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July 1, 2019 02:20 pm PDT

Why can't we see big companies' tax returns?

As Russell Brandom writes, "before 1976, corporate tax returns were broadly considered part of the public record" and there's been bipartisan support since for mandating that big companies show us how they're structuring their earnings (this was especially urgent after the Enron scandal).

The Treasury studied the matter in 2018 and weighed in strongly supporting the idea, as a means of enhancing both the public dialog about how tax breaks were being used and abused as to "demystify the tax code" and also to help Congress, who could refer to the disclosures when writing law.

Today, Amazon claims that it's paying $2.6B/year in taxes, but so far as we can tell from its minimal disclosures to shareholders, it paid $0.00 in federal tax last year. Resolving this discrepancy would be easy: just publish Amazon's tax returns.

When politicians like Warren complain about Amazon not paying taxes, the real argument is that the company is abusing the tax deduction system, exploiting poorly designed deductions and using political influence to keep those loopholes open. But if youre making that case, its not enough to simply say Amazon took a lot of deductions. We need to know which deductions Amazon took and why. The only way to know that is to see the filing itself. (It should go without saying that all these arguments apply equally well to a presidents tax returns.)

More transparency could also shed light on the thornier topic of foreign tax shelters, which most companies currently report to the SEC as a single number for all non-US income.

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Original Link: http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/ZxyyBgTE2Vk/bring-receipts.html

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