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 ...
Ford received bailout funds as well.
I'm no big fan of GE, but my problem with them is their support of crooked liberal politicians, and the fact that they managed to get themselves “reclassified” as a “bank” in order to get bailout money. But that's a whole other discussion.
My main points are twofold.
Taxing business does more harm than good.
Our problems aren't the result of anyone paying “too little” in taxes, they are the result of “too much government” which cripples business, provides too much opportunity for “special interests” to buy favors, and takes away everyones freedoms.
How did we get from a Government that functioned on 6 percent of GDP, while fighting WWII, to one that eats up 25 to 30 percent of GDP?
C'mon tax rates have been higher and the economy was booming. Corporate job expansion is in other countries and it has more to do with cheap labor and avoiding US laws on environment and nothing to do with tax rates. Wouldn't you like to see the tax rates actually paid by corporations? I sure would and then we could see if GE was favored more than other corporations.
A simple tax on consumption is apparently too contentious for some.
Politically, we may be too far gone for a fair tax. Only a virtuous people would consider a tax that cannot be manipulated to reward some and punish others.
“How did we get from a Government that functioned on 6 percent of GDP, while fighting WWII, to one that eats up 25 to 30 percent of GDP?”
Sorry, I agree with the sentiment, but you’re mistaken. The U.S. spent more as a % of GDP during WWII than any time before or after.
(Not the best chart, but gets the point across).
Why should they? They are a fascist arm of this kleptocracy.
The problem with Ford corp is that they are in bed with the UAW, the best friend corporate fascism ever had.
Buy non union US made vehicles only.
Do not buy any of these cars.
http://www.pricewheels.com/blog/2009/09/27/uaw-releases-list-of-2010-union-made-cars-and-trucks/
I agree. But the conservative orthodoxy is that big corporations do no wrong and are all overtaxed.
Just bought a used Ford F150. Very happy with it.
All taxes on corporations ultimately fall on individuals. Those individuals may or may not be consumers of the corporation's output. After all, in addition to customers, a corporation has shareholders and employees ...
The exact breakdown of the impact on the company's customers, its shareholders, and its employees is a complicated function of the demand for its products and services. If demand is inelastic — i.e., you gotta have the product, and there are no substitutes — then the company simply raises prices, and the customers fork it over. If, on the other hand, demand is very elastic, then the company has to eat the added cost, causing shareholders and employees to get less. Most situations are in between, obviously.
| Income Statement | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 150,211.0 | 156,783.0 | 182,515.0 |
| Cost of Goods Sold | 71,713.0 | 75,921.0 | 83,772.0 |
| Gross Profit | 78,498.0 | 80,862.0 | 98,743.0 |
| Gross Profit Margin | >52.3% | 51.6% | 54.1% |
| SG&A Expense | 3,012.0 | 40,821.0 | 45,234.0 |
| Depreciation & Amortization | 10,013.0 | 10,636.0 | 11,492.0 |
| Operating Income | 14,208.0 | 10,344.0 | 19,141.0 |
| Operating Margin | 9.5% | 6.6% | 10.5% |
| Nonoperating Income | -- | -- | -- |
| Nonoperating Expenses | -- | -- | -- |
| Income Before Taxes | 14,208.0 | 10,344.0 | 19,141.0 |
| Income Taxes | 1,050.0 | (1,090.0) | 1,052.0 |
| Net Income After Taxes | 13,158.0 | 11,434.0 | 18,089.0 |
| Discontinued Operations | (979.0) | (193.0) | (679.0) |
| Total Net Income | 12,179.0 | 11,241.0 | 17,410.0 |
| Net Profit Margin | 8.1% | 7.2% | 9.5% |
|
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The taxes ($1.05B, 8% of Earnings/Income Before Taxes) are most likely paid by GE in the foreign countries where GE has operations and are much lower than the U.S. corporate "income" tax rate Many multinational corporations move their >profitable operations overseas for many reasons, including higher burdens and costs of the U.S. regulations and taxes. Also, GE Capital had large operating and non-operating losses in the last few years that would offset current profits - that's normal and should have been expected. GE generates a little over 45% of their revenues in the U.S., slightly over 20% in Europe, and about 15% in PacRim zone.
U.S. should abolish corporate taxes altogether - it's a form of double taxation and pass-through taxes on consumer; they only increase the cost of business, increase costs of goods and services to the consumers (essentially, make corporations an invisible tax collectors), increase unemployment, reduce competitiveness of U.S. companies, reduce incentives for the foreign and the U.S. companies to do business in the U.S., etc. etc. U.S. now has the second-highest income tax rate in the world, and one of the highest corporate "income" tax rates.
Onerous taxes, regulations and the laws like infamous Sarbanes-Oxley, and now Dodd-Frank are making business in the U.S. increasingly more difficult and expensive, and are driving capital and companies elsewhere, whether they are "American" or "foreign" companies, "American" or "foreign" investors. If you could design the laws and regulation to specifically chase businesses and capital out of the U.S., it would be hard to design something "better" than Sarbox and Dodd-Frank. They should be repealed, as well as abolishment of corporate "income" taxes, and thousand pages of federal regulations.
Large and medium-size companies are leaving or looking to leave high-tax states like California, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and others (sometimes they will get tax waivers from the state or municipality for several years and then the kabuki dance starts all over again). Latest high visibility example is Caterpillar announcing plans to relocate headquarters from Illinois. Exact same thing is happening on the national level - companies leave or never even consider to start business in high taxes, high regulations countries.
That's the reason why U.S. corporations are hesitant to spend / invest $2T they have on their balance sheets, and why more than a $1T is held overseas, instead of being invested and turned over in the U.S. because of high cost of tax on repatriated funds.
As usual, politicians (on both sides) are playing the politics of envy and blame the "evil fat-cat" corporations for "not paying their fair share" and being "unpatriotic" and use this to "close the tax loopholes" in the next piece of business-stifling tax legislation.
That was the design 40 years ago.
Only one of many great American “taxpayers,” who use political correctness (environmentalism, animal worship, etc.) to wrongfully and dishonestly shut down competition in their local commissioners’ meetings. Your business leaders and academic leaders are as socialist as your politicos. Recently, they even tried unsuccessfully to shut down little truck farms with their “food safety” bill (which bill many Republicans, including Bachmann, voted in favor of in its earlier form, before the Tester Amendment to exempt small farmers was added and passed).
because...
"A man can only see what his paycheck will allow."
The point being, there's no such thing as 40 years ago, if GE had any speck of integrity, which they don't, being now only the lowest of bottom dollar whores, thieves & scoundrels in need of the nearest yardarm.
. .where was I?
Oh, yeah, upgrade my boy, always be thinking how to improve the design, esp. when so much money & life is at stake, n'est pas?
Smart folks can reckon how this is cheaper in the long run, short term 'quarter' whores just don't get it.
Thank you. Here’s one good American design in electronics: the first MPPT charge controller for wind turbines. Those of us who are cursed enough with high average winds and willing enough to build small turbines (10-20 ft. rotors) ourselves have been waiting for them for several years.
Corporations don’t pay taxes. We the consumers do. That’s Econ 101.
Let's see, they sold the Mark I about 40 years ago, were up to the Mark III a decade ago and now there are about a dozen new designs waiting for approval.
So if a company sells a product and many years later, someone else misuses it and kills someone, the original manufacturer is responsible?
These melonthumpers applied the same cost benefit analyst F'n Ford used for the Pinto.
It was a sin & a crime then, this is even worse.
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