Multi-Billion Dollar "Look Back" Tax Break for Big Corporations

There's nothing wrong with cutting taxes, but went it is Obama favored big corporations that will get billions in a semi-secret new tax rebate, and you will get zilch, you really have to wonder what the hell is going on in this country.

On Nov. 6, President Obama signed the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009 into law, extending unemployment benefits by 20 weeks and renewing the first-time homebuyer tax credit until next April.

But tucked inside the law was another prize: a tax break that lets big companies offset losses incurred in 2008 and 2009 against profits booked as far back as 2004. The tax cuts will generate corporate refunds or relief worth about $33 billion, according to an administration estimate, writes NYT's Gretchen Morgenstern.

Before the bill became law, the so-called look-back on losses was limited to small businesses and could be used to counterbalance just two years of profits. Now the profit offset goes back five years, and the law allows big companies to take advantage of it, too. The only companies that can’t participate are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and any institution that took money under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Even NYT gets the madness here. Morgenstern concludes:

Pretending to promote job creation, the government is dispensing cash to companies that either do not need it or need it precisely because they didn’t run their businesses prudently. Isn’t there something wrong with that picture?

(Thanks to T)