While Oregon children sit in overcrowded classrooms and college students face unaffordable tuition, some corporations with millions in profits and sales collected in Oregon pay no income taxes. That’s wrong.
While middle class families pay their income taxes to support the common good, some profitable corporations pay no income taxes. That’s wrong.
And these corporations pay nothing despite the fact that Oregon voters overwhelmingly approved a corporate minimum tax. That’s wrong.
That’s why OCPP is launching this petition asking the Oregon legislature to “close the Con-way Loophole” that allows profitable corporations to pay no income taxes.
In tax year 2011, at least 24 profitable corporations paid no Oregon income taxes. Of those 24 corporations paying nothing, eight had Oregon profits of more than $5 million. Many more profitable corporations paid less than the corporate minimum by using the Con-way Loophole.
How is it that corporations can pay less than the minimum, even nothing? Faced with a $75,000 corporate minimum tax on $79 million in Oregon sales, trucking giant Con-way, Inc. got the Oregon Supreme Court to approve a loophole allowing corporations to avoid even the most minimal contribution toward the common good.
Since the Con-way Loophole ruling, more corporations have driven through it. The Con-way Loophole is a wide gap in Oregon’s corporate minimum tax structure. Sadly, so far the Legislature has done nothing to close the Con-way Loophole.
Help us make clear to lawmakers and candidates that when Oregon voters said “impose a corporate minimum tax,” they meant it.