Posted on 03/25/2011 9:53:36 AM PDT by xtinct
General Electric paid no American taxes in 2010, the New York Times reports:
The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.
Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.
That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E. The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
I’m against the “Fair Tax” because it is progressive; it even says so on its official website.
I cannot condone any tax-system which is not, like Justice is supposed to be, blind wrt those under it.
I came across this quote sometime ago, though I don’t remember who said it, and it seems most fitting:
“When legislators determine what can be bought and sold, the first thing bought and sold are legislators.”
It’s double taxation. You pay your income taxes, and then when you buy GE product a component of the price is to cover their corporate income tax. A corporation is a fictitious legal entity. Any tax on an entity has to be paid by someone else.
To say they pass all taxes along to the customer though, is an oversimplification. Sure, if they get an 8% increase in taxes they would love it if they could just charge 8% more and cover it. But that 8% jump changes the supply/demand curves. Some who were willing to pay the freight but were unhappy about it decide that this is too much and eschew the GE products and services. In other words, it forces GE to re-evaluate their cost/price structure and try to reoptimize it.
“Its double taxation. You pay your income taxes, and then when you buy GE product a component of the price is to cover their corporate income tax”
I can see the double taxation, just not the predictability of an income tax like other costs have, but I guess an estimate could be made and then some of it passed on.
Crony Capitalism at work.
I suspect that many of you have already exercised your warranty options on GE new appliances, hot water heaters, etc. GE’s turning out junk now - should I mention Japan?
Liberal Leftist Corporation that makes all businesses look bad.
Big shot used to fire 10% of the GE employees as a matter of course.
Off with their heads!
$0 taxes isn’t a problem for me. What IS a problem is all the kickbacks and subsidies they get. Plus they have become major rent seekers for favorable legislation that creates or shapes markets for them.
dangit!!!!, I want to hate the story that they arent “paying their fair share” then you come with all that quickly summed logic. They do use infrastructure and facilities however, is that “paid for” by the local economy boost they provide?
High corporate tax rates are killing job expansion and that has nothing to do with this article. This is just a case of GE being favored by the administration.
How much money was wasted in tax credits engineered by government social engineering?
Immelt ring a bell?
GE is extraordinarily close to this administration
The problem is when only the specially politically favored companies like GE and GM are being given benefits not available to other companies.
This is a form of crony corruption.
And this surprises — who?!
“I’m a commie then. GE pays no taxes on billions of dollars of profits, but the Feds raise the taxes on my lousy pension an extra $350 a year.”
Remember the hubbub about Exxon? They pay bunches of taxes didn’t they?
More double speak from the dark one!
They have whole floors full of accountants with utilities that model costs, demand, and profits as different factors, like taxes, change. They have to try to pick the price point that give them the best profit. So, hell yeah they’ll try to pass them on if they can, but if they see that raising price to cover the new cost makes demand go way down, they won’t do it - they’ll have to eat it.
Many multi-national corps pay no income tax.
A list of companies usually surfaces every year round tax time.
We always here how corporate America justifies taking jobs overseas because of the over burdening tax rates....yea, right.
Government Motors is EXEMPT FROM TAXES under the bailout plan
BUY FORD~!
(Reuters) - Most U.S. and foreign corporations doing business in the United States avoid paying any federal income taxes, despite trillions of dollars worth of sales, a government study released on Tuesday said.
The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.
**Its double taxation.**
C’mon ... STOP THIS ... Corporations DO NOT PAY TAXES... they COLLECT them as a part of the “cost of doing Business” ... WE PAY their taxes. In figuring price.. all taxes are considered and added in ... Corporate Taxes is a bogus argument, used by Libs and Socialists to spread their Class warfare/ENVY!! You want to get angry about something... get angry at FUHRER OBAMA for handing out OUR HARD EARNED MONEY!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.