Wonder how this has happened?

It's almost as if the wealthy were running the government:

After plummeting from 2007 through 2009, U.S. corporate profits regained their precrisis peak in early 2010, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The latest, revised data released just before Christmas showed corporate profits before tax rose to a record $1.97 trillion in the third quarter of 2011. But corporate tax receipts, as reported by the Treasury Department, remain lackluster, even as the economy has gained some ground of late.

I'm sure all those new loopholes and deductions were written with absolutely no bias at all. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]