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ExxonMobil paid no federal income tax in 2009. (Updated) Last week, Forbes magazine published what the top U.S. corporations paid in taxes last year. “Most egregious,” Forbes notes, is General Electric, which “generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.” Big Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which last year reported a record $45.2 billion profit, paid the most taxes of any corporation, but none of it went to the IRS:
Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas.
Mother Jones’ Adam Weinstein notes that, despite benefiting from corporate welfare in the U.S., Exxon complains about paying high taxes, claiming that it threatens energy innovation research. Pat Garofalo at the Wonk Room notes that big corporations’ tax shelter practices similar to Exxon’s shift a $100 billion annual tax burden onto U.S. taxpayers. In fact, in 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that “two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005.”
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
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And the banks are stingy, and getting stinger by the day, even after all those bail outs. ...now we have Tax evaders? How many crooks are there here now? It's getting hard to keep up with...
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Do you blame any of these companies for having accounts outside of the US? And does anyone think that it is going to change? With Obama at the helm businesses are leaving if they have the capability to do so.
Look at the Obama cabinet and how many didnt pay taxes. lmao
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.
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look at most millionaires...same gawddam thing!..again cash, this isnt a left or right issue..its not because of obama that these companies leave..its all about their bottom line..the ability to divert income and not having to pay income tax is a luxury that they take advantage of...you would do the same..so would i..and most people would too..
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they open accounts in places like Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman.
tell me what happens if those places get "attacked"? we the US taxpayer will send our carriers and air force to defend them. Thoise places and others where Exxon does business are all protected by the US defense which Exxon apparently pays not one cent to?
why should we if they are draining our defense dollars? the 2009 defense budget was 680 billion. That is 2266$ per person in the US.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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In fact, in 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that “two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005.” -------------------------------------------------
I guess this blows the myth that U.S. corporations are the highest taxed in the world
When are the working people of this country going to wake up and not listen to this b.s. that comes out of the mouth of large corporations.
There kids use our schools, the entire infrastucture is at there disposal and they come crying to us like a bunch of conservative limp wrists when they get in trouble wether it is financial or need of military services. Yet they don't feel that they owe any obilagation to pay for it.
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
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quote:Originally posted by raybond: What I should have said are the people that run them and direct them.
Did not the Supreme Court give them rights as if they were people such as free speach. And corporations can not talk. But humans can talk through them
yes, “Government may not suppress political speech on the basis of the speaker’s corporate identity,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the 57-page majority opinion. “No sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations.”
sadly, this was bi-partisan legislation that very few people disagreed with.
the decision itself was reached by "Judicial Activism' of the conservative members of the bench.
when the case was first brought in March it was expected to be decided on narrow grounds...
the Cheif Justice Roberts redirected the arguments to include a larger question. So it was re-argued on broader grounds in a second hearing and the so-called conservative Judges used it to overturn McCain-Feingold and even a couple of previously established rulings...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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quote:Originally posted by raybond: In fact, in 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that “two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005.”
That's an interesting statistic. It tells me that one out of every three United States corporations are mis-managed.
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quote:Originally posted by raybond: In fact, in 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that “two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005.”
That's an interesting statistic. It tells me that one out of every three United States corporations are mis-managed.
LOL.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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Didn't really mean it as a joke Glass. I'm sure you know that there's a myriad of ways for a business be it an S, C, LLC, etc. to avoid paying actual corporate income taxes.
Just from my own experience in my small steel business it's very easy to show a fiscal year end loss or break even regardless of how the year actually turned out.
Granted, in wildly profitable years a lot of the profits would be bonused out to employees and they'd have to pay taxes on it at their individual rates but every year our corporation (S by the way) makes sure that we're operating at break even at best.
It's easily done, it's legal and it's what every corporation should do from the smallest to the largest. I'm in business to benefit myself and my employees, not the government.
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quote:Originally posted by Upside: Didn't really mean it as a joke Glass. I'm sure you know that there's a myriad of ways for a business be it an S, C, LLC, etc. to avoid paying actual corporate income taxes.
Just from my own experience in my small steel business it's very easy to show a fiscal year end loss or break even regardless of how the year actually turned out.
Granted, in wildly profitable years a lot of the profits would be bonused out to employees and they'd have to pay taxes on it at their individual rates but every year our corporation (S by the way) makes sure that we're operating at break even at best.
It's easily done, it's legal and it's what every corporation should do from the smallest to the largest. I'm in business to benefit myself and my employees, not the government.
i know, and that's the funny part.
corporations are only tools just like money is only a tool.
i guess the real question is how you go about doing it isn't it? if you pay shareholders and employees? then they pay taxes anyway, right?
sending it offshore is another way and there's so many ways to do it, you can copyright a name of a product, register it in Barbados and pay that account all of your profits if you want, and then you can legally spend that money anywhere but here.
what i have such a hard time with in general is the idea that the government only serves any particular person if their particular party is in charge.
for instance? i've been posting for several years that we are overspending and undertaxing. Suddenly the GOP discovers this? the thing that's made this a serious problem is that its done in conjunction with a major trade deficit.
this love hate relationship is destroying our economy.
once the money leaves the country it is a TOOL that we as nation have lost.
regardless of whether you like or hate the govt? it is in fact the source of all money.
you can't have this type of society in a barter system, and somebody has to stand behind the money
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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anybody else notice that as soon as the Govt lowered Capital Gains Taxes to a mere 15% everybody went hog-wild putting their money into trying for Capital Gains and we ended the decade with less Capital than we had before the tax was lowered?
it was supposed to increase investment Capital to create more jobs, and instead we have less jobs?
taxes are necessary evil, there's never been a society that didn't have to tax it's members.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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upside my post was about mega corporations that are sending there money elsewhere and not giving there fair share to the system that made them and protected them.
I am thinking that your business is a small one that employs some folks and the tax laws are set up for you to grow I am all for that as a matter of fact I think it is great this is where we get the majority of growth in this country. From any way that the Government can help you is good. Wether it is tax law, healthcare,or help providing financial asst.
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
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good article... cutting govt spending brings real violence? no surprise to me.... the people that want to cut govt spending and cut it hard are not thinking the whole process thru.
all those people go back ino the unemployment line, others lose their home cuz they made committment to a mortgage they can no longer meet if their takehome is 20% less, and the next economic crash begins...
we can freeze govt spending, we can lower it back to Bush levels fast and then lower it to lower levels very slowly...our current level is not safe and neither is drastic cut.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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