taxes. In fact, we taxpayers gave GE over $4 billion in subsidies and tax breaks during these last 5 years. In 2010, GE told their shareholders they had $5.1 billion in profits from the U.S. and $14.2 worldwide. Instead of paying $1.7 billion in taxes on these profits, they claimed a refund of $3.2 billion. 

This is unacceptable. We can’t let it go like that. That is why, we have joined US Uncut and Move On in demanding these tax dodgers to pay their full share of taxes.  On April 18 at noon, we will be standing outside FedEx location on High Street in downtown Columbus demanding them to pay their taxes.

We're going to bring a small circus to the Fed-Ex at the corner of Spring & High. We'll have fun demonstrating our point using scripts, props, music, puppets, etc. We won’t ...(more)let Fed-Ex and the other corporate puppeteers with politicians at the end of their strings make clowns out of hard-working poor and middle-class tax payers. 

Scores of other events are scheduled all over the country. Please check on the websites of US Uncut and Move On to find an event like this taking place near you.

I hope all parents, grandparents, friends, families and community members can join this national movement that is the first step to get money back to the federal budget.  We know there are many other areas that need to be checked and cut in order to bring our country back on the right track. We will focus on them too, but let’s take one step at a time.

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Tax Day: Make Them Pay (Columbus Event)

Fed Ex - Downtown Columbus, 180 North High Street (Map)
Columbus, OH 43215
Monday, April 18th, 12:00 PM