From octimotor;

From: Garlin Gilchrist II, MoveOn.org Political Action
Date: Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 2:41 PM
Subject: President Obama is lowering taxes for corporations?!

Dear reader,

Great news—the Obama administration has committed to veto any extension of the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2%.1 More than 250,000 MoveOn members helped make this happen by calling on the president to make this commitment.

But only days after promising to veto the Bush tax cuts, President Obama introduced a plan to reduce corporate tax rates.2

Big corporations should be paying more taxes, not less. They’re raking in record profits, more than any they’ve made since the end of World War II.3 Corporate lobbyists have woven unfairness into nearly every fiber of our tax code, finding new ways to sneak in tax tricks for their bosses every day.

We need to respond to this quickly. A loud, immediate negative reaction to lowering corporate tax rates could take this idea off the table, just like we did with the Bush tax cuts for the rich. If we get 200,000 signatures, we’ll deliver them directly to the White House.

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There is simply no reason to lower corporate tax rates. While the statutory corporate tax rate is 35%, the effective corporate tax rate is far lower. Corporate taxes are an increasingly small fraction of federal revenue, in part because of tax-avoidance maneuvers that business lobbyists snuck into the tax code.

For example, Facebook will pay zero income taxes on its nearly $1 billion profits from last year. It’s not alone: 30 of America’s most profitable companies pay no federal income tax either.4 The president is proposing to close loopholes that help these companies duck taxes, but reducing corporate tax rates undermines that effort. Serious reform that makes corporations pay their fair share cannot be subverted by lowering tax rates.

When hundreds of thousands of progressives pushed President Obama to make the rich pay their fair share of taxes, he responded by creating the Buffett Rule.5 He stepped up on the Bush tax cuts too. Add your name to call on the president to make corporations pay their fair share of taxes and remove lowering corporate tax rates from consideration
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Thanks for all you do.

–Garlin, Mark, Elena, Marika, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. “‘Taxmageddon’ looms at end of payroll tax holiday,” The Washington Post, February 18, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=271504&id=36264-21095459-vGqGiOx&t=5

2. “Obama Offers to Cut Corporate Tax Rate to 28%,” The New York Times, February 22, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=271432&id=36264-21095459-vGqGiOx&t=6

3. “U.S. Business Has High Tax Rates but Pays Less,” The New York Times, May 2, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=271435&id=36264-21095459-vGqGiOx&t=7

4. “Putting a Face(book) on the Corporate Stock Option Tax Loophole,” Citizens for Tax Justice, February 7, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=271037&id=36264-21095459-vGqGiOx&t=8

5. “Budget Seeks to Boost Tax Revenue,” The Wall Street Journal, February 13, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=271434&id=36264-21095459-vGqGiOx&t=9

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