The US tax system is rigged

Here’s who’s rigging it and how you can help stop them

It may seem like a political talking point, but the US tax system really is rigged by special interests. Every day a new “coalition” – a.k.a. front group – pops up with a plan to “simplify” the tax code and make America more “competitive.” But if you dig beneath the surface, these groups are just fronts for the big businesses that spend billions of dollars on lobbying to ensure large companies pay as little tax as possible, sticking the rest of us with the bill. In fact from 2009 to 2015, the 50 biggest US companies got more than $423 billion in tax breaks and spent more than $2.5 billion on lobbying Congress to boost their bottom line even further.

The US and poor countries each lose more than $100 billion every year to tax dodging by big companies. The 50 largest US companies alone have more than $1.6 trillion stashed offshore. President Trump has said, “I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them.” But now President Trump and Congressional leaders are proposing tax plans that offer even more giveaways to the very same special interests.

The 50 biggest US companies including Pfizer, Goldman Sachs, GE, Chevron, Walmart, and Apple could see new tax cuts of more than $327 billion even as programs to help working Americans and provide lifesaving food, medicine, and access to clean water to the poorest people in the world get slashed to the bone. Simply put, these plans are a blueprint for greater inequality here in the US and around the world.