Dont hold your breath.
You have to remember that corporations write tax law. While corporations complain about the 35% corporate tax rate and their pundits on Fox try to spin that around and say how much lower the tax rate is on regular working people its all a lie.
We pay taxes on our income, or Revenue. In other words we pay upfront. Corporations pay taxes on their profits not their revenue. Its a very unfair system but the fact is that corporations, while essential, are bloated ineffecient economic units, much less effecient than the average working class family. They get to take their revenue, buy whatever they want, new furnishings for the executive suites, gold fixtures in the bathrooms, teak wall panelling for the office, a car for the CEO, you name it, then they only have to pay tax on what they didnt spend. We on the other hand have our revenue taxed then have to try and figure out how to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads with whats left. To those pundits who decry the corporate tax on profits I say "fine, lets have corporations pay the tax on their revenue at the same rate as working families and other legal persons".
If you were told that you could buy everything you need off your income then only pay tax on whats left over (the profits) how much would you have left over for the taxman?? With the Alternative Minimum Tax no matter how much carryover losses you have, no matter how much in debt you are in, if you have income you will pay taxes, most corporations dont pay taxes.
What it comes down to is the average working class family is a better managed economic unit than the average corporation run by someone who is being paid millions of dollars a year for his mismanagement.
If a company is a sole propriortorship profits are irrelent. Why show profits and pay taxes when you can spend it? If a group of investors own a corporation and are able to get returns on that investment through means other than profits or stock prices why wouldnt they? If the corporation in question is hugely labor intensive then why would they ever show profits?
As FWAAA pointed out "AA hasnt paid taxes since 2000 and will likely never pay them again". So forget about the taxes, we dont get to see their tax returns just the 10K which is a form required by the SEC thats issued for investors. The intent is to insure that investors arent mislead by management into paying more than the stock is worth. Its not there to give labor an insight into how much the company can pay us. The SEC doesnt look for statements that are overly pessimistic, as far as they are concerned they want every real or imagined liability there, they are the lookout for the opposite.
FWAAA tries to spin this off as if we all see black helicopters but he fails to address certain facts;
a) The airline industry has never shown consistant profits, even during the regulated era profits were minimal, in fact the most profitable years for carriers were post-deregulation, but so were the most unprofitable ones. However despite this the industry still attracts enough capitol to grow and renew and it attracts nearly all of that Capitol from large financial institutions that know that airlines usually dont make profits. Why is that?
B) Airlines generate huge amounts of revenue. But they are hugely labor intensive, if a carrier shows profits they will be unlikely to be able to prevent workers from getting a share of those profits. (SWA, UPS , etc) As the industry consolidates they become more vulnerable to labor. In order to keep labor in check and maximize their return the people who own the airlines must make sure they soak up or divert all that revenue before they become profits. As FWAAA admitted before he bailed out of the debate the oil companies are not taking all that extra revenue that we see the airlines generating, banks, despite the fact that AA lowered their debt saw increased revenue from the airlines, it would be as if you paid off half your mortgage but you are paying more in interest every month instead of less. Even counting that and fuel he could not explain what AA did with the other $1.6 billion in extra revenue. What I'm getting at is that the banks and other finaincial institutions dont thow away money in the airlines, they get the money out through ways other than profits or stock value. Otherwise they would have stopped providing capitol years ago. Whether its bank fees, landing fees, parts, the airlines pay excessively high for things that should not be that high. $1000 for a toilet seat. $250,000 for a black box that has older technology than the desktop computers to see on the curb on recycling day, $4000 landing fees, $1,000,000 fees to refinance a loan. $180,000,000 for an airplane. While each of these parties may be willing to compete with the other they are all willing to accept our pay cuts and concessions as a green light to charge even more. At the end of the day if we dont show up for work they all lose. The only people who have an interest in seeing whats really going on is us, the workers, we are the only ones locked out of the party.
c) Many of the other parties have seen huge increases in what they suck out of the airline. You have to remember that the carrier shrunk by a third but its revenue increased by around a third, most other costs should have shrunk by the same amount but some increased , not only did they increase to the point where they made up for the loss of volume ( ex the expectation that 33% fewer landings would equate to 33% less in landing fees paid, buying less fuel, fewer toilet seats etc) , but they increased enough to absorb the 33% increase in revenue.
d) Black helicopters do exist!
h34r:
h34r:
