In a Remarkable Show of Bi Partisanship... GE Pays No Tax on 14 Billion Profit.

[BridgeTroll]

Good read...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business/economy/25tax.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

But Nobody Pays That
G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether

By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
Published: March 24, 2011

General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.

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..........

[JeffreyS]

but we spend our time making sure miss smith the fourth grade teacher gets a pay cut. I guess the democrats and republicans turn a blind eye trying to get their campaign contributions . while the  tea party is too busy focused on ridgeview middle school.

[hillary supporter]

Very good article. Note reference to president Reagan's statement of how GE exploited the tax loopholes.
Stand by the "irony" of how GE is doing America a favor by keeping (and increasing) investiture abroad.
“We believe that winning in markets outside the United States increases U.S. exports and jobs",Mr Samuels of GE stated.
Yeah, like GE hiring 975 employees specifically for their tax (diversion)department.
     

[buckethead]

These corps are the government.

President Obama is proving the changes shall not come from within.

If not him, then who?

[hillary supporter]

These corps are the government.

President Obama is proving the changes shall not come from within.

If not him, then who?

I think of one of the truest quotes of wisdom- "Only the little people pay taxes!" Leona Helmsley.

[BridgeTroll]

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/25/geo-ceo-greed-taxes/

Despite Paying No Income Taxes, GE CEO Lauded His Company’s Patriotism In 2009 West Point Speech
On its front page this morning, the New York Times reported that General Electric â€" the world’s largest company â€" made $14.2 billion in profits ($5.1 billion in America) and managed to not pay a dime in federal taxes. In fact, the company actually received “a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.”

The mega corporation’s tax dodging flies in the face of the rhetoric of its CEO Jeffery Immelt â€" also the head of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness â€" who sought to portray his company as one that values fairness in a speech at West Point in 2009.

In that speech, titled “Renewing American Leadership,” Immelt stood before hundreds of military cadets â€" who enlisted in the military and were willing to sacrifice everything for their country â€" and complimented the military audience for its heroism while blasting the greedy culture of big business:

Few of us will ever do what many of you will do for duty, honor and country. But America doesn’t expect heroism from all of us. [...] Wherever our talents lie, and whenever our conscience requires, we must all, to the best of our abilities, help keep America the great face for good it has long been. We are trying to do that at GE. [...]

I think we are at the end of a difficult generation of business leadership, and maybe leadership in general. Tough-mindedness, a good trait â€" was replaced by meanness and greed â€" both terrible traits. Rewards became perverted. The richest people made the most mistakes with the least accountability.

At the same time, ethically, leaders do share a common responsibility to narrow the gap between the weak and the strong. [...] What I can bring … what GE can bring … are investments, training and operating approaches to help everyone win.

Immelt won wide praise for his speech at the time. The Huffington Post wrote that he “has come clean about the financial crisis” in a “remarkably candid” speech. The Financial Times said that it was “one of the strongest criticisms” yet made by a major US CEO of business practices.

It appears that Immelt has fallen short of his lofty rhetoric during the West Point speech. Far from making the sort of sacrifices he was honoring at that speech, GE appears to be exploiting loopholes in the tax code to shirk its responsibilities â€" one of which would be paying its taxes to maintain the military the cadets in the audience were a part of. The behavior of his company matches that of Bank of America, Citigroup, ExxonMobil, and other companies that have gone quarters or entire years while not paying a penny in federal corporate income taxes.

[Timkin]

These corps are the government.

President Obama is proving the changes shall not come from within.

If not him, then who?

I think of one of the truest quotes of wisdom- "Only the little people pay taxes!" Leona Helmsley.

Doesn't really seem fair.

[BridgeTroll]

These corps are the government.

President Obama is proving the changes shall not come from within.

If not him, then who?

I think of one of the truest quotes of wisdom- "Only the little people pay taxes!" Leona Helmsley.

Doesn't really seem fair.

She went to jail for tax evasion.

[Timkin]

I remember... "The Queen of Mean " 

[Garden guy]

This is simply another example of the corporate and political abuse of our country and the reason we have no middle class.

[Timkin]

You would think they would not want to eliminate the middle class.. who gonna pay taxes then? The poor can only pay so much , and the Rich aint havin it

[Timkin]

makes sense.  But then, how would the Government operate if they had no tax revenue?

[BridgeTroll]

Dont worry... Charlie Rangel to the rescue...

By 2008, however, concern over the growing cost of overseas tax loopholes put G.E. and other corporations on the defensive. With Democrats in control of both houses of Congress, momentum was building to let the active financing exception expire. Mr. Rangel of the Ways and Means Committee indicated that he favored letting it end and directing the new revenue â€" an estimated $4 billion a year â€" to other priorities.

G.E. pushed back. In addition to the $18 million allocated to its in-house lobbying department, the company spent more than $3 million in 2008 on lobbying firms assigned to the task.

Mr. Rangel dropped his opposition to the tax break. Representative Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York, said he had helped sway Mr. Rangel by arguing that the tax break would help Citigroup, a major employer in Mr. Crowley’s district.

[dougskiles]

While we are on the subject of taxes, here is an article from the other end of the political spectrum, the Wall Street Journal:

The Price of Taxing the Rich
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704604704576220491592684626.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel_1

Nearly half of California's income taxes before the recession came from the top 1% of earners: households that took in more than $490,000 a year. High earners, it turns out, have especially volatile incomesâ€"their earnings fell by more than twice as much as the rest of the population's during the recession. When they crashed, they took California's finances down with them.

Mr. Williams, a former economic forecaster for the state, spent more than a decade warning state leaders about California's over-dependence on the rich. "We created a revenue cliff," he said. "We built a large part of our government on the state's most unstable income group."

[BridgeTroll]

No doubt... but dont forget Obama, Rangel, Immelt, and virtually all of Congress since the 90's.