Wartime Excess Profits Tax

War costs are now expected to exceed 300 billion dollars, and the national debt is over seven trillion dollars. That's $26,363.87 per American citizen. The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $1.64 billion per day since September 30, 2004. Costs and debt are up, and so are corporate profits. Wartime corporate profits are soaring (Boeing up 265\%, Exxon Mobil up 122\%) but corporate tax receipts fell to just 7.4 percent of overall federal tax revenue in 2003. The General Accounting Office has reported that an astonishing 94 percent of corporations reported tax liability of less than 5 percent of their total income during the same time period.
The time has come, in fact it is past due, for a revenue act which has been used successfully in past wartime emergencies, the excess profits tax. An excess profits tax is intended to increase revenue during periods of distress and to prevent businessmen from taking unfair advantage of the increased government spending and consumer demand that normally accompany wars. In 1917 the U.S. federal government adopted such a tax, which continued in various forms and at increasing rates until 1921. It was revived by federal legislation during World War II and during the Korean War. The tax was imposed on the excess over a firm's peacetime earnings or over an arbitrarily decreed earning rate.
We, the undersigned, hereby petition the US government to enact a wartime excess profits tax on corporations doing business in the United States.