Friday, March 25, 2011

If you paid taxes in 2010, you paid more than GE.

This NY Times article was pointed out by Coozer-Phile Steve. As he puts it:

"In 2010, I paid more in taxes than GE! In fact, anyone who paid anything in taxes last year--even one dollar--paid more than GE (which earned $5.1 BILLION in profits in the United States). They actually received a tax BENEFIT of $3.1 BILLION.

"So, right now our country is slashing all services--federal, state, and local--because we don't have enough revenue--but we're letting giant corporations get away without paying anything? And we're giving them tax breaks?!

"I should have been born rich and connected. We're all royally screwed."

More here.
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.

Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm. Indeed, the company’s slogan “Imagination at Work” fits this department well. The team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.

While General Electric is one of the most skilled at reducing its tax burden, many other companies have become better at this as well. Although the top corporate tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, one of the highest in the world, companies have been increasingly using a maze of shelters, tax credits and subsidies to pay far less.

In a regulatory filing just a week before the Japanese disaster put a spotlight on the company’s nuclear reactor business, G.E. reported that its tax burden was 7.4 percent of its American profits, about a third of the average reported by other American multinationals. Even those figures are overstated, because they include taxes that will be paid only if the company brings its overseas profits back to the United States. With those profits still offshore, G.E. is effectively getting money back.

Such strategies, as well as changes in tax laws that encouraged some businesses and professionals to file as individuals, have pushed down the corporate share of the nation’s tax receipts — from 30 percent of all federal revenue in the mid-1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Knut the polar bear may be stuffed.

From Time:
Even in death, the world's most famous polar bear can't escape the spotlight.

On March 23, it emerged that the deceased polar bear may be stuffed and put on display in Berlin's Natural History Museum. “It is true that our taxidermists are working on his corpse and have removed his fur,” Gesine Steiner, a spokeswoman for the museum, told Bloomberg. “We haven't yet made a decision on whether we will stuff him and exhibit him. We have to talk to the zoo. We do of course have lots of stuffed zoo animals on show here.”

Four-year old Knut—who shot to fame after his mother rejected him and his human keepers decided to rear him themselves—passed away in his enclosure at the Berlin Zoo on March 19. Three vets began examining the 661-pound animal on March 22, and a taxidermist observed the procedure to ensure that Knut's fur remained in tact.

Plans to stuff the bear have left several of his fans in dismay. “To stuff Knut is to abuse the feelings of millions of Knut fans all over the world,” one fan, Horst Krause, wrote in the zoo's online condolence book. “Knut deserves a worthy burial.”