U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is among a group of Democratic senators who introduced legislation this week to establish a corporate minimum tax as part of the revenue side of the budget reconciliation package making its way through Congress.

The proposal would create a 15% minimum tax on profits reported to their shareholders by the roughly 200 companies that report more than $1 billion in profits, the senators said in a release.

It’s intended to prevent large, profitable corporations from paying little to nothing in federal income taxes by exploiting the tax code while at the same time raising what the senators said would be hundreds of billions of dollars over 10 years to fund the Democrats’ social-spending agenda.

The legislation’s lead sponsors include U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Angus King of Maine and Ed Markey of Massachusetts.

“For the last 50 years, our economy has worked really well for large corporations and the wealthy, while American families and workers have been left behind,” said Bennet, a member of the Senate Finance Committee and one of the legislation’s original co-sponsors, in a statement.

“In that time, we’ve seen income inequality grow and social mobility fall. To build an economy that provides opportunity for everyone – not just those at the top – the largest corporations need to pay their fair share.”

Amazon, for instance, has paid an effective federal tax rate of 4.3% on profits of $45 billion over the last three years, the senators said, noting that the corporate tax rate is 21%.

The senators also cited a statistic frequently invoked by President Joe Biden, that 55 companies that earned more than a collective $40 billion in pretax income didn’t pay any federal tax last year. The figures are based on a report issued by the liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which derived the numbers from corporate reports.

According to a release, the proposal preserves some business credits – including research and development, clean energy investments and housing tax credits – and allows companies to carry forward losses, take advantage of foreign tax credits and claim minimum tax credits against regular corporate tax in future years.