Trump Tax Scam 2.0 Decried as 'Permission Slip' for Corporate Price-Gougers to Continue 'Ripping Off' Americans
"Since Trump slashed the corporate tax rate, they've paid shareholders more than $3 for every $1 they paid Uncle Sam," according to one author of the report.
As Republicans in Congress press ahead with a tax cuts plan that will primarily benefit the wealthy and could cost $7 trillion over the next decade, the progressive think tank and advocacy group the Groundwork Collaborative released a report on Wednesday making the case that in the wake of tax cuts enacted during U.S. President Donald Trump's first term, "corporations prioritized enriching shareholders over affordability, directly fueling the inflationary pressures burdening American households today."
The brief focuses on 11 major corporations that provide essentials like food, housing, and healthcare—including well-known brand names like General Mills, AutoZone, and Comcast.
According to the report, those 11 companies have collectively amassed nearly $500 billion in profits since Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which slashed the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. They have also enriched their shareholders by $463 billion—including through stock buybacks, a practice where companies buy shares of their own stock, thereby increasing the value of the remaining shares—while only paying $140 billion in federal taxes.
While the lowered corporate tax rate is not an expiring provision of the TCJA, Trump has pushed for it to be cut even further, to 15%.
Put another way, "since Trump slashed the corporate tax rate, they've paid shareholders more than $3 for every $1 they paid Uncle Sam," according to Elizabeth Pancotti, managing director of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative and a co-author of the report.
"Compared to the two years before the TCJA was passed, these companies' profits have more than doubled while their effective tax rates fell by 39%," according to the report's authors.
The auto parts retailer and distributor AutoZone, for example, has an effective tax rate that is 37% lower than it was two years prior to the enactment of TCJA, but profits that are 116% higher, per the report.
As evidence that AutoZone inappropriately raised prices, the researchers state that AutoZone in a first quarter 2022 earnings call noted that the company increased prices before cost increases took place. Also, in the second quarter of 2022, the chief financial officer said, "inflation has been our friend. It's helped us drive higher pricing."
Looking at another company, PepsiCo, which owns food and beverage brands like Gatorade and Quaker Oats, the report's authors found that compared to the two years prior to the TCJA's enactment, the company's effective tax rate is now 11% lower but its profits are 58% higher.
PepsiCo increased prices by double-digit percentages for eight consecutive quarters from 2021 to 2023, according to the report, and in the third quarter of 2022 the company saw 17% profit growth, which was well beyond their target range.
The report also quotes a representative from Frito-Lay, which is owned by PepsiCo, admitting in 2022 that Doritos shrunk their chip bags because of inflation. "We took just a little bit out of the bag so we can give you the same price and you can keep enjoying your chips," the representative said.
"The cost-of-living crisis facing American families is the result of deliberate decisions by corporations to hike prices, shrink products, and charge excessive junk fees," said Pancotti in a statement on Wednesday.
According to The Guardian, which was first to report on the study from the Groundwork Collaborative, food prices have increased since Trump's 2017 tax cuts, in part due to price gouging during and after the pandemic and Ukraine war.
The authors of the report also point to 2024 analysis from the liberal think tank Economic Policy Institute, which found that rising corporate profits explained over 40% of the rise in prices between the end of 2019 and mid-2022, when corporate profits generally account for about 11-12% of prices.
"Now," according to Pancotti, "Trump and the GOP want to hand the companies that spent the last several years ripping off working families a gilded trophy for their efforts and a permission slip to continue."
