Wells Fargo: Pay Your Fair Share of Taxes

Facing the worst income inequality in our nation's history, it's time for tax-dodgers like Wells Fargo to pay their fair share and help get America back on its feet.

It's a revenue crisis. With all levels of government tightening the belt, and cuts in services and public budgets affecting all of us, America is seeing anew the reality that starved public budgets are the result of a long assault by corporations that are bent on minimizing their tax payments at all costs. 

Wells Fargo is one of America’s biggest tax-dodgers.

We bailed out Wells with $43 billion of our money, but the company has gone on to make record profits, and paid negative income taxes over the last three years. While we struggle to save our homes and schools, Wells Fargo refuses to pay its fair share.

• Wells Fargo has amassed almost $18 billion in unpaid taxes over the last three years, tax money that was meant to pay for schools, repairing crumbling infrastructure, and putting America back to work.

• Wells Fargo made a three-year US profit of $49.3 BILLION, with an additional $1.6 billion stashed in offshore tax-havens.

• Wells Fargo didn’t pay any taxes on its billions in profit. Instead, the corporation received a refund of $681 million on federal taxes from 2008 to 2010.

The solution:

• Wells Fargo should pay the statutorily required 35% corporate income tax and stop using offshore tax shelters and other corporate tax loopholes.

• If Wells Fargo had paid the statutory 35% rate from 2008-2010, that money could have created between 255,000 and 432,000 jobs for Americans struggling with unemployment in the wage of the financial crisis.

• Wells Fargo should disclose their Iowa tax return. We suspect they pay zero in Iowa taxes, but there are not required by the state to make that information public and has refused to disclose them when asked.