You're Paying Wal-Mart - Even If You Don't Shop There

Wal-Mart may well have the best scam of any of the giant corporations. They not only have have the lawyers to help them take advantage of many tax loopholes (so they pay very little in taxes), but by paying their employees poverty level wages they rope the American taxpayer into subsidizing the salaries of those workers (through food stamps and other government programs paid for by taxpayers).

And it doesn't matter whether you ever set foot in a Wal-Mart store or buy anything from one of those stores -- you are still, through your tax dollars, paying a substantial share of worker wages and contributing to the profits of that giant corporation. And the crazy part is that it's unnecessary. Wal-Mart could afford to pay its workers a livable wage and pay its full share of taxes, and still wind up with billions of dollars of profit.

How much are they soaking the American taxpayers for? Well, the Americans for Tax Fairness just did a study into that question, and they found that the taxpayers are providing billions in extra profits for Wal-Mart. Here is the summary of that report:

On tax day, when millions of American taxpayers and small businesses pay their fair share to support critical public services and the economy, they will also get stuck with a multi-billion dollar tax bill to cover the massive subsidies and tax breaks that benefit the country’s largest employer and richest family.

Walmart is the largest private employer in the United States, with 1.4 million employees. The company, which is number one on the Fortune 500 in 2013 and number two on the Global 500, had $16 billion in profits last year on revenues of $473 billion. The Walton family, which owns more than 50 percent of Walmart shares, reaps billions in annual dividends from the company. The six Walton heirs are the wealthiest family in America, with a net worth of $148.8 billion. Collectively, these six Waltons have more wealth than 49 million American families combined.

This report finds that the American public is providing enormous tax breaks and tax subsidies to Walmart and the Walton family, further boosting corporate profits and the family’s already massive wealth at everyone else’s expense. Specifically, our analysis shows that:

Walmart and the Walton family receive tax breaks and taxpayer subsidies estimated at more than $7.8 billion a year – that is enough money to hire 105,000 new public school teachers.

The annual subsidies and tax breaks to Walmart and the Waltons include the following:

• Walmart receives an estimated $6.2 billion annually in mostly federal taxpayer subsi- dies. The reason: Walmart pays its employees so little that many of them rely on food stamps, healthcare and other taxpayer-funded programs.
  
  
• Walmart avoids an estimated $1 billion in federal taxes each year. The reason: Walmart uses tax breaks and loopholes, including a strategy known as accelerated depreciation that allows it to write off capital investments considerably faster than the assets actually wear out.
  
  
• The Waltons avoid an estimated $607 million in federal taxes on their Walmart div- idends. The reason: income from investments is taxed at a much lower tax rate than income from salaries and wages.
  
  In addition to the $7.8 billion in annual subsidies and tax breaks, the Walton family is avoid- ing an estimated $3 billion in taxes by using specialized trusts to dodge estate taxes – and this number could increase by tens of billions of dollars.
  
  Walmart also benefits significantly from taxpayer-funded public assistance programs that pump up the retailer’s sales. For example, Walmart had an estimated $13.5 billion in food stamp sales last year.