Posted on 09/14/2010 9:41:20 AM PDT by BradtotheBone
Senate Republicans today rejected a proposal to bar the nation’s biggest oil companies from taking a popular domestic manufacturing tax deduction.
Democrats fell four votes short of the 60 they needed to cut off extended debate on the measure, which was proposed as a way to pay for other spending and a bid to relax an IRS reporting mandate in the new health care law. The procedural vote was 56-42.
The proposal, sponsored by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., took aim at the “section 199″ domestic manufacturing tax deduction. Created six years ago, section 199 allows a wide variety of companies to deduct qualified domestic production activities from their tax liability. In the case of oil companies, that translates to a deduction of up to 6 percent of income from oil and gas production.
Nelson’s plan would have barred the major integrated oil companies from taking the deduction, but left it on the books for other firms. Oil and gas industry advocates argued that the plan unfairly singled them out. But Nelson said “Big Oil” didn’t need the help.
“The last thing we should be doing is transferring public tax dollars to the pockets of BP and other major oil producers that continue to rake in exorbitant profits because of high prices at the pump,” Nelson said.
Republicans rallied behind an alternative proposal, offered by Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., that would have been paid for by waiting until 2018 to stash $15 billion into a prevention and wellness fund. But that plan was also blocked today, with the Senate voting 46-52 — 14 votes shy of the 60-vote threshold — to cut off debate on the Johanns proposal.
(Excerpt) Read more at fuelfix.com ...
And class warfare takes another hit!
Must’ve caught a whiff of November...
That is bothersome on many levels. First, the typical democrat belief that government owns all of your money, and that if government allows you to keep some of your own money, it's really giving you "public tax dollars".
Second the absurd notion that BP and other oil companies make "exorbitant profits", when their profit margins are among the lower of any industries.
Third, the ignorance of believing that high gas prices are what provides profits to oil companies, instead of the price they can sell the oil itself.
Fourth, the idea that BP will have ANY profits for a while after the oil spill.
Of course, on the last issue, I am reminded that in 2008, the Democrats insisted on paying for some stimulus they pushed by putting a new tax on the "windfall profits" of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae -- two companies that went bankrupt and were seized 6 months later. Democrats are really good at destroying profit-making companies.
I would ask how they feel it is ok to tax certain oil companies while not taxing others based on size, but then I remember our income tax is set up the same way.
ping ... good points!
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