In response to the accusation that it's been Teachers, Firemen and Police Unions that have been "Bankrupting" our nation, while Tax Benefits for Corporations have been ramping up higher and higher. In fact GE (part owner of NBC & MSNBC) paid No Federal Taxes last year, and even gain a Federal Tax Benefit of $3.4 Billion.
Many have been justifiably outraged, particularly since companies such has GE has been cutting U.S. jobs and increase overseas Jobs.
Today Thinkprogress slaps MSNBC around the head and shoulders by pointing at that Fox News has covered the GE Tax Story more than they have.
– Despite Paying No Income Taxes, GE CEO Lauded His Company’s Patriotism In 2009 West Point Speech [3/25/11]
– Sen. Johnson’s Reaction To General Electric Paying No Taxes: Cut The Corporate Tax Rate [3/25/11]
– After Paying Zero Income Taxes, GE Plans To Ask Its Union Workers To Make Wage And Benefits Concessions [3/28/11]
Reviewing the television coverage of GE’s tax avoidance, ThinkProgress found that the story was covered 23 times by Fox News between March 25 and March 28. Certainly, with an anti-Obama axe to grind, it is not surprising that the network chose to excoriate a company that is considered close to the Obama administration and whose CEO is the head of an outside White House jobs panel.
Yet, as FAIR’s Peter Hart points out, this blockbuster story received scant coverage on another major cable news outlet: MSNBC. A review of MSNBC coverage finds that, over the same three-day period, the General Electric story received relatively little mention. It was only mentioned three times on MSNBC — one of these mentions was by host Rachel Maddow during a conversation with the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and another mention was made by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a guest on the network.
This is all bummer news, but what neither Fox News nor MSNBC has reported is that GE Tax status isn't rare at all - in fact the majority of U.S. Corporations pay no Corporate Taxes. Something the GAO reported years ago.
(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.
More than half of foreign companies and about 42 percent of U.S. companies paid no U.S. income taxes for two or more years in that period, the report said.
So it's not like GE is any kind of outlier, there tax status is actually the NORM.
But while we're bashing MSNBC for not jumping all over this the way that Fox has -- just what does NewsCorp pay in U.S. Taxes? It's hard to tell, but this is what was reported over a decade ago in 1997.
Today those U.S. subsidiaries provide Murdoch's company, News Corp., with the vast majority of its revenue and profit. But through the deft use of international accounting loopholes and offshore tax havens, Murdoch has paid corporate income taxes at one-fifth the rate of his chief U.S. rivals throughout the 1990s, according to corporate documents and company officials.
Hmmm...
Here's more on this from The DailyBeast.
Last year, Google reduced its tax burden by $3.1 billion by altering its tax practices. Boeing hasn’t paid any federal corporate income taxes in the last three years, despite earning $10 billion in domestic pre-tax profit. Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Forest Laboratories habitually avoid paying U.S. income taxes by recording profits in a country a world away from where the sales occur. (For reference, interactive explanations of the tax strategies of Google and GE can be found here and here.) A study released in 2008 by the Government Accountability Office concluded that 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the country paid “no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.”
“Companies don’t even have to be creative,” says Robert Willens, a taxation professor at Columbia Business School. “All they have to do is attribute or ascribe as much income as possible to foreign subsidiaries.” Companies register their intangible assets—intellectual property, for example—and income outside of the U.S. and register their liabilities and expenses in the U.S. to effectually reduce their taxable domestic income. Ireland and the Caribbean Islands are common tax havens.
Here's what Forbes says the Top 10 U.S. Companies Pay in Taxes. Here are the Ones that stand out.
#2 Exxon/Mobil paid no U.S. taxes in 2009.
#3 Chevron paid $200 Million in taxes to the U.S. in 2008 (Sales $172 Billion, Pre Tax Income $18.5 Billion)
#4 GE Received -$1.1 Billion Tax Benefits in 2009. (Sales $151 Billion, Pre Tax Income $10.3 Billion)
#7 Bank of America Paid No Taxes in 2009 (Sales $120 Billion, Pre Tax Income $4.4 Bilion)
#8 Ford Paid just $68 Million in Tax Due to Losses (Sales $118 Billion, Pre Tax Income $3 Billion)
#19 Citigroup Received Tax Benefit of $6.7 Billion in 2009 - Due to TARP Bailout (Sales $80 Billion, Pre Tax Income -$7.8 Billion)
#25 Valero Received Tax Benefit of $100 Million Due to Gas Losses (Sales $68 Billion, Pres Tax Income -$450 Million)
The GOP have been screaming repeatedly that Spending is the problem with out Deficit. Well, here's the Deficit from 2004-2012. (Which goes up again after falling in 2011 due to the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts according to the CBO)
This is what the Spending has been like during the exact same period.
Strange that you don't see a huge SPIKE in spending that corresponds to the really large 2009 jump in the Deficit of over $1 Trillion, do you? How about if we look at Tax Revenues during that period? (which of course includes a dip caused by the Great Recession of 08-09, but also a jump in 2012 as the Bush Cuts expire)
Is a pattern beginning to emerge? How about if we specifically at Corporate Taxes during that same period?
Notice that at it's peak the Corporate Share of Revenue barely reaches $400 Billion from a total Revenue stream that has reached as high as $2.6 Trillion (or About 15% of the Total Tax Revenue Pie, meaning the vast majority of the rest of that tax burden - is on us).
The claim that Unions and Public Employees are "Bankrupting" the nation is clearly and plainly false. The money is going somewhere else entirely, and it's not into the pockets of American Workers, either public or private.
Michael Moore pretty much nailed this on the Colbert Report.