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Occupy activists protest corporate tax code

Several hundred protesters demonstrated outside Bank of America's regional headquarters in downtown St. Louis Tuesday.
Joseph Leahy/St. Louis Public Radio
Several hundred protesters demonstrated outside Bank of America's regional headquarters in downtown St. Louis Tuesday.

Occupy movement protesters blocked traffic outside Bank of America's regional headquarters Tuesday in downtown St. Louis. The group, including union workers, students, retirees, and clergy, staged a mock-game of dodge ball to protest how, in their view, corporations dodge paying their fair share of taxes.  

Zach Chasnoff, an organizer for the group, says the movement chose the IRS's filing deadline to call attention to an unfair tax system that favors corporations over citizens.

"A bunch of people wrote checks today to pay their taxes as they should do," said Chasnoff. "And, we wanted to highlight the fact that a lot of these corporations not only get off without paying any taxes a lot of them have negative tax rates, actually fairly substantial negative tax rates," he said.

St. Louis Police officers directed traffic around the scene. While police have clashed with protesters in the past, they made no arrests and issued zero citations .