tax loopholes and subsidies for which you dont qualify
mention of tax loopholes and subsidies as the equivalent of social welfare programs in other blog articles seemed to elicit a chorus of denials such things exist or a condescending concurrence while dismissing any comparison as largely irrelevant. in a sense, there is no comparison. the entire cost of all us social welfare programs in 2000 was 26.4 billion dollars (including administration). estimated loss of tax revenue from just three categories of benefits extended to large corporations and extremely wealthy individuals for the same year was nearly 82 billion dollars.
those categories are capital gains tax reductions, accelerated depreciation and agribusiness subsidies available to tobacco growers (annual average is 18 billion alone; more about that down the list).
as far as tax loopholes go, one of the best is no taxes at all. in the early 90s, 37% of us-based transnationals with assets over $100M paid no US federal taxes; the average tax rate for those that did pay was just 1% of gross receipts.
if you own a small business, you probably cant tie up your operating capital in tax free municipal or utility bonds. pity. those who can don't pay an aggregate total of 9.1 billion dollars in taxes on their earnings.
life insurance companies are allowed to deduct their cash reserves even if they don't pay that amount out in claims thereby avoiding about 7 billion dollars in tax liability annually.
own a ship? you're in luck. agree to let the pentagon use it in time of war and you get 3.5 million bucks a year pretty much free because the us navy has more than enough of its own.
your corporate jet entitles you to landing fees at public airports for much less than commercial carriers pay. like 200 million dollars less for all private jets per year.
if you're a multinational like archer daniels midland, your corporate motto should be CA-CHING. not only are you getting subsidies for growing lots and lots of corn (like your share--like most of-- the 5.5 billion paid out annually) but since the price of sugar in the us is set artificially high, you get to sell tons of the stuff thats making us all as fat as corn fed hogs (notta bad analogy since high fructose corn syrup is a constituent of just about any label you care to check). don't forget the larger part of the 500 million set aside for refining ethanol or your piece of the 1.1 billion the USDA pays out to help market your product internationally.
use of public lands produces a lot of money but very little revenue for the public land owners (you and i).
if youre an oil or gas producer, you get an extra benefit because you can write off 15% of your gross income for depreciation as opposed to the poor fools who can only depreciate their actual equipment costs.
the list goes on and on and on and on