Plain Talk: Corporations 'citizens'? Then act like it .......
The U.S. Supreme Court this week once again bestowed citizenship on American corporations.
A few years back, with the Citizens United decision, the high court declared corporations were essentially people and therefore had First Amendment rights to pump any amount of money they want into election campaigns. Now in the so-called Hobby Lobby case, it declared that corporations could have religious rights as well, and therefore don't have to include contraceptives in their health insurance plans if the principal owners' faith opposes it.
So while the nation's high court is on a roll granting corporations personhood, it would be nice if the corporations themselves started acting like good citizens and, for example, paid their taxes like everyone else does.
The latest American corporation that is considering moving its headquarters overseas so it can pay lower taxes on its profits is none other than drugstore giant Walgreens. It would be the latest in a line of U.S. companies that don't like to pay their fair share of taxes even though they owe much of their success to government programs and infrastructure that were provided by other American taxpayers over the years.
One of the most galling examples of corporate tax avoidance scheming is the giant Caterpillar Corp. of Peoria, Ill. While Caterpillar hasn't moved its headquarters out of the country — at least not yet — it has managed to run most of its profits through a Swiss subsidiary, saving the company $2.4 billion in American taxes.
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