Bernie Sanders is furious.
Earlier today, a press release appeared on the Vermont Senator’s website highlighting the findings from a report he had prepared.
The 19-page document – called “After $4 Trillion Boondoggle, The Republican Tax Bill Could Give 15 Corporations A $236 Billion Tax Break” – quantifies the size of the Christmas gift some of America’s largest corporations are about to have placed under their trees by Santa Trump and his merry band of GOP elves.
In addition to detailing the scope of benefits these companies are expected to enjoy as a result of the GOP tax plan, the report also highlights the lengths corporate America has gone to in order to avoid paying taxes while simultaneously benefiting from what Sanders calls “$3.9 trillion of corporate welfare in the form of subsidies, tax credits, and bailouts.” Here’s what Sanders had to say on Monday about repatriated cash:
A repatriation tax holiday has not worked in the past and will not work now, according to the report. As part of the 2004 American Jobs Creation Act, corporations were allowed to repatriate funds at a 5.25 percent tax rate with the assumption that the money would be used to boost the economy and create jobs. Instead, corporations brought $312 billion to the US and spent it on executive pay raises and stock buy backs.
Right. And everyone knows that’s what’s likely to happen again. Here is the chart from the report that breaks down who has gotten what and how much these same corporate “citizens” are about to get courtesy of the tax plan:
You’ll note that Goldman is on that list. As it turns out, Goldman released their own report on Monday detailing how the tax plan will likely affect the banks.
“Based on our preliminary analysis of the current tax bill under consideration by Congress, our EPS estimates for our coverage would increase by 13% on average if the US statutory rate were to be reduced to the proposed 21%, all else being equal,” the bank writes, adding that “we include a partial offset from removing the tax deductibility of FDIC fee expenses, which could reduce EPS by 1% on average for the group.” Here’s the chart:
And here’s some further color on the statutory rate reduction:
We estimate that the proposed statutory tax rate reduction from 35% to 21% could lead to 14% upside on average to our 2018 earnings estimates. In our analysis, we reduce the value of certain items that currently reduce banks’ statutory tax rates below 35% (i.e., tax exempt income, life insurance and tax credits) by the amount that the statutory tax rate falls.
Well amusingly, Jim Tankersley†(a tax and economics reporter for The New York Times) got his hands on the Goldman note and tweeted out the header:
Bernie saw that tweet and as noted here at the outset, he is not amused.
Of course Goldman didn’t include how they’ll make out under the tax plan that was crafted and pushed by two former Goldmanites (Cohn and Mnuchin), but Sanders made sure to remind everyone:
There you go: it’s “a disgrace” and Bernie is outright disgusted.
And you should be too. But maybe not so much at the corporations. I mean what do you expect them to do? Of course they’re going to lobby and of course they’re going to take a handout when it’s given to them. Who you should probably be disgusted with is the GOP and Donald Trump who are adding insult to injury by continually pitching this as something that’s designed to benefit working class Americans when the exact opposite is the case.
Here’s the full report as posted on Bernie’s website…
