From the article...
In a regulatory filing just a week before the Japanese disaster put a spotlight on the company’s nuclear reactor business, G.E. reported that its tax burden was 7.4 percent of its American profits, about a third of the average reported by other American multinationals. Even those figures are overstated, because they include taxes that will be paid only if the company brings its overseas profits back to the United States. With those profits still offshore, G.E. is effectively getting money back.
Such strategies, as well as changes in tax laws that encouraged some businesses and professionals to file as individuals, have pushed down the corporate share of the nation’s tax receipts — from 30 percent of all federal revenue in the mid-1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009.
There are a lot of problems starting with the fact that the nominal corporate tax rate is too high, then the politicians doles out tax breaks to the highest bidder. But you don’t see too many protesters arguing for a corporate flat tax or anything like that. The one poster I do agree with is “end the Fed”. The Fed is designed to funnel money to big banks and lenders like GE in the name of helping the economy when they are in fact hurting the economy by drying up sources of longer term capital.