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What are you talking about? That's not at all how this works. cite your sources.

Yeah, it's how it works.

Here is the story:

By David Cay Johnston

April 12 (Reuters) - Across the United States more than 2,700 companies are collecting state income taxes from hundreds of thousands of workers - and are keeping the money with the states’ approval, says an eye-opening report published on Thursday.

The report from Good Jobs First, a nonprofit taxpayer watchdog organization funded by Ford, Surdna and other major foundations, identifies 16 states that let companies divert some or all of the state income taxes deducted from workers’ paychecks. None of the states requires notifying the workers, whose withholdings are treated as taxes they paid.

General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Procter & Gamble, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors and AMC Theatres enjoy deals to keep state taxes deducted from their workers’ paychecks, the report shows. Foreign companies also enjoy such arrangements, including Electrolux, Nissan, Toyota and a host of Canadian, Japanese and European banks, Good Jobs First says.

Why do state governments do this? Public records show that large companies often pay little or no state income tax in states where they have large operations, as this column has documented. Some companies get discounts on property, sales and other taxes. So how to provide even more subsidies without writing a check? Simple. Let corporations keep the state income taxes deducted from their workers’ paychecks for up to 25 years.

It was not always this way. Letting companies keep their workers’ state taxes apparently began in Kentucky two decades ago as a way to retain jobs.

Last July when I wrote about six big companies that pocket Illinois state taxes () I knew there was more to this. But I had no idea how pervasive these diversions were until I read an advance copy of the 39-page report by Good Jobs First.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com...

And here's where you can find the report itself and updates and a handy subsidy tracker where you can look up the type and amount of subsidies states and municipalities are handing out to corporations.

https://www.goodjobsfirst.org/...

Now, tell them their customers are going elsewhere because the environmental image of a company is important, then they will wake up.

Sure, they'll hire an ad agency.

I remember Weyerhaeuser being in the news for an atrocious environmental record. And then I remember a bunch of Weyerhaeuser commercials with streams and green forests talking about how much they cared about the environment.

I'm guessing that was a lot cheaper than modifying their business practises.

Why is my tax paying lower-class ass subsidizing these corporate welfare queens ?? Great research site BTW...

You're not subsidizing them. Whatever taxes corporations pay ultimately get paid by you and other individual taxpayers. The only difference is that if the tax is paid by a corporation the taxpayers can't as easily see that it came out of their pockets. Corporate taxation is just a way to hide the tax bill from the people who pay it. As a side effect, routing those tax payments through corporations also takes control over what segment of the population pays the taxes out of the hands of lawmakers and puts it into the hands of corporate leaders, since they're the ones that pick whether the cash needed to pay taxes comes from consumers, in the form of higher prices, employees, in the form of lower wages, suppliers, in the form of lower prices, or investors, in the form of reduced dividends or growth.

Why is my tax paying lower-class ass subsidizing these corporate welfare queens ?? Great research site BTW...

Koch Brothers? The people who are paying the taxes that the mob lives off of.

Sadly, no.

http://subsidytracker.goodjobs...

The Koch Brothers have received more than $200,000,000.00 in federal subsidies since 2000.

Wanna bet?
 
And don't get me wrong, I'm sure they'd receive this money either way and they're certainly not the worst offender but to think that this won't be used as a tool to bend more subsidies is naive.
 
Or do you still think they're just some good guys who "do no evil" even though that myth has been shattered time and time again?

If you really believe that a minimum wage can increase the welfare of poor people, why not raise it to $500/hour? Then we can all be rich!

Silly lad.

That's like saying that if the minimum wage is too high, and it hurts employers, we should just not pay anyone anything at all. and we'd all be wealthy

But let's get back to reality for a second. One of th ebaxtoipnzs of right thinking, God fearing economic rightness, Walmart (genuflect) Who just happens to be the largest employer in the country http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/c...

looky who's on medicaid!

While we are at it: http://www.bloombergview.com/a...

Which is all to say, that if you support keeping th eminimum wage at present levels, you are an avbid and enthusiastic promoter of our tax dollars allowing them to pay that minimum wage.

Highly socialistic there, Tovaritsch. Are you going to the communist party meeting tonight, Comrade?

See pg 18 on the PDF below for a list of "Megadeals" in the US up to the end of 2012.
Boeing got $3 billion in breaks from Washington state back in 2003. And then there's the almost $9 Billion over 20+ yrs that they were just awarded for production of the 777x.

http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/s...

Nevada's governor thinks the return on the Tesla deal will be 80-to-1 which seems VERY optimistic given that Tesla will need a decade to reach the 1/2 milllion cars per year threshold for which they're building the Gigafactory.

Solar is one of most subsidized industries.

Yeah, a citation's definitely gonna be needed for that one.

Agricultural subsidies are around $20 billion every year. Fortune 500 companies totalled $63 billion in subsidies (top 100 here, no solar to be found) of which a single company (Boeing) totalled $13 billion ($8.7B in a single deal), while the automobile industry (including Ford and GM, but also Fiat, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen) got over $12 billion. AT&T and Verizon together collected $26 billion in tax breaks between 2008-2010, while Exxon Mobil got another $4B. Fossil fuel industries have received over $500 billion dollars in tax breaks and direct incentives, 70% of all energy subsidies over the last 60 years, while wind and solar got just 9%.

So tell me again how Solyndra's $0.5B in loan guarantees are so "titanic".

Solar is one of most subsidized industries.

Yeah, a citation's definitely gonna be needed for that one.

Agricultural subsidies are around $20 billion every year. Fortune 500 companies totalled $63 billion in subsidies (top 100 here, no solar to be found) of which a single company (Boeing) totalled $13 billion ($8.7B in a single deal), while the automobile industry (including Ford and GM, but also Fiat, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen) got over $12 billion. AT&T and Verizon together collected $26 billion in tax breaks between 2008-2010, while Exxon Mobil got another $4B. Fossil fuel industries have received over $500 billion dollars in tax breaks and direct incentives, 70% of all energy subsidies over the last 60 years, while wind and solar got just 9%.

So tell me again how Solyndra's $0.5B in loan guarantees are so "titanic".

it is time to stop trying to drag down those that are actually creating jobs and employing people and start trying to pull everyone else up so that they can have those same successes.

Agreed. However we need to address the rich AND the poor who are abusing the system in order to do that. That is what OWS was truly about for those of us who do have a clue. Those with money who abuse their power are a far larger force for damage then the 4% who "rather sit in their trailer and collect money from the government than work". Minimum wage jobs like working at Walmart are my go to example for this. They pay people so low that huge groups of people have to go on welfare in order to survive. Quite honestly if I looked around and saw that as my only job option you bet I would rather sit around then work. What would be the point?

California taxpayers are spending $86 million a year providing healthcare and other public assistance to the state’s 44,000 Wal-Mart employees, according to a new study by UC Berkeley’s Institute for Industrial Relations.

from http://www.ilsr.org/new-study-finds-walmarts-miserly-wages-cost-taxpayers/

http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/corporate-subsidy-watch/hidden-taxpayer-costs This link contains over 20 states that have companies like Walmart as the biggest contributer to "lower-income workers are turning to taxpayer-funded healthcare programs such as Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)."

And if you think "that's just the cost of low prices!" well

By Ed Smith's math, the CEO of Walmart earns more in an hour than his employees will earn in a year.

So I seriously think they can afford to pay much better or at least give decent benefits.

You can't just dismiss the source without addressing what the link says. That's an ad hominem attack. If Rush Limbaugh says it's December, just because you hate Rush doesn't make it April. And I was responding to a left-wing advocacy group in great-grandparent's post. Or is that OK, since you are a lefty? BTW, that factcheck.org ought to fact check itself, since it always leans left. And nice bibliography at the end - they actually cite UAW!

As if it matters if auto workers make $73/hour in wages or they cost $73/hour, same difference for GM. Of course, how much an employee costs per hour is in no way the full metric of labor costs, if you look at the laundry list of ludicrous UAW rules, how hard it is to lay off or fire employees, how they can take early retirement at 95% pay, the ridiculous labor pools where "laid off" employees still get paid to stand around, not to mention health care. Toyota and Honda do none of this.

The sad thing is I knew some bozo like yourself would come in and slam the link merely because Heritage is a conservative-leaning group. My response: So? Address and disprove their claims, or STFU.

No ad hominem attacks here, this is a thinking Website, not a feeling one. You can't call names, shriek, and run away.

I agree with the first paragraph... I have no desire to wait around for a train to show up. Of course, the submitter of the story wants us all to live in urban environments, but alas, this is not the case for most of the US.

The second paragraph is flame-bait. No links? Foreign car manufacturers even in the US are subsidized far more than US counterparts. That's not FUD, it's a simple fact. Inside the US, they are subsidized.

"Spare me?" Is that an argument? Mod this down.

I believe you have been misinformed, at least about Wal-mart.

A few things before I begin :
There's usually a lot of static here on /. about left and right leaning news sites. I'm going to share with you what I have found, a lot of it people would consider "left" leaning. I consider it information, follow it up if you think it's wrong. I'm always open to good conversation ;-)

With that said, here we go.

From what I've read, Wal-mart is not a great place to work. They treat their employees poorly more often than not, they censor what books they carry, what videos they carry, they have been brought up on charges of time-clock tampering, and many other dishonest practices. They receive public money to purchase the land the stores are on, to build the buildings themselves, and to train their workforce. See http://goodjobsfirst.org/pdf/wmtstudy.pdf for a study done about the massive tax abatements and subsidies they receive.

As for treating their employees well, a quick google turned up the following:
http://www.ufcw135.org/wal/wal_litigation_over_sex _discrim.htm
http://www.walmartclass.com/public_home.html
http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2005 /01/08/wal_mart_lawsuit_certified/

Now granted, employing a large number of people does open you to a lot of suits, but there is a very real trend in the types of suits against them. I've heard many, many, stories on the evening news and also read a few in print about their practices in regards to going into a town specifically to take over the local market, driving out the local businesses so as to become the only game in town so to speak. Yes, that may be all well and good, it's also predatory.

I refuse to have anything to do with Walmart or any of their child companies because of all the things I've heard. YMMV however. I encourage you to go check this topic out if it interests you.

Cheers!

My 2c

A.A