Please help me to understand something about that graph. How is that Exxon paid more in taxes than they made in profits? Is the cost of leasing and royalties included as taxes?
You’re confusing profits with revenue. In layman’s terms, think of it as a pie. The whole pie is total revenue. Each slice is an expense of some sort. That big slice that your fat cousin ate at the Thanksgiving dinner is what they pay in taxes. That little sliver that your aunt who’s always on a diet asks for is the profit, at least in Obama’s economy.
“Please help me to understand something about that graph. How is that Exxon paid more in taxes than they made in profits?”
Those are probably after-tax profits. Oil companies (just like you) pay many taxes that are not taxes on income. You may be in the 36% tax bracket for Federal taxes, but if you add up all the taxes you pay (property, sales, gasoline, mass transit, environmental, state, capital gains etc.), you may be paying over 50% of your income in taxes.
If you look at your household as a business, your costs of living, eating, shelter, transportation, insurance and so on are not profit. Profit is what’s left over after all expenses. So, you pay taxes, and yet often have less money at the end of a year. You made no profit, you took a loss for the year, and you also paid taxes.
If profits is defined as what you have left after paying taxes and deducting all the other bad stuff, then yes, I myself pay more in taxes every year than I make in profits.