Protesters Target Corporate 'Tax Dodgers'

Friday, March 02, 2012

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Teresa Law insists she and like-minded allies aren’t asking for a handout. They want a “fair shake” – meaning that corporations like FirstEnergy Corp. don’t get out of paying taxes.

Law, an independent home-care provider and member of the Service Employees International Union, was among a dozen protesters Thursday afternoon who stood in front of the FirstEnergy/Ohio Edison building on South Avenue. They held signs and chanted slogans to voice their discontent over a report alleging that FirstEnergy paid no income tax in 2010, despite earning $1.2 billion in profits.

The November 2011 report by Citizens for Tax justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, “Corporate Taxpayers & Corporate Tax Dodgers 2009-10,” also lists General Electric, Yahoo, DuPont, PNC financial Services Group, Chesapeake Energy and American Electric Power among corporations paying no income tax during 2010. Over the three-year period ending in 2010, the report charges, 78 of 280 of America’s most profitable corporations paid no federal income tax in at least one of the three years.

The 280 corporations also received nearly $223 billion in tax subsidies over the three-year period, according to the report. They paid an effective tax rate of 18.5% for the three-year period and 17.3% for the 2009-2010 period, less than half the statutory 35% rate.

The report shows corporations lowering their tax liability through use of accelerated depreciation, stock options to executives and other key employees, industry-specific tax breaks and offshore tax sheltering.

The Youngstown protest was one of several taking place across the country tied to the report.

“I’ve been following this for quite a long time. It doesn’t surprise me anymore,” said Sue Carfangia of Fight for a Fair Economy, which she described as a “citywide campaign” consisting of a coalition of labor unions, church groups and other community activists.

“We’re not here to bash the common man, the worker,” Carfangia said. The goal of the protest is “to call attention to some of the things that go on and that we hope can change and we hope we can change the economic injustice,” she added. The protest is the group’s first effort to date “and we’ll be holding more actions as time goes on,” she pledged.

Local attorney and activist Staughton Lynd, attending the protest on behalf of Occupy Youngstown, said he found the notion that FirstEnergy doesn’t pay any taxes “offensive.”

The Occupy movement began by gathering in downtown public square communities across the country “but it doesn’t make sense to get people 24 hours a day, seven days a week just living in a tent,” Lynd remarked. “This is part of reaching out to the community” and starting to assemble “a wider coalition around specific concerns like the inequality in the way people pay their taxes,” he added.

FirstEnergy spokesman Mark Durbin insists the company pays its "fair share" of taxes and he disagrees with the protestors’ contention that the corporation gets out of paying what it owes. FirstEnergy pays over $1 billion in taxes for its different operating companies and $189 million for Ohio Edison, he contends.

The protestors have “some issues that just aren’t staking up in terms of the dollars we’re actually paying,” he said. “We have always paid our fair share of taxes. We follow all of the existing tax laws,” he asserted.

Durbin noted that utilities are very “capital-intensive businesses” and when they make the kinds of investments those businesses require they are permitted to defer taxes to a later date. “The taxes have to be paid at some point,” he added. Even so, FirstEnergy also pays taxes on its buildings, transmission lines and power plants, and is a “strong supporter” of community efforts including the United Way and the Harvest for Hunger campaign that started Thursday.

“We are a good corporate citizen,” he said.