Tell Chase: No tax breaks for Wall Street crime

The Department of Justice is leading negotiations with JPMorganChase right now, specifically for sell the toxic mortgage backed securities they and other Wall Street criminals use to destroy our economy and steal our homes. The reported amount is a record-setting $13 billion.

However, corporate tax law likely allows Chase to deduct all or some of the record penalty they will be paying. That’s outrageous.

First they strip the wealth from our homes with predatory loans, then use those loans to blow up our economy, then use the Great Recession as an excuse to steal our homes through foreclosure, and now want to use our tax dollars to help pay their fine.

Tell Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorganChase: No tax breaks for Wall Street crime. Our tax dollars will not go to subsidize Chase’s role in causing the Great Recession, creating the foreclosure crisis, and stealing our homes. 1

One of the reasons that Chase is facing this record penalty in the first place is because of work by Action for the Common Good's Campaign for a Fair Settlement and others to push the Obama Adminstration to stand up for struggling homeowners and foreclosure victims.

In March, when Attorney General Holder testified before Congress that Wall Street banks couldn’t be prosecuted because of their outsized wealth, people like you joined with 333,000 others from Action for the Common Good, CREDO, MoveOn, Campaign for America’s Future, and the Courage Campaign to demand the Obama Administration end “Too Big to Jail”. Some of you helped deliver those petitions to US Attorneys in cities across the country. And you stood with 500 home defenders from around the country who risked arrest at the Department of Justice in order to demand accountability for Wall Street criminals in May. That action ended with 28 arrests and non-violent protestors tazed, while seven more were arrested at the high-end Wall Street law firm Covington and Burling protesting the revolving door between the DOJ and Wall Street. Then just two weeks ago over 500 of you called AG Holder’s office demanding a strong deal with Chase. You and people like you are true warriors for justice.

That’s why it is simply unacceptable for any of us, as taxpayers, to pick up part of the $13 billion tab for Chase’s wrong doing. Tell Dimon: Don’t demand any tax deductions from this settlement.

[1] Recent agreements between the DOJ and other corporations show clear precedent here, including one from November 2012 with BP, forbidding them from deducting any of the $4 billion they owe for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster. “Government doing more to prevent corporations from deducting settlements,” Washington Post, December 31, 2012 http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-31/business/36103880_1_tax-deductions-million-settlement-federal-agencies

[2] "Exclusive: JPMorgan settlement could cost bank closer to $9 billion," Reuters, Oct. 22, 2013. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/22/us-jpmorgan-penalties-idUSBRE99L19720131022?ak_proof=1