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.
“He understands what it takes for America to compete in the global economy,” Mr. Obama said of Mr. Immelt, on his appointment in January, after touring a G.E. factory in upstate New York that makes turbines and generators for sale around the world.
Understands what it takes to compete?? By breaking the back of the residents / employees??
Just heard Lawrence odonnell who said that general electrics tax return is 24,000 pages long. Nobody at IRS can figureit out. Guess they should think about using the short form.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Why would anyone think that this is GE's fault ? Really are you kidding me? They aren't using 3rd grade arithmetic. They are following laws- passed by congress ?
There in lies the problem the tax laws must be changed so that businesses and taxpayers pay a fair tax rate with no loop holes.
The only problem with that is that when you figure out a way around them stepping through the loopholes, they find another one that everybody complains about, and that's finding people to do the work in other countries, then we get upset that they don't keep the jobs right here in the U.S..
Maybe there's a middle ground, I don't know. The problem is that the taxes are so high that they probably hire a team of people at a lower rate than it would cost them to pay the taxes in order to study the IRS code to find the loopholes.
Why would anyone think that this is GE's fault ? Really are you kidding me? They aren't using 3rd grade arithmetic. They are following laws- passed by congress ?
It annoys me to no end listening to everyone rant about GE right now...
Like seriously how many of us pay MORE taxes than we are required to...
Blaming GE for leaving offshore profits offshore? Um hello - that money can be used offshore to buy more companies and re-invest in the future of the company. Why bring it home to have it taxed at a very high rate, with the remaining sitting in a bank account.
Now granted - 5B of the profits were onshore, so not paying any corporate taxes on that is a little strange, but with the billions in losses at GE Capital, it is understandable.
Flat tax would be a massive economic stimulation for our country.
G.E. to return entire 2010 refund (hoax) April 13, 2011 at 10:09 am by Will King
General Electric has officially announced that it will return the entirety of it’s $3.2 billion tax refund to the United States Treasury on April 18.
The return comes as the multi-national, multi-billion dollar company faced mounting criticism over the amount of taxes it pays.
Considering the company made over $10 billion and took in over $150 billion in revenue, I believe they can stand to return the tax refund. I do believe it’s a smart move, at least just seeing it through my eyes.
Not sure how some shareholders are going to take to it though.
G.E. also stated that they plan on phasing out their tax havens over the next five years and for every job it creates overseas it will create one here in the U.S.
I do believe that last part is a “I’ll believe it when I see it” scenario.
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