All across the US, people are preparing for a Day of Action today, Saturday, February 26 to decry the fact that major corporations dodge billions of dollars in taxes while Congress is pushing hard for cuts to services for low and middle income Americans. This authentic grassroots uprising has been inspired by a Johann Hari article in The Nation published online in early February detailing the success of the spontaneous grassroots movement in Britain calling itself UK Uncut. The article, “How to Build a Progressive Tea Party,” describes how twelve ordinary citizens met in a London pub last fall and — instead of glumly looking around wondering why everyone was just letting themselves be ripped off — they said to themselves, “Why don’t we just do it? Why don’t we just start?”
UK Uncut’s movement — organized on twitter — has managed to successfully shut down branches of tax dodging corporations across the country by peaceful sit ins, called “bail-ins.” Teenagers to pensioners joined in. Hari writes:
A chuckling 64-year-old woman named Mary James said, “The scare stories will say this protest is being hijacked by anarchists. If anything, it’s being hijacked by pensioners!” They stopped passers-by to explain why they were protesting by asking, “Sir, do you pay your taxes? So do I. Did you know that Vodafone doesn’t?”
Taking their cue from the success in Britain, and rallied by recent events in Wisconsin, people across the US have spontaneously coalesced a US Uncut movement. Their first Day of Action is targeting Bank of America branches. Actions are listed here.
“The $3 in my wallet is more than ExxonMobil, GE and Bank of America paid in taxes last year, combined,” said Carl Gibson, founder of US Uncut Mississippi. “There’s a direct connection between corporate tax dodging and what’s happening to real people’s lives. Because of overseas tax havens and other tax loopholes, US corporations are making profits in America but barely paying taxes here. If we close those loopholes, we wouldn’t have to be cutting back on firefighters, library hours and student loans.”
According to the Wall Street Cheat Sheet:
Bank of American (BAC) earned pretax income of $4.4 billion in 2009, yet the financial services super market tallied up a $1.9 billion tax benefit.
How could such a travesty occur? Bank of America scoured the tax code for deductions like $860 million in tax-exempt income, $670 million in low-income housing credits, and a $600 million loss on shares of foreign subsidiaries.
Making matters worse for the US Treasury, Bank of America has a provision for credit losses of $49 billion which will carry over for a long, long time.
According to The Nation, BofA also had accounts in 115 offshore tax havens.
Here in Los Angeles, there’s a US Uncut gathering from 9am to noon at the BofA on 7th St. downtown. For updates, follow @uncutlosangeles on twitter
Bank of America HAS ALWAYS BEEN SKUNKY-