noah way

1) Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings. (Source: Exxon Mobil's 2009 shareholder report filed with the SEC here.)

2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion. (Source: Forbes.com here, ProPublica here and Treasury here.)

3) Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS. (Source: Citizens for Tax Justice here and The New York Times here. Note: despite rumors to the contrary, the Times has stood by its story.)

4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009. (Source: See 2009 Chevron annual report here. Note 15 on page FS-46 of this report shows a U.S. federal income tax liability of $128 million, but that it was able to defer $147 million for a U.S. federal income tax liability of $-19 million)

5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year. . (Source: Paul Buchheit, professor, DePaul University, here and Citizens for Tax Justice here.)

6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction. (Source: the company's 2009 annual report, pg. 112, here.)

7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department. (Source: Bloomberg News here, ProPublica here, Treasury Department here.)

8) Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury. (Source: Paul Buchheit, professor, DePaul University, here, ProPublica here, Treasury Department here.)

9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2006 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction. (Sources: Profits can be found here. The deduction can be found on the company's 2010 SEC 10-K report to shareholders on 2009 finances, pg. 127, here)

10) Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent. (Source: The New York Times here)

Sak01

That's disgusting. It's the same story here in the UK. Barclays Bank, for example, paid only £113m in tax in 2009 after making £11.6bn in profits - that's 1%.

If the government is deliberately leaving loopholes open for clever corporate accountants to get out of paying tax, fine. But then make it a flat tax rate of 1% for everyone.

Last edited by Sak01; June 8th, 2011 at 02:57 PM.

mdram

really? you honestly believe all this?

you do know it changes year to year

in 07 exxon payed 30billion
Exxon's 2007 Tax Bill: $30 Billion - Seeking Alpha

in in 08 they over payed, hence the 09 refund

Exxon Says It Does Pay U.S. Income Taxes - Energy Source - How we power the world - Forbes

but none of that was news worthy

noah way

From your souce:

"ExxonMobil spokesman Alan Jeffers assures me that this is wrong, that Exxon did indeed pay substantial income taxes to the U.S. Treasury in 2009, and that it overpaid taxes in 2008. How much? Well, Jeffers says so far he’s not at liberty to disclose that information. “That’s not something we’re required to disclose, nor do we.”

He's not at liberty to disclose it because it's a lie. ExxonMobil paid no federal income tax in 2009.

It was in 07. That's the 35% that they are supposed to pay under to Federal Corporate Tax Law. It's all the tax dodging and avoidance since then that is news worthy now.

The original post is full of links to corporate reports, the Treasury Dept., the SEC, Forbes, etc. Maybe you should try reading some of them instead of dredging up a bunch of non-information to defend Exxon.

9to5cynic

Sick. It'd be nice to be one of the corporate big-wigs that has the government in their back pocket.... oh well.

AndyLL

During the 2008 election I had a short lived blog on taxes. One post went through in detail their 2007 filings. ( because that was the year they had record breaking profits )

They paid a little under 20% in US taxes. But if you took out some huge deferals from 2006 it would have been closer to 15%.

So they paid some taxes but no where near the the bogus claims that the US has some of the biggest tax rates for corporations in the world. ( they paid a much higher effective rate world wide )

Of course after the Bush economic collapse the republican's screamed that only the only way businesses would start highing again was if they paid less taxes and our government ( both sides ) jumped on the wagon and now most are receiving billions in refunds... which is a huge part of our current deficits.

But a least they are creating a lot of jobs now /sarcasm

OutofDate1980

Brought up an old thread, as taxes is a main discussion in the presidential election thread.

Bruce Bartlett: Rich Nontaxpayers - NYTimes.com

"Republicans are always quick to attack Democrats for waging “class warfare” whenever they suggest that the wealthy ought to pay more taxes to help reduce the deficit and prevent the decimation of programs to aid the poor.

But Republicans also engage in class warfare when they suggest that the poor are to blame for deficits because so few pay federal income taxes.

Those among the wealthy who are paying no income taxes at least deserve equal time."

OutofDate1980

Oh no, superpacs may lose their non-profit status, but not till after election.

IRS Denial of Tax Exemption to U.S. Political Group Spurs Alarms - Bloomberg

“You are not operated primarily to promote social welfare because your activities are conducted primarily for the benefit of a political party and a private group of individuals, rather than the community as a whole,” said the IRS letter telling the group it was losing its exempt status.

TxGoat

All I was thinking as I was reading about what companies aren't paying what taxes is all the bickering you hear from the brainwashed on the other threads screaming "But poor people aren't paying ANY TAXES!" It's a shame that more people are so naive and so taken with the whole "trickle down" philosophy that the GOP pushes. What they don't realize is that this country's greatness was due to a large middle class. The policies that have a lot of people brainwashed have cannibalized the middle class. Yet they don't see it. Unfortunately, the only thing that's going to help is if wealth is spread out more evenly, but then the GOP cult programming takes over, "OMG you're a socialist!" I sure wish there was a way to deprogram those brainwashed by the GOP cult....