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WASHINGTON---With federal  income taxes due in a few weeks, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont  independent allied with Democrats, on Sunday released a list of ten big  profitable U.S. companies paying little or no taxes. Sanders wants to  close the loopholes that make this tax avoidance legal. Some people call  the income tax system with generous loopholes for big companies 
corporate welfare or 
corporate entitlements.  As Congress returns to work this week--after yet another break--to  negotiate over big budget cuts--with social safety net programs facing  reductions--Sanders is pushing for corporations to pay more of a fair  "share."
The Bernie Sanders Ten, per release....
1)      Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009.  Exxon  not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156  million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings. 2)      Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from  the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received  a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of  nearly $1 trillion.  3)      Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26  billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion  refund from the IRS. 4)      Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009. 5)      Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the  Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from  the IRS last year.  6)      Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with  $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check  from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million  tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction. 7)      Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income  in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an  almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury  Department. 8)      Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits  but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout  from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury. 9)      ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the  United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, but  received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas  manufacturing deduction. 10)  Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more  than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during  those years was just 1.1 percent. 
  
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Corruption Is In The Eye Of The Beholder
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