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

[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.