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President Vladimir Putin has signed a law introducing a windfall tax on excess profits of Russian companies, which was published on a government website on Friday. The law, passed by parliament last month, is aimed at raising 300 billion roubles and easing strain on the budget as Russia wages its war in Ukraine. Reuters reported exclusively on Friday that Russia had doubled its 2023 defence spending target to more than $100 billion, or a third of all public expenditure.

Democrats in the House know that they can't tax Cadillac insurance plans because the unions have those Cadillac insurance plans. Just what do you think you have been paying for every time you buy an American-made automobile! That means the unions don't particularly like this Democrat idea ... and if the unions don't like it, the idea is all but dead. Democrats would throw kittens into chipper-shredders before they would ever do anything to really upset their precious unions. So now, Princess Nancy and her minions are scrounging to find other ideas to generate revenue. The latest one in the...

During the campaign, Mr Obama repeatedly promised to submit oil and gas companies to a profits windfall tax, citing the disparity between their huge profits and the struggles of ordinary Americans. In the summer he said the tax would "help families pay their heating and cooling bills and reduce energy costs". But the proposal has been quietly dropped from his agenda listed on transition team website's www.change.gov, setting off a storm of protest among liberal bloggers and small business groups. An aide explained the change by saying: "President-Elect Obama announced the policy during the campaign because oil prices were above...

Get this line: The new tax brought in an estimated $6 billion in the last budget year, bulging Alaska's treasury with an expected surplus of as much as $9 billion. Thst enabled Palin to push a second initiative — giving each Alaskan $1,200 to help them cope with high energy costs. Sound familiar? Obama has proposed taxing the windfall profits of the five biggest oil companies and giving people $1,000 to pay for high energy costs. Palin called such financial help "a tool that must be on the table" although she differs with Obama on where the money's source. Like...

Republicans in Congress this June united to defeat a proposed windfall tax on oil companies, deriding it as a bad idea that would discourage investment in U.S. oil exploration. Things worked out far differently in the GOP stronghold of Alaska, a state whose economic fate is closely tied to the oil industry. Over the opposition of oil companies, Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and Alaska's Legislature last year approved a major increase in taxes on the oil industry — a step that has generated stunning new wealth for the state as oil prices soared.

There are certain laws you can break without serious repercussions, but the laws of economics are far less forgiving. And history shows that we will all pay a hefty fine if lawmakers choose to enact a "windfall" profits tax as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has just proposed and Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama supports.Talk of a "windfall" profits tax turns up, like a bad penny, when politicians catch on that Americans have become frustrated by high gas prices. The concept is simple: Politicians, who are no more popular than high energy prices right now, see an easy scapegoat. So they...

With $1 billion a month in state oil profits, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has converted cash into political clout.

There's something about the oil business that turns even intelligent people into frothmouthed loons: they're raping the planet, shafting Joe Sixpack or, from the other side, insisting that the drill in every back yard is the very definition of America. I realise that in the middle of an election that the small still voice of reason isn't going to get much airplay but let's give it the old school try anyway.

....“Windfall profits taxes alone prevent additional investment in domestic production. Without new supplies from American reserves, our dependency and addiction to foreign sources of oil will continue,” Governor Palin said..... http://palinforvp.blogspot.com/2008/08/palin-blasted-obama-on-windfall-profits.html

Maybe it was a stab by Charles Gibson to provide a national group therapy session for his 8 million viewers, but the ABC "World News" anchor aggressively questioned ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson on the August 14 broadcast for "obscene" profits and asked him to "justify" the company's success. "As we said earlier, Rex Tillerson - who is the board chair and CEO of ExxonMobil, doesn't talk often to the press," Gibson said. "His company has reported remarkable profits in the first half of this year. The high price of gas brought ExxonMobil close to $22 billion in profit - in...

One year ago, it seemed reasonable to hope that the mortgage crisis would be contained. Since then, just about everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. The crisis has spread through the financial system and is metastasizing into a global slowdown. It cries out for a bolder government response than we have seen so far. So here is a test for candidates McCain and Obama: Which of you would provide it? When the mortgage market crashed, it was plain that billions of dollars of real estate loans would not be repaid, leaving enormous holes in financial sector balance sheets....

John McCain and nearly every economist agrees that a windfall-profits tax on the oil industry would drive away investment, increase prices to consumers, and make Americans more dependent on foreign oil. If anyone wants to see that in microcosm, they only need look at Alaska. With the backing of Governor Sarah Palin, the state managed to drive away investment in development by hiking taxes on oil companies drilling on state lands: Over the opposition of oil companies, Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and Alaska’s Legislature last year approved a major increase in taxes on the oil industry — a step that...

Here's a little perspective on Big Oil's obscene profits. The first excerpt comes from left coast flagship Los Angeles Times, of all places. Their criticism of raising corporate taxes left me slack-jawed. They summed up the conservative position quite nicely:We hate spending $60 on a fill-up as much as the next person, but we don't think Exxon or its outsized profits should be the impetus for bad policy. As we've said before, it's a bad idea to pile more taxes onto oil companies for supposedly excessive profits. Exxon already faces a stiff tax bill -- nearly 50% of its...

This is from Carpe Diem: Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance's blog... CNN's headline: "Exxon posts record $11.68 billion profit." According to CNN, Exxon Mobil once again reported the largest quarterly profit in U.S. history Thursday, posting net income of $11.68 billion on revenue of $138 billion in the second quarter. That profit works out to $1,485.55 a second. Buried in the story we also find that "In addition to making hefty profits, Exxon also had a hefty tax bill. Worldwide, the company paid $10.5 billion in income taxes in the second quarter, $9.5 billion in sales...

More than a dozen Democratic members of Congress critical of oil companies have investments in the industry, according to a review of lawmakers’ financial assets. At least 14 Democratic members of the House and one senator have holdings ranging from several thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars in companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. or partnerships such as Schlumberger and Hornbeck Offshore Services. These lawmakers have accused oil companies for making record profits, manipulating prices, benefiting from unnecessary tax breaks and trying to gobble up federal lands. Democrats argue that their criticisms of the oil...

How a Windfall Oil Profits Tax Would Hurt You By Elizabeth MacDonald We are witnessing a new round of stiffnecked fulminations over the need for a new windfall tax on oil profits from elected officials who know nothing about economics and the impact their legislation has on US taxpayers. A growing number of Congressmen want to enact a windfall profits tax to punish what they see are greedy gougers in the oil industry. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has piled on, too, and is now exploiting anxiety over high gas prices by pledging to enact a windfall profits tax on...

   Who’s Pumping It Up? June 12, 2008 If the U.S. Congress treated the taxpayer with the same largesse as the “Big Five” oil companies do...everybody would go out and lease a new SUV. But, as the average price of regular gasoline drove through the $4 per gallon level, the Congress of this country embarked on more certain-to-fail energy schemes...and did so with gaseous verbosity. The Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate’s latest confiscatory socialist scheme is a windfall profits tax “against” U.S. oil companies. The Democrats want to levy a 25 percent tax on oil company profits exceeding what they would determine to be "reasonable". The...

WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, criticized the Democrats’ Consumer First Energy Act as a “No” Energy bill in floor remarks today. Senator Inhofe voted against cloture on the bill yesterday.   “The simple fact remains that until we explore and develop domestic energy resources and increase domestic refining capacity, the cost of gas at the pump will increase,” Senator Inhofe said. “As Oklahomans and Americans face $4 per-gallon gas prices, now is not the time for politics as usual – now is the time for common sense solutions. The Democrats’...

McCain in NC says that he would consider windfall profits for oil companies.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Politicians are eyeing oil profits like a fat juicy glazed ham. With all the money Big Oil is making - the top five publicly traded firms pocketed over $120 billion in 2007 alone - and with an election on the horizon, it's easy to see why. The leading Democratic presidential candidates want a windfall profits tax to do various things, and although their plans differ slightly they generally want to use the money to give Americans a break from skyrocketing energy prices and jumpstart research into renewable energy. House Democrats have also warned of punitive measures...