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What the Top US Companies Pay In Taxes
theodp writes "If you've ever wondered how it's possible that you pay more to the IRS than General Electric, Forbes has an explanation. You, my friend, do not have the tax benefit of overseas operations. Microsoft, for example, has its overseas subsidiaries license software to its US parent company in return for handsome royalties that get taxed at lower overseas rates. Exxon limits its tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands that shelter cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan, and Abu Dhabi. As a result, of the $15B it paid in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas. Likewise, GE has $84B in overseas income parked indefinitely outside the US. Now quit your carping and get back to filling out that 1040!"
These types of tricks should be unacceptable. Close the loops that allow this to happen, and let it be known that if you are going to do business in the US and benefit from our educated labor pool, infrastructure, markets, and resources you are going to pay taxes like everyone else. These shenanigans should demonstrate exactly why a corporation should not be treated as a legal person. They are immortal, and can skirt current law and tax codes by existing simultaneously in multiple places and jurisdictions at the same time.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Yeah, because Exxon would never benefit from an American war against Iraq.
Leo Gold: "Don’t believe me? It’s all in the numbers. For a hundred years, there’s been a conspiracy of plutocrats against ordinary people."
JC Denton: "Do you have a single fact to back that up?"
Leo Gold: "Number one: In 1945, corporations paid 50 percent of federal taxes. Now they pay about 5 percent. Number two: in 1900, 90 percent of Americans were self-employed; now it’s about two percent."
JC Denton: "So?"
Leo Gold: "It’s called consolidation. Strengthen governments and corporations, weaken individuals. With taxes, this can be done imperceptibly over time."
Fictional conspiracies aside - WTF?
Yes, it IS good for them. And bad for you. You're talking about one of the most powerful entities in the world - Exxon Mobil is larger than most countries - with no accountability to anyone. The government that you hate so much is being steadily dismantled BECAUSE private tyrannies (i.e. corporations) are using their vast coffers to break and twist it into the form they desire. Why, exactly, do you think the government gives money to banks or the MIC?
The more power corporations have, the more they can resist the controlling influence of democracy, the worse off we are. Observe Exxon's use of their power to confuse the debate on global warming for years, assuring that nothing gets done to compromise their profits and that the planet continues to choke on the waste gases their products emit.
As someone who's been an anarchist most of my adult life, I find it bizarre when so-called libertarians cheer the destruction of democratic government and the increasing devolution of power into the hands of the people who have, for the better part of this past century, been largely in control of our society. If you're REALLY in the favor of liberty, why are you such a fan of enabling so much power going into such few hands?
This deserves to be modded "insightful". Nations have constitutions, laws, and face insurrection, mutiny, and revolt if/when they trample people's rights to much. Corporations? Damned thieves can tramply anyone, and everyone, with no repercussions.
Go ahead, people, cheer for the corporations. None of them are doing anything for you. Your government supplies your drinking water, builds your roads, responds in the event of disaster, and much, much more. You have a voice in government in most countries - you have zero voice in any corporation, no matter whether you work for it or not.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The rich get richer, the poor, well, stay poor.
Nothing has changed since the times of Pareto...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilfredo_Pareto
(Take a look - the original '80/20' was 80% of the land was owned by 20% of the people)
These days, it's more like 90% of the world's wealth belongs to 10% of its population.
If you've got the money to have to worry about these things, then you can pay smart people to avoid tax.
Note I said avoid, (legal), not evade, which is not.
It is the duty of corporate officers to (legally) minimise tax burden.
It is the duty of governments to ensure equitable distribution of wealth, without discouraging wealth creation.
Guess who's doing a better job...
Wow, the APT tax is one of the worse ideas since FairTax. No thanks.
If the artificial economic entity has rights, it should pay taxes too.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I'm sorry, but hat's just idiotic. How about instead we:
(1) limit our granting of civil rights to actual, real people, and
(2) limit lobbying to actual, real people.
Caveat Utilitor
Even if you don't tax them, they'll still move to India.
Corporations are not altruistic. They are not working for the good of the world or their fellow humans. They have no patriotic loyalty. The people who run them possibly less so. Corporations are looking for profit. More importantly, profit with the least amount of cost. They will do anything and everything they can to meet this end, including illegal activities if the penalties are small compared to the potential profit.
But the best part comes later. When a corporation becomes as large as Citibank or AIG, there's hardly any measures that can be enacted to punish them without having grievous consequences elsewhere. The people at the top have so much money and so many resources that trying to get their asses in jail is like trying to nail jello to the wall with a nail made out water and a hammer made out of meat.
Companies have all the rights of citizen with none of the penalties. In fact they have more rights than citizens do. They are meta-citizens. This wouldn't be a problem if they had a shred of human decency. The only time good works come into play is when there is profit (monetary or political goodwill).
Point being, it doesn't matter what we do. The corporations are going to go where it is most profitable. It doesn't matter what we tax or what kind of legislation is passed, they'll just go somewhere else. In any case, a company doesn't need to be anywhere near you to rake your ass over the coals these days.
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Here is all the text of the slides in a readable list.
No. 1: Wal-Mart Stores
Sales: $401 billion Pretax income: $20.9 billion Income taxes: $7.1 billion Tax rate: 34.2%
$1.2 billion of Wal-Mart Stores' taxes are international.
No. 2: ExxonMobil
Sales: $311 billion Pretax income: $35 billion Income taxes: $15 billion Tax rate: 47%
None of ExxonMobil's income taxes were paid in the U.S. In 2008 the company's income tax bill was $36 billion.
No. 3: Chevron
Sales: $172 billion Pretax income: $18.5 billion Income taxes: $8 billion Tax rate: 43%
Chevron paid $19 billion income tax in 2008. Of this year's taxes, just $200 million were paid in the U.S.
No. 4: General Electric
Sales: $157 billion
Pretax income: $10.3 billion
Income taxes: (-$1.1 billion)
Tax rate: N/A
GE's financial services unit, GE Capital, keeps the overall tax bill so low. Over the last two years, GE Capital has displayed an uncanny ability to lose lots of money in the U.S. and make lots of money overseas, where tax rates are lower.
No. 5: ConocoPhillips
Sales: $152 billion Pretax income: $10 billion Income taxes: $5 billion Tax rate: 51%
ConocoPhillips paid $13 billion in taxes in 2008.
No. 6: AT&T
Sales: $123 billion
Pretax income: $19 billion
Income taxes: $6.2 billion
Tax rate: 32.4%
AT&T's executive officers are eligible to bill the company $14,000 a year for their own income tax preparations.
No. 7: Bank of America
Sales: $120 billion
Pretax income: $4.4 billion
Income taxes: (-$1.9 billion)
Tax rate: N/A
How did Bank of America not pay any taxes on $4.4 billion in income? Because of deductions like $860 million in tax-exempt income, $670 million in low-income housing credits and a $600 million loss on shares of foreign subsidiaries. With a provision for credit losses of $49 billion, Bank of America probably won't be paying taxes for a long time.
No. 8: Ford Motor
Sales: $118 billion
Pretax income: $3 billion
Income taxes: $69 million
Tax rate: 2.3%
Ford's tax rate is so low because of past years' losses from U.S. operations.
No. 9: Hewlett-Packard
Sales: $115 billion
Pretax income: $9.4 billion
Income taxes: $1.75 billion
Tax rate: 18.6%
HP's low tax rate is due to lower tax rates in foreign countries. The company says in its annual report that President Obama's proposals to end tax deferrals on international operations would mean a big tax hike.
No. 10: Berkshire Hathaway
Sales: $112 billion
Pretax income: $11.5 billion
Income taxes: $3.5 billion
Tax rate: 30%
No. 11: JPMorgan Chase
Sales: $100 billion
Pretax income: $16 billion
Income taxes: $4.4 billion
Tax rate: 27.5%
Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has spoken out against an Obama proposal to levy a special tax on banks to recoup bailout costs. "Using tax policy to punish people is a bad idea," said Dimon. "All businesses tend to pass costs on to customers."
No. 12: Verizon
Sales: $108 billion
Pretax income: $11.6 billion
Income taxes:
(1) limit our granting of civil rights to actual, real people, and
Are you sure you want to do this? There are a lot of important civil rights ruling regarding corporations. Just off the top of my head.
Dartmouth College v. Woodward -- asserting that the College has the right to a binding charter that the government cannot alter at will
New York Times v. United States -- asserting the first amendment right to publish the Pentagon Papers
New York Times v. Sullivan -- asserting that defamation/libel has to be for willful or deliberate falsehood
Near v. Minnesota -- "Morally scandalous" not a good reason to shut down a newspaper
Hustler Magazine v. Falwell -- parodies of public figures which could not reasonably be taken as true are protected by the First Amendment
In all those cases, it would be pretty laughable if the government asserted that because the plaintiff is not an 'actual real person' they don't have constitutional rights.
why don't we hear it from the right?
corporations are:
completely unpatriotic. in fact, as this tax situation shows, they are basically anti-patriotic: their actions actively undermine the country
corporaitons work against individual rights, liberties, privacy, and freedoms
they threaten to hollow out the country into a corporatocracy, they actively turn your representatives into shills for corporate interests, not interests of the citizens
we have been hearing these howls on the left for decades
but how come we don't hear it from the right?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it