Supreme Court Term In Review Part IV: The Data
The numbers are now in on the just-completed Supreme Court term, and the Roberts Court remains the most pro-corporate Supreme Court in recent memory. Despite a slight downtick in corporate America’s win rate from the previous term, the Chamber of Commerce continues to perform better under Chief Justice Roberts than it did under either of […]
The numbers are now in on the just-completed Supreme Court term, and the Roberts Court remains the most pro-corporate Supreme Court in recent memory. Despite a slight downtick in corporate America’s win rate from the previous term, the Chamber of Commerce continues to perform better under Chief Justice Roberts than it did under either of his two conservative predecessors:
The Supreme Court’s October 2009 Term, featuring the Court’s blockbuster ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and producing an overall 81% success rate (13 wins in 16 cases) for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, focused a national spotlight on the business rulings of the Roberts Court. The Court’s just-concluded October 2010 Term featured even more cases of considerable importance to business interests and may ultimately prove just as momentous. While the Chamber’s success rate dipped to 57% (12 wins in 21 cases), the Chamber prevailed in the term’s biggest cases and all but one of the cases split the Court along ideological lines. Overall, the Chamber has prevailed in 65% of its cases before the Roberts Court, a figure that is still significantly higher than the Chamber’s success rate of 56% in our study of the Rehnquist Court, and dramatically higher than its success rate in our study of the Burger Court, when the Chamber only won 43% of its cases.
Corporate America’s big wins this term include another big victory for corporate money in elections, a license to lie for Wall Street, two decisions effectively eliminating access to class action suits for millions of Americans, lawsuit immunity for generic drug manufacturers, and a green light for health data mining by drug companies.
Cisco Asks For New Tax Break After Dodging $7 Billion In Taxes
Several multinational corporations have been waging a lobbying campaign in an attempt to sucker Congress into approving whats known as a tax repatriation holiday. This holiday would allow corporations that have stashed money offshore to bring it back to the U.S. at a dramatically lower rate. (Usually, companies repatriating money pay the statutory 35 percent […]
Several multinational corporations have been waging a lobbying campaign in an attempt to sucker Congress into approving whats known as a tax repatriation holiday. This holiday would allow corporations that have stashed money offshore to bring it back to the U.S. at a dramatically lower rate. (Usually, companies repatriating money pay the statutory 35 percent corporate income tax rate.)
As we documented, several of the companies lobbying for this tax break already pay exceedingly low taxes. One of them — mega-manufacturer Boeing — hasn’t paid any federal income tax in three years. Google, which is also part of the lobbying binge, paid just 2.4 percent in taxes last year thanks to extensive use of offshore tax havens and loopholes. And as Bloomberg noted today, Cisco wants a huge tax break on repatriated earnings despite dodging $7 billion in taxes over the last five years:
Cisco Systems Inc. has cut its income taxes by $7 billion since 2005 by booking roughly half its worldwide profits at a subsidiary at the foot of the Swiss Alps that employs about 100 people.
Now Cisco, the largest maker of networking equipment, wants to save even more — by asking Congress to waive most federal taxes due when multinationals bring such offshore earnings home. Chief Executive Officer John T. Chambers has led the charge for the tax holiday, which would be the second since 2004.
The companies pushing for a repatriation holiday — and the congressional Republicans supporting them, including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) — claim the tax break will spur the companies into investing domestically and creating jobs. But Congress tried an identical ploy in 2004, to the exact opposite effect.
The companies that benefited the most wound up cutting jobs, and corporations pushed even more money and investment overseas, in the hopes that another tax holiday would be granted before too long. And 92 percent of the money that the companies brought back went to enriching shareholders and executives, not job creation. Kristen Forbes, who was on President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers when the last repatriation holiday was approved, said the holiday “didn’t accomplish the stated goals of bringing jobs and investment to the US.’’ But tax dodging corporations want another one approved anyway, promising that this time things will be different.
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