Missouri Pro-Vote’s Ashli Bolden was quoted in The People’s World coverage of the St. Louis Bank of America protest:
Ashli Bolden, from the Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition, told the People’s World, “Some of the largest banks in the land – the ones who pay the least in taxes – are also the largest contributors to right-wing republican political campaigns.“
“They are connected. Tax breaks for big banks and rich corporations are connected to huge political contributions,” Bolden continued. “In other words, they bought those tax-breaks. That’s not democracy. It’s corporate control of our economy. And we’re tired of it.“
KTVI-FOX2now.com also provided coverage and video (below) of the Downtown St. Louis BofA protest:
Liberal activists marched on a downtown Bank of America branch Monday, calling the mega bank “A Tax Deadbeat”. They used tax filing day to highlight objections against corporations like Bank of America, which recorded an almost $4 billion profit in the 2009 tax year, but received a $1.9 billion federal tax refund.
About two dozen activists gathered at the Bank of America offices near the corner of Broadway and Pine downtown. The noisy crowd, watched by half a dozen St. Louis police officers and an equal number of Bank of America security personnel, listened to speeches blasting the bank, and then left. But one local public policy analyst says the demonstration highlighted just one symptom of a federal tax code he says favors corporations and the wealthy.
“This is a highly complex tax system that ends up providing the most benefits to a high income constituency and corporations,” said Robert Kropf, Dean of the School of Public Policy Studies at St. Louis University. “They know how to take advantage of deductions and tax breaks and loopholes. The end result is that they do not end up paying their fair share of federal income taxes.”
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Kropf said his analysis is not based on any ideas of fairness or equity, but simply on the most efficient use of tax policy. “The numbers are very clear,” he said. “The top earners in the United States and the top corporations in the United States are paying less in federal taxes than they should be paying. And that burden is transferred to the rest of us.”
And in Springfield:
Protesters Want Tax Loopholes Closed for Big Corporations
Missouri ProVote and MoveOn.org organized several protests Monday. One of those was outside Bank of America on east Sunshine.
Protesters say Bank of America is making record profits, but not paying any taxes due to loopholes. They’re hoping their nationwide protests will send a message to big corporations like Bank of America and Exxon Mobil.
Protester Shanen Givone says, “We have so many companies that are not paying taxes and that I’m on unemployment and a full-time student and I’ve paid $670 more than they did in federal taxes.”
“Here in Missouri we’re paying $480 more each year because corporations like Bank of America aren’t paying anything,” says Missouri Pro-Vote Organizer Kay Mills.
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