Mark Dayton: “the President announced a tax proposal last week. I call it ``Leave No Millionaire Behind.'' He expressed his concern…”

“the President announced a tax proposal last week. I call it ``Leave No Millionaire Behind.'' He expressed his concern about the double taxation of corporate profits in America. I wish he would devote equal concern about the nontaxation of corporate profits in this country. It is estimated that now less than half of corporate profits are taxed at all. Through various tax and accounting gimmicks, some of the very profitable companies in this country not only have no tax liability whatsoever, they receive multimillion-dollar refunds from the American taxpayer. Take CSX, for example, a company headed by the President's nominee for Secretary of Treasury, Mr. John Snow. For the last 4 years, CSX reported U.S. profits of $934 billion. It paid, in American taxes, zero. It received rebates, in fact, from the American Treasury of $164 billion. Let me repeat that. CSX earned $934 billion in profits on its American operations, paid zero taxes to the American Treasury, and received a $164 billion refund from the American taxpayer. I would say that is ``compassionate conservatism,'' but it is certainly not double taxation. It is no taxation. And it is a big winner, increasingly so, on Wall Street. It is a reason that corporate income tax in this country has been a declining share of the Federal tax revenues over the last decades. In 1960, corporate taxes amounted to 23 percent of Federal revenues.…”