How Exxon paid zero taxes in 2009

Here's a simple question in Economics: If Exxon Mobil, the largest U.S. energy company, made a profit of $35 billion, and if the income tax paid is $15 billion at a tax rate of 47%, how much did it pay to the IRS? The answer is, according to a report published recently in Forbes magazine, zero.

How come the results when 47 percent of the profit had been paid as taxes? Well, it helps to have wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in countries such as Bermuda, Cayman Island and Bahamas to pipeline cash flows from operations in Azerbaijan, Abu Dhabi and Angola.

Damn socialists.

Didn't bother to read you own links corky?

# Last month the unemployment rate in the US was 9.70%. Exxon Mobil provides stable jobs 79,000 employees- as of march 2009. These 79,000 employees pay income and property taxes, a taxable bounty to local government.
# If Exxon had to pay income taxes it would most likely shed some of its 79,000 workforce, which would have a devastating effect on families and the local economy (schools, hospitals, etc...) Society may better off not taxing the company but its employees instead.
# Taxes paid by Exxon employees are taxes paid by exxon indirectly through salaries. This is accounts for billions in Federal tax revenue generated by Exxon, which usually isn't reported by mainstream media
# Most of the profit earned by the company was from operations abroad
# The company hasn't done anything illegal. Ultimately, it is for the US government to plug all loopholes in the tax extraction process.

Exxon didn't pay zero taxes last year, it paid $78Billion in taxes....

U.S. federal: -$156 million
U.S. state and local: $110 million
International: $15.2 billion

Exxon doled out more than $15 billion in income tax payments to foreign countries last year. U.S. tax codes allow companies to take massive deductions in light of those international charges, which knocked Exxon's federal income-tax bill down into negative territory.

The company's effective income tax rate was a hefty 47%, its highest in three years.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

We may as well increase the top tax rate to 90%, cause 90% of 0 is still 0.

suckers!

#3 | Posted by salamandagator at 2010-07-29 12:30 PM | Reply | Flag:
#4 | Posted by AndreaMackris at 2010-07-29 12:46 PM | Reply | Flag:

Flag: Members in Good Standing DR Corporate Pimp/Welfare/Apologist Society

Yeah baby! If I didn't have to pay taxes, I could hire more people, too. How pathetic.

These so-called American companies PAY for the loopholes you guys are so proud of, and it's YOUR tax dollars that substitute for the billions they don't pay here.

"Yeah baby! If I didn't have to pay taxes, I could hire more people, too. How pathetic."

I thought you did not believe in supply side economics.

I wonder if anyone has actually tallied their entire tax obligation to the government, state local and federal including property taxes and licenses and in all the other areas they pay.

I shouldn't be, but I am always amazed at the power of corporate propaganda to make Joe Six Packs believe that it is beneficial to regular people for corporations not to pay taxes like everyone else and to also be subsidized by poor people's taxes.

But the wealthy, individual or corporate, are adept at selling the myth that poorer people and the middle class should support tax breaks for billionaires 'cause guess what? they might one day be rich too, and wouldn't they like to keep that money!

It's only fair, right?

Stupidity runs deep in these folks.... but let me 'splain something to you.... you have a better chance of being sexed up by Zombie Reagan than you have of ever being ultra-wealthy, so why don't you try looking after the general welfare of, not just yourself, but of your neighbor Americans as well, instead of fantasizing about something that will never ever happen.

"subsidized by poor people's taxes."

Working on a stand up routine?

" corporations not to pay taxes like everyone else"

Seriously read your own damn links, you might learn something.

Go EXXON :)

I shouldn't be, but I am always amazed at the power of corporate propaganda to make Joe Six Packs believe that it is beneficial to regular people for corporations not to pay taxes like everyone else and to also be subsidized by poor people's taxes.

Now tell me dear Corky. Where do you think corporations get the revenue to pay taxes? Since you're as dense as a rock, I'll have to tell you: consumers like you and me and everybody else. Those taxes are hidden in the price of everything you buy.

More so, because corporations pay taxes, it pays them to bribe the political class for tax breaks, the same political class you vote for. That's why the tax code is so complicated. Nothing government gives is free. It's just made to appear free for greedy fools like you who think they're getting something for nothing by merely voting for it

So if I understand this... Exxon pays taxes to foreign governments but not to Uncle Sam.
Why is it a good thing that other nations collect this revenue, but we do not?
Sounds to me like our nation is getting the short end of the stick.
Anyone?

-Those taxes are hidden in the price of everything you buy.

Stupid is as stupid posts.

That old rightwing fearmongering corporate pimp canard has been buried so many times it's a Zombie now, still lumbering around in the mind of simpletons.

Products are price pointed for competitiveness; the business can't raise prices beyond a certain point or it will just sit on the shelf anyway, so the idea that business can automatically move tax increases to price is just not true in the real world.

It's just an age old threat they make to keep their taxes down.

so the idea that business can automatically move tax increases to price is just not true in the real world.

I'll argue that, in many cases, businesses can move tax increases to the price. It depends on the industry and how many players there are, etc...

but I'll concede that you can't just lean on that as a reason to never raise taxes

Of course profits are up.
The price of oil's relationship to the price of gas has changed.
A few years ago, when oil was at $70/barrell, gas was well under $2/gallon. We got softened up by a few summers of grossly inflated gas prices and, after the $4+/gal reaming we got a couple of years ago, $3 seems, somehow, acceptable.

Pays NO Fed Taxes for 2009

what this illustrates is that no matter what the rates are, a corporation or a wealth individual can remove, defer, shift, etc their tax liabilites and do it mostly legal. Apparently Exxon figured out a way to accomplish that.

It also demonstrates that a simple change in the tax brackets and marginal rates won't necessarily make a change in tax revenue.

I post this as a warning to everyone if and when tax cuts are allowed to expire later this year, pay very special attention to other moves inside the tax code that might allow high income folks to pay no more than they were before.

I wouldn't go out a buy my pom poms just yet.

-Apparently Exxon figured out a way to accomplish that.

Yes, they wrote the laws themselves with the best politicians money can buy.

Which is why we need public financing of campaigns, we would save a lot more money than it would cost us to get our own Reps instead of industry paid for Reps.

My county government is considering tax incentives to bring business to the area and create jobs. To do so, there will be tax breaks for the business to bring 300 jobs in.

After they hire 300 people, I wonder if the news will publish the compnay profit and the amount of tax the business will pay to the county?

Nope. Because someone will look at the income they make and ask why they aren't paying taxes.

Do you want 300 jobs or not?

Some loopholes are believed necessary to improve the local economy. If this loophole is proven worse for the county by implementing it, I'd agree it was totally wrong. Problem is, the land was sitting there empty and this brought in tax money through the employees instead of the company.

In the long run? So far so good for the people and the county.

Still, there are those that think the company should pay taxes. If only they could see what financially occurred in the county, they'd probably leave it alone. Instead, they'll want the company taxes, for the company to leave when the contract is up, and the jobs will go, too.

Fools

Why should they pay taxes? Its not like they use our roads or that the nature of their business is destructive to our natural resources or that they expect to be protected under our laws....

Oh wait...

Here's a Forbes article that can put this in perspective for you. I do believe all of you can read and since it is written in layman's' terms I expect 1/3 of you to comprehend (understand) it.

Note: Interesting about GE in the first part of the article.

Yeah baby! If I didn't have to pay taxes, I could hire more people, too. How pathetic.

Billions and billions = zero, with new math.

what the hell i don't pay federal income taxes either.