Kansas v Villanova

CBS broadcast last weekend's Villanova-Kansas NCAA basketball tournament contest, but the company scored zero on federal income taxes. Shown: Daniel Ochefu #23 and Darryl Reynolds #45 of the Villanova Wildcats celebrate their 64-59, during the 2016 (Kevin C. Cox | Getty Images).

The beginning of April signals the end of tax season. Income taxes are utilized by government to cover operating expenses and provide residents with public services.

Individuals, small businesses and corporations are all subjected to income taxes at the federal and state levels. Unfortunately, the tax burden, by design, falls squarely on the shoulders of the lower and middle classes. Compounding this is the fact that many corporations, some with apparent annual profits exceeding a billion dollars, are able to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. They use legal loopholes and offshore tax havens not accessible by the average citizen.

Congress is in total control of the federal tax code in these United States, and so far its members seem quite content with the way things are. This places a heavy tax burden on those who can least afford it.

Have you ever noticed that many of our elected congressional representatives enter that body as solidly middle class, but have accumulated significant wealth by the time they finish their "service"? They play by a different set of financial rules than the general public. The same holds true for many U.S. corporations once they reach a size where they can take maximum advantage of the tax benefits extended to them.

Through congressional lobbying efforts, these corporations are able to influence those writing and amending the tax code, sometimes to the point that they can avoid paying any income taxes at all. This is an utterly ridiculous and unfair process that is getting minimum attention during this national election cycle.

Many people have been watching the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, whose earlier rounds were telecast in part by CBS. This network and its cable partners take in hundreds of millions dollars on this one broadcast event. Records show CBS Corp. ending 2015 with a profit of $1.8 billion.

According to Citizens for Tax Justice, not only did CBS not pay any federal income tax, it received a refund of $235 million for 2014. The toy company Mattel, the group says, has avoided paying federal income taxes since 2011.

Because their accounting methods are legal for tax purposes, these corporations are not considered to be defrauding the government in any way. Other corporations said to have paid no taxes in least one recent calendar quarter include Xerox, Verizon and General Motors, which was saved from bankruptcy by the U.S. taxpayer.

Other corporations are skilled at utilizing offshore tax havens, including reporting substantial profits as foreign. Citigroup has held about $43 billion offshore for the last several years. If declared as U.S. profits, they'd owe $11.5 billion to the IRS. Verizon, whom many of you enrich by subscribing to their cellular or Internet services, reportedly earned $19.3 billion over the last four years that has been sitting in an offshore bank.

Microsoft, whose operating system is on practically every home and office computer in the country, had $61 billion legally stashed as profits from a subsidiary in Puerto Rico, a tax haven. This has allowed the company to avoid a $4.5 billion tax bill in the states.

Lastly, there is FedEx, which, over three years ending in 2014, made $6 billion but was not required to pay any federal income taxes. This was partly due to its purchase of new airplanes costing $2 billion, a capital expense which qualified the company for tremendous tax breaks.

I would like to have the opportunity to benefit from the tax breaks like the ones described above, but it won'AAt happen. So, I will settle for the corporations cited above, as well as hundreds of others, being required to pay their fair share of income taxes.

Congress should stop favoring U.S. corporations over individuals, and enact legislation requiring comapnies to pay taxes on income no matter where it is banked or earned. This would shut down all the nonsense about having to cut Social Security benefits or increasing the retirement age. This would allow public schools and higher education to be properly funded, and it would certainly help Vice President Joe Biden's quest to expand cancer research.

Perhaps, if we are lucky, this would also allow those in the middle class to keep more of the money they work so hard for. But, mostly, it would be the fair and right thing to do.

Milton W. Hinton Jr. is director of equal opportunity for the Gloucester County government. He is past president of the Gloucester County Branch NAACP. His column states his personal views, not those of any organization or agency. Email: mwhjr678@gmail.com.