In debates about changes in our tax laws, politicians have mostly hidden the real problems that threaten our future. They focus on the ideological class-warfare struggle that pits the poor against the rich and gets everyone screaming about unfair redistribution of wealth.

Liberals complain that President Bush's tax cuts targeted at the rich shift too much of the burden onto poor and middle-class families who can ill afford to pay. Conservatives quickly point out that the wealthy pay the lion's share of the taxes, and therefore deserve to benefit from tax cuts.

Both sides are correct. Yes, the rich pay most of the taxes and, yes, tax cuts that benefit them tend to hurt the middle class and poor. But we waste our time arguing about the rich-poor divide when the biggest problem is that corporations are shielded from liability.

Whenever I write about the issue of corporate welfare, people assume that I'm anti-business. I'm not. As a small-business owner myself, I admire people who take risks, invent new products, create jobs and spark the economy.

My problem is not with corporations themselves, but with the political system that tends to ignore the interests of regular folks in favor of corporations. No one likes paying taxes, but most of us realize that it's a necessary evil if we want to live in this great country. Corporations ask for, and receive, tax exemptions that cost all of us.

According to "Unequal Protection" by Thom Hartmann, in 1956, corporations paid 28 percent of the nation's tax revenues. That number is now much smaller. For fiscal year 2004, the IRS reports that corporations paid only 11.4 percent of total taxes collected.

Citizens for Tax Justice recently conducted a study of 275 profitable Fortune 500 companies that reported more than $1.1 trillion in profits to shareholders in their annual reports from 2001 through 2003, yet during that three-year period, 82 of these companies had at least one year during which they paid zero taxes.

The report reads: "In the years they paid no income taxes, these companies earned $102 billion in pretax U.S. profits, but instead of paying $35.6 billion in income taxes as the statutory 35 percent corporate tax rate seems to require, these companies generated so many excess tax breaks that they received outright tax rebate checks from the U.S. treasury totaling $12.6 billion."

Even the companies that do pay taxes receive huge tax breaks.

We're not talking about obscure, barely solvent corporations that are languishing on the fringes. Citizens for Tax Justice reports that the top 10 recipients of corporate tax breaks from 2001 to 2003 were General Motors, SBC Communications, Citigroup, IBM, Microsoft, AT&T, ExxonMobil, Verizon, JPMorgan Chase and Pfizer.

When these corporate giants are exempted from taxation, we have to pick up the slack. We may not pay today, but since the government borrows money to make up the budget shortfall, we, our children and our grandchildren will shoulder this burden tomorrow.

In the era of globalization, I'm aware that we have to offer tax incentives to keep our corporations from fleeing to more tax-friendly environments, but at some point we have to question whether we're actually reaping a benefit from all the tax abatement.

Corporations are still relocating overseas, outsourcing, closing domestic facilities, laying off thousands and still asking for even more protection from taxation.

Instead of haggling over rich- and-poor distinctions, citizens should demand that our elected officials include corporations in the tax burden. It's not fair to force working families to carry the full load.

© 2005 Denver Post

###