A few observations about the tax issue.

The first thing to note is that any business, and especially those that do business in multiple states and even in other countries, operates in landscape of tax obligations, of which the federal income tax is only one element and might even be much less significant than others.

Second, "tax" refers to every and any monetary obligation that any and all taxing authorities levy on a business and sometimes certain particular operations that it conducts.  For instance, fees for building permits, plans and many other activities conducted by real estate developers are all "taxes."

Third, even at the federal level, income tax is by no means the only tax that a business pays.  The same is true at the state level in every state in which a business has operations.

Fourth, with respect to all of the taxes levied at all levels on a business, the federal income tax stands in last position in the chain. That means that "income" in terms of the federal tax obligation is net of all of the tax payments that a business has paid to the other authorities that stand in a superior position.

In plain English, if a business comes to the end of the chain and has no income or even a loss to claim on its federal return - AFTER having paid, perhaps, $millions in OTHER taxes along with its operating expenses - it is completely illogical to say that the business paid no taxes, or that the business is somehow a "leech on society", "skipping out on its obligations" and some of the other characterizations you can see.

The mainstream media know that the average voter is not an expert in taxes. They know that they can get the average voter to misapply the law, and to misunderstand the way that taxation in this country works, and to ignore the plethora of non-federal tax obligations to which businesses are subject.

There are many more taxes levied on businesses than most of us have any idea.  So, when you've seen a federal tax return, you still don't even begin to have an inkling of how much it has paid in taxes - or whether, indeed, paying all of those non-federal tax obligations might be one of the very reasons that a business has no income or a loss with regard to its federal tax position.

In other words, they know how dead easy it is to get all of us to think very wrongly about this issue. It's a very sophisticated, complex subject that doesn't lend itself to superficial analysis, to snap judgments.  The media invite us jump to certain conclusions merely because they happen to suit our own personal political preferences.  As tempting as it might be, we must not eat the serpent's apple.

No one and no business has an obligation to pay one cent more in taxes than the law requires - not even some sort of "moral" or "patriotic" obligation. In fact, a business has an obligation NOT to pay more than required.  If you're an investor in a corporation that is careless about reducing its tax obligation to the least amount that it legally owes, you should vote to replace the board at the very next stockholder's meeting.