Yeah, my combined marginal federal and state rates are like 33%, my effective rate after mortgage interest and charitable deductions was like 8-9%. I'm going to try to be more like Google though.... ;)

If he made shitload of money, he'd be doing tax mitigation of his own, and probably wouldn't pay 40% either.

Is it not the case that as money moves around the economy from one person to another it is taxed over and over again many times? Why do some people only think of capital gains as "double taxation"?

I've got an obligation to maximize profits too: an obligation to support my family. But I don't have the resources Google does to set up complex income shifting tax avoidance schemes, and for that I'm heavily penalized by paying a much larger share of my income in taxes than a company like Google does.

If these big companies want to have the rights and privileges that citizens do (treated as legal entities, freedom of speech through political contributions, etc) then they should have to play by the same rules and with the same encumbrances.