Corporations: pay no taxes, get federal funding

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According to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), many of the largest American corporations utilize offshore tax havens to avoid or defer paying taxes, yet are still beneficiaries of federal financial rescue packages.

For the uninitiated, the GAO is the non-partisan, independent, investigative arm of Congress; specifically examining how Congress spends taxpayer dollars.

The study, by the Government Accountability Office, singled out Citigroup as having 427 subsidiaries in offshore havens like the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands and Switzerland. Bank of America has 115 subsidiaries in offshore havens, while Morgan Stanley has 273, the report said.

Bank of America received an additional $20 billion in government aid on Friday, on top of a previous $25 billion, and a federal promise to absorb nearly $98 billion in soured mortgage-related securities. Citigroup is expected to get $50 billion.

This is enough for the average taxpayer to scream, "Hey federal government, what about me?" While you and I pay our taxes, and are presumably good citizens, the beneficiaries of our common wealth are avoiding their responsibility to do their part. How is that fair? It's not!

So instead of propping up the bottom line of corporations that are raping the public coffers after having dealt in greed and excess, the federal government should be putting more money into assisting the people.

And you should be outraged that they're not.

You can read a complete copy of the GAO report here.