General Electric: Billions in Profits. Almost ZERO in Federal Tax. Spends 82 Million on lobbyists.

[Triana]

General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt takes a similar position in a recent op-ed. Immelt defends the company’s tax record simply by noting that the company “pay[s] billion in taxes.” This is true, but also meaningless for a company with earnings as gigantic as GE’s. In fact, over the past 10 years, GE paid an effective federal income tax rate of -1.6 percent on $58 billion in profits. Over 15 years, the company’s federal income tax rate was just 5.2 percent.

The company’s tax-avoiding ways extend to the state level, too. Over the past five years, the company paid an effective state income tax rate of just 1.6 percent. Immelt likely focuses on the dollar amount and not the company’s tax rate because there is simply no way of fudging the numbers to make the company appear to be paying income taxes at anything but a ridiculously low rate.

LINKS:

http://www.taxjusticeblog.org/archive/2016/04/just_plain_wrong_ge_and_verizo.php#.V3aYBZMrJGx - GE Taxes paid

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000125 - GE spending on lobbying in 2016 (59% of lobbyists employed by GE are "revolvers" ie: revolving door hires from within government or hires from private industry into gov't)

It's clear to me that GE and most likely all other corporations:

1. Pay far too little in taxes using tax shelters and tax avoidance schemes that need to be removed from US tax laws
2. Pay for too much for revolving-door lobbyists to twist arms in Washington to get "our" representatives to write and pass those tax laws and keep them in place and to enact other corporate welfare policies exclusively for the benefit of GE and other corps like them.
3. Wield FAR TOO MUCH influence in the federal and state governments while paying little to no taxes to contribute to their functions to serve the public good. GE evidently believes the function of federal and state governments is solely to kiss GE's ass (and other corporate entities' asses) at the expense of the rest of us - the public. Those losses in corporate tax revenues means US workers have to pay more or suffer cuts in public services such as upkeep of infrastructure, public transportation, regulation and mantenance of clean energy and water systems, providing the FDA with the tools and personnel needed to regulate and ensure safe food and other products, building and maintaining public schools that ALL kids can attend regardless their parents income, maintaining and expanding social programs such as Medicare, Medicaid,and Social Security, public television and radio, etc.

Corporations like GE want to USE our public infrastructure for their businesses and their employees -- but they don't want to have to PAY for them.

Bullshit.

BULL. SHIT.

[BlueCaliDem]

1. This is why we need to ensure a Democratic House and Senate. Tax laws are changed in Congress, not

in the Executive branch - and I'm talking about permanent changes to tax laws.

Here, turning the House and Senate, is where Sanders and his supporters can do the most good. To date, I have yet to hear his plans on using that ominous power he's gotten in the past year to strengthen Democratic hold on Congress in order to see his policies for change through.

[Surya Gayatri]

2. Not to mention their god-awful, cringe-making TV ad campaign.

They're spending tens of millions on those stupid things.

[packman]

3. Too big to be taxed

so they pass the tax bucket to their employees who , in the trickle down tax theory, are taxed. Seems to make sense in a perverse way.

[NoMoreRepugs]

4. this is a tiny peek under the tent of what's in store should

the Rump and Ryan be our leaders in 2017...

the turnout of voters has up to this point in time in my mind never been more important

small wonder the Rethugs are working so hard to disenfranchise as many potential dem voters as possible

this is the fight for the future - so get over the HRC email server thing (some of you) - this is about your kids and grand-kids future

[phazed0]

5. So what?

Isn't that what we're voting for, here?

[benld74]

6. Not to mention the millions

In CEO board salary benefits and such

[Paper Roses]

7. No wonder I am upset. G E and others control what happens to us.

I got my R.E. tax bill today plus a notice that my water and sewer bill is going up again. My light bill is about $200.00 a month during the winter months and I am paying it off in increments, the rates are going up again.The cost of everything is beyond my ability to pay. Social Security goes only so far...

G E and the stockholders may be happy with their situation but there are those of us who are a few steps from disaster.
I wonder how Hillary will address the plight of those who are trying to hang on while 'big business' is making zillions and those of us who hardly have $$$ for groceries can keep ourselves above ground.

You may support whomever you choose. My hope is that someone will address the plight of those who came before.

[1939]

8. According to Value Line

which is a stock advisory subscription service, here are the current income tax rates for GE (in two more weeks, they will update the info):

2006-16.1%
2007-15.5%
2008-5.5%
2009-Zero
2010-7.4%
2011-27.4%
2012-14.4%
2013-8.5%
2014-10.3%
2015-22.0% (estimated)

Somehow, I find their numbers to be more believable at they have no axe to grind about tax rates.

Walmart's income tax rates over the same period have varied from 30.3% to 34.2%.

The collapse of the income tax rates for GE in 2008-2010 were caused by some "players" in GE Capital wanting to get in on the mortgage and derivatives casino which caused the sad performance of GE stock. GE Capital was formed to help customers finance their purchases of GE products, but some of the boys decided they could make more money in the casino and ended up dropping the price of GE stock from $42.20 a share in 2007 to $5.70 a share in 2008 when the bubble burst. GE is trying to sell or spin off GE Capital so that they can quit being monitored by the Fed as a "Significant Impact Financial Institution" which will free up capital for expansion. The wild swings in their tax rates are caused by various write offs from the GE Capital fiasco.

[Triana]

9. Is this US Federal income tax? State? Payroll taxes? Other taxes?

Is it only US Federal income taxes or total taxes paid of all kinds?

Those numbers by GE can be fudged many ways and usually are by GE's CEO and Wall St (most of whose resident corporations pay little to no US Federal Income Tax either).

To use George Carlin's words: "It a big club. And YOU ain't in it..."

We are NOT in that big club.

According to Bernie Sanders (who I trust more than a stock advisory service, sorry) says the following about GE:

1. General Electric

From 2008 to 2013, while GE made over $33.9 billion in United States profits, it received a total tax refund of more than $2.9 billion from the Internal Revenue Service.

G.E.’s effective U.S. corporate income tax rate over this six year period was -9 percent.

In 2012, GE stashed $108 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying income taxes. If this practice were outlawed, GE would have paid $37.8 billion in federal income taxes that year.

During the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve provided GE with $16 billion in financial assistance, at a time when its CEO Jeffrey Immelt was a director of the New York Federal Reserve.

GE has been a leader in outsourcing decent paying jobs to China, Mexico and other low-wage countries.

Mr. Immelt has a retirement account at General Electric worth an estimated $59 million and made $19 million in total compensation last year.

He is a member of the Business Roundtable, a group that wants to raise the eligibility age for Medicare and Social Security to 70, cut Social Security and veterans’ benefits, increase taxes on working families, and cut corporate taxes even further.

On December 6, 2002, Jeffrey Immelt said at an investors’ meeting, “When I am talking to GE managers, I talk China, China, China, China, China. You need to be there. You need to change the way people talk about it and how they get there. I am a nut on China. Outsourcing from China is going to grow to $5 billion. We are building a tech center in China. Every discussion today has to center on China. The cost basis is extremely attractive. You can take an 18 cubic foot refrigerator, make it in China, land it in the United States, and land it for less than we can make an 18 cubic foot refrigerator today, ourselves.”

IOW - nope. I'm not buying it.

Most middle class working people would love to pay the low tax rates even you say GE pays (and I don't think they pay that much really). THE REST OF US have to pay 15 - 35% and WE don't have the advantage of the galaxy sized loopholes the corporations do.

Oh. And another thing: WE (poor to middle class ie: 99%) can't afford hundreds of lobbyists to twist arms in Washington and at the Fed to get them to lower tax rates even more -- at everyone else's expense. To wit:

When it comes to squeezing big rewards from obscure provisions of the tax code, General Electric leaves nothing to chance.

Over the past two years, GE has deployed more lobbyists than any other company to argue for a tax loophole that lets businesses deduct interest earned from overseas lending, according to a new report by Americans for Tax Fairness, a tax-reform advocacy group. This particular tax break will likely cost the U.S. government $62.5 billion in revenue over the next decade, according to the report.

According to the report, GE lobbyists made contact with lawmakers or their staffs at least 863 times over a two-year period between 2011 and 2013 to argue for the loophole, known as the “active financing exemption.” Congress is expected to extend the exemption again soon, with bipartisan support. The company paid its lobbyists $63 million to advocate for the exemption and other tax-related interests over that time, Americans for Tax Fairness found.

LINK: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/01/ge-lobbying_n_5064783.html

And meanwhile, Immelt, GE's CEO - the dirtbag sonofabitch, is advocating for HUGE cuts in Medicare and Social Security (according to Sanders), via his membership in the 'Business Roundtable'

I still say it's BULLSHIT.

[bhikkhu]

10. Glad somebody posted that

I'm not a particular fan of GE (though I have a few of their lightbulbs and such) but they seem to have become a magnet for disinformation. My own habit when I read something absurdly irritating on the internet is to fact-check it. GE is a publicly owned company, so they have to issue annual reports to stockholders and publish independently audited financial statements. Going through a few years of those closely gets the numbers you posted. They do use a variety of means to pay less than simple corporate tax rate, but its not the zero-tax and worse claims you see here and there.

[DirkGently]

11. Socialism for the wealthy. Rugged individualism

... for everyone else.

[Arizona Roadrunner]

12. Good Bye to GE Corporate headquarters in CT

Now you know why many citizens of CT. were not upset when GE moved their corporate headquarters out of the State. Not only have most of the effected employees gotten other jobs, but the corporate headquarters has already been taken over by another entity who will probably pay more in taxes to the State of CT. than GE.