Corporations like to whine about how much they pay in taxes. It is the motivation behind companies like Burger King racing across the Canadian border to devour Tim Horton's just so that BK can wear the butchered pelt and pretend to be a Canadian corporation now, thus qualifying to pay less in taxes.

Well I can't spend millions on tax lawyers and avoidance schemes. I am a union STEM worker who makes more than most hourly workers in the US, to the point where my gross income would cross into the 15% bracket with room to spare. My house is paid off, so there is no mortgage deduction. I have only my wife and myself as dependants. We have few write-offs, so I end up taking the Standard Deduction. We are under 65, and are not blind or disabled. AND - I live in California, a state which right-wingers denounce as a high-tax state.

So what percentage did I end up paying on my income to the IRS and California's Franchise Tax Board?

10.87%. Total. Combined.

If I could afford the kind of tax lawyers a company like Pfizer can afford, I'm sure I could lower this even more, and not have to run off to become a citizen of Ireland or something. And if the US Military went back to exclusively defending the US of A instead of making the world safe for profitable multinational exploitation, I'm real certain that my taxes would go down a significant amount.

So when you hear some other company whining about how much they pay in taxes, just tell the crybaby greedheads to STFU. They don't give a damn how you make it under our tax system, and you don't have a visible fraction of the assets available to them for which they don't pay much: such as our power grid, our roads, our police and fire services, and so very much more. Thy don't have to worry about their cargo planes under MANPAD attacks as they take off, nor their container ships being held for ransom by maritime pirates lurking outside New York Harbor. Their executives don't need armored divisions to cover them while they play golf, and no worries about minefields on the fairways or ambushes in the sandtraps.

This and so very much more is what their tax dollars would go for IF THEY PAID THEM. Twenty-six US corporations paid no income taxes in 2012, a number which slightly increased in 2015. I paid more in income taxes than ALL of these companies - both years!

This is but part of the reason the US has such incredible income disparity and makes it possible for the greedheads to buy our government out from under us. There is only one candidate who is pledged to do something about that, and we need to get him elected and give him a majority sufficient to make some changes. Or else, before too much longer, SCOTUS will rule that your employer can own you as long as they pay you - and you can't quit if you don't like that.