Bolstering arguments against providing further public benefits to the fossil fuel industry, a BailoutWatch analysis published Friday reveals that 77 companies got a collective $8.24 billion tax bailout last year, then laid off tens of thousands of employees. The tax benefits for major polluters resulted from two provisions of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, signed by then-President Donald Trump in March 2020. The CARES Act changed corporate tax cuts from legislation that passed under Trump in late 2017, which critics often refer to as the Trump-GOP “tax scam.”
According to BailoutWatch’s review of fossil fuel firms’ Securities and Exchange Commission filings, “Payrolls were cut by a net 58,030 jobs at the 74 of these companies that reported employee headcounts for the end of 2019 and 2020.”
“The 62 companies that laid off workers collected $7.65 billion through the tax bailout—about $131,000 for each of the 58,488 people they left jobless,” the report says. “Five companies filed for bankruptcy protection after receiving $308.7 million in tax bailouts and laying off a total of 5,683 workers.”
— source commondreams.org | Apr 2, 2021