Will you add your name to support my new plan for a Real Corporate Profits Tax?

It’s almost Tax Day, and chances are you’ll be paying federal taxes this year.

Maybe it’s a lot, maybe it’s a little. But chances are you’ll be kicking in something for our military, for medical research, for highways and bridges — the kinds of investments our federal government makes to defend our country and strengthen our economy.

Well, guess what? You will be paying more for running the federal government than a bunch of big American corporations that made billions of dollars in profits last year. Take Amazon: $10 billion in profits, zero in federal corporate income taxes. Or Occidental Petroleum: $4.1 billion in profits, zero in federal corporate income taxes.

In fact, year after year, some of the biggest corporations in the country make huge profits but pay zero federal corporate income taxes on those profits. This isn’t right, and we need structural change to fix it.

That’s why I’m proposing a big new idea: the Real Corporate Profits Tax. It will make our biggest and most profitable corporations pay their fair share and ensure that none of them can ever make billions and pay zero taxes again.

Sign our petition if you support our new plan, and let’s make it happen.

This tax only applies to companies that report more than $100 million in profits — about the 1,200 most profitable firms in the country last year. That first $100 million is left alone, but for every dollar of profit above $100 million, the corporation will pay a 7% tax.

That means Amazon would pay $698 million in taxes on its profits instead of zero. Occidental Petroleum would pay $280 million instead of zero. And according to independent experts, this new tax will generate about $1 trillion over the next ten years.

Now, you might be wondering — aren’t profitable companies already supposed to pay a corporate tax? Not exactly.

There are two sets of rules for reporting a company’s profits: one for reporting real profits to shareholders and the public, and another for reporting “profits” to the IRS.

Corporations want to report as low of a profit figure as possible to the IRS. That’s why they’ve lobbied hard to fill that second set of rules with as many loopholes, exemptions, and deductions as possible — chipping away at their potential income tax bill until it doesn’t exist at all.

But they want to report as high of a profit figure as possible to investors to drive up stock prices: These are the profits we see in the news and on TV.

So we’ll apply the new Real Corporate Profits Tax to the real profits that they report to their investors, with no loopholes, no exceptions, and nothing to manipulate.

This tax would also help level the playing field for small businesses — by helping to neutralize the advantages that the largest companies give themselves by hiring armies of lobbyists, lawyers, and accountants to exploit every loophole we already have.

Companies will be hesitant to under-report their profits to investors and the public — which means they won’t be able to game the tax system as much as they can now.

American companies are among the most successful in the world. That success comes from our drive, our ingenuity, and our creativity. It also comes from a broad American infrastructure — roads and bridges, public safety, telecommunications, education, our legal system — that relies on government investment.

Too many of our wealthiest companies have lost sight of this, and instead seek to cash in on all the benefits of America while skipping out on the bill. It’s not right — and we can’t (and don’t have to!) let it continue.

You probably pay more in federal income taxes than some of America’s biggest, most profitable corporations. Let’s make this year the last year any company with massive profits pays zero federal taxes.

Add your name if you’re on board, and we’ll fight side by side to pass the Real Corporate Profits Tax:

https://my.elizabethwarren.com/corporate-taxes

Thanks for being a part of this,

Elizabeth