Posted on 11/17/2011 12:28:10 PM PST by OPS4
General Electric, one of the largest corporations in America, filed a whopping 57,000-page federal tax return earlier this year but didn't pay taxes on $14 billion in profits. The return, which was filed electronically, would have been 19 feet high if printed out and stacked.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
How many billions in taxpayers subsidies and handouts did they get?
The fact that it took 57,000 pages for the return points out the stupidity of our current tax laws. My return runs about 40 pages, and it is not all that complicated. Should be able to do it on two pages max, but nooooooooo.
Simple answer for this:
9-9-9.
My first thought also.
Notice 57,000 pages. You KNOW it’s got to be a subsidy minefield.
That means added overhead to GE's operations, which means that GE customers paid "their share" for this corporate version of War and Peace.
Nine billion dollars of GE's profits came overseas, outside the jurisdiction of U.S. tax law.
GE isn't repatriating those profits, because the US corporate tax rates are the highest in the western world. Instead, they are leaving that money offshore, and investing it their operations outside the US. There's definitely something wrong here, and it's not with GE.
GE wasn't taxed on $5 billion in U.S. profits because it utilized numerous deductions and tax credits, including tax breaks for investments in low-income housing, green energy, research and development, as well as depreciation of property.
In other words, they took advantage of all the different provisions that are available to all corporations. Some of those were created by previous Congresses and administration, and some were created recently under this administration.
Do you claim deductions on your tax return for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, and state/local taxes. If so, how is what you are doing any different than what GE did?
Prepared by hundreds of GE employees at a cost of $100's of millions ... every single line audited by IRS over the next ten or so years, which will cost $100's of millions more.
Minimum cost $1,000 per page (Lawyers, Accountants)!
I would guess there’s no such thing as a 57,000 sheet tax return so what is this really about?
Each of those provisions are the result of a lobbying effort by large corporations such as GE. They write a tax provision they like, garner support among like situated businesses, pool their resources to hire a lobbying consultant, which is packaged by appeal to some liberal pabulum and get their provision stuck into one page of a 5,000 page bill.
How does a small business even learn that such provisions are even on the books? By expending time and effort, which detracts from their core pursuit. The result is a competitive edge to larger business - all acheived through legal means.
Thus my tagline.
You can bet huge corporations like GE, will spend tens of millions to stop 9-9-9, or any similar tax plan.
Payroll, sales taxes, property taxes, and other taxes that they surely must have paid, Shirley, are no taxes? Having to hire lawyers, accountants and others to prepare the tax returns and, especially, handle regulations, is no tax on a company?
I wonder who signed on the first page to say that the other 56,999 pages are correct...:^)
Isn’t that just it, though? GE finds it profitable -*PROFITABLE*- to create a 57,000 page tax return rather than finding profit by making stuff. Business does not corrupt politics. The trust-busting politicians of 100 years ago set out to do good by regulating business, and those politicians have done very well, indeed, ever since. Politics corrupts business.
The NappyOne
and how much of it went to stockholders that will be taxed on dividends and capital gains???
If their tax year is January-December, and this was for tax year 2010, GE stock paid 46 cents/share. There are currently 10.56 billion shares outstanding, so that's about $4,857,600,000 paid in dividends.
During that period, GE opened at $14.66, and closed at $17.84/share. So, there was certainly a potential for capital gain, but sales during that period could have been for shares purchased at any time. Total volume for calendar year 2010 was about 905 million shares, so it's probably safe to presume that some of those were profitable. :-)
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