WSJ: Some Top Companies Avoided Federal Income Tax Under Bush

[question everything]

Some Top Companies Avoided Federal Income Tax Under Bush

Study Names 82 Concerns With Big Breaks at Least One Year From 2001 to '03

By JOHN D. MCKINNON and ROB WELLS
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 23, 2004; Page A2

Eighty-two of the country's largest profitable corporations paid no federal income tax for at least one year of the Bush administration's first three years, a study found. The study by Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal-leaning think tank in Washington, and the affiliated Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, examined 275 Fortune 500 corporations with total cumulative profits of $1.1 trillion in 2001, 2002 and 2003. One-third paid no federal income taxes in at least one of those years, and many received refunds of taxes paid in prior years.

(snip)

Under President Bush, several corporate-tax breaks have been expanded temporarily. That, with sagging profits and improper tax shelters, has driven down corporate-tax receipts as a share of the economy, to 1.2% in 2003, the second-lowest rate recorded in the post-World War II era.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has sought to exploit the issue. An economic adviser, Jason Furman, said the study shows Mr. Bush is "utterly hypocritical" when he talks about advancing a tax overhaul in a second term. The administration has failed to back many needed loophole closers, Mr. Furman said, while it pushed through the expansions of corporate-tax breaks in 2002 and 2003 that are a focus of the study's criticism.

(snip)

General Electric Co. topped the list of companies with the largest total tax breaks, at $9.5 billion during the three-year period. It was followed by SBC Communications Inc. with $9 billion, Citigroup Inc., $4.6 billion, and International Business Machines Corp., $4.6 billion. GE spokesman David Frail said GE had a lower tax rate in 2002 largely because of a $3.5 billion pretax charge involving its reinsurance business. He said GE, like many other businesses, deferred some taxes it will pay in coming years. According to its annual report, GE paid $137 million in 2002 and deferred $2.1 billion in taxes that year. SBC's vice president of finance, John Stephens, said it paid $15 billion in all federal taxes during the period. "We are carrying a significant tax burden," he said. He also said the study included income adjustments that shouldn't be counted for purposes of determining its effective tax rate. Citigroup had no comment on the study and IBM didn't respond to requests for comment.

---- Kathryn Kranhold contributed to this article.

Write to John D. McKinnon at [e-mail]1 and Rob Wells at [e-mail]

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109587175761024980,00.html

[Media_Lies_Daily]

1. Not only did they get tax breaks, but paid even less taxes...

...than they should have.

Why am I not surprised?

[Beetwasher]

2. Paging Senator Kerry! Have at it Sir!

n/t

[cthrumatrix]

3. you know that keeping the min wage at the pverty level is the focus...!

the govt can't bother the corporations that "OWN ARE DAMN WORLD"

[havocmom]

4. "General Electric Co. topped the list of companies with the largest total

... tax breaks, at $9.5 billion during the three-year period."

And that, boys and girls, is how you reply to each and every winger who utters one word about the liberal media.

GE... we bring NBC, CNBC, MSNBC to your living room. We also make billion$ on weapons systems. We make a killing convincing America to do lots of killing... Hey, it's a free market. Capitalism is good for the earth and all living things!

Sadly, the same forces that brought down the Soviet Union are at work in America: the human foible of greed and the inclination of the Military Industrial Complex to capitalize on that foible to buy candidates who will assure a never ending spiral of payment into their coffers, resulting in the bankrupting of all other facets of societal infrastructure.

[Cocoa]

6. remember Jack Welch's role in election 2000?

NBC was the first non-Fox network to call it for Bush, and Welch reportedly made that decision.

[liveoaktx]

8. Disgusting-the proof that one shouldn't watch MSNBC (except for Olbermann)

[jayfish]

5. This Is News?

Bartcop has been posting this stuff for years.

Jay

[Green Lantern]

14. So have the Greens

[UpInArms]

7. and today the GOP is attempting to pass more corporate tax breaks

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43278-2004Sep22.html

Congressional negotiators beat back efforts yesterday to expand and preserve tax refunds for poor families, even as they added $13 billion in corporate tax breaks to a package of middle-class tax cuts that could come to a vote in the Senate today.

The House-Senate negotiations concluded last night with the approval of a five-year $146 billion tax cut, the fourth tax cut in as many years. By the end of this week, Republican leaders expect to pass extensions of three tax cuts primarily aimed at middle-income taxpayers -- a $1,000-per-child tax credit, tax breaks for married couples and a 10 percent income-tax bracket that was expanded last year.

...more...

This is absolutely freakin' despicable. :argh:

[Supersedeas]

9. Shhhh--Dan Rather is the only topic worth discussing for several weeks

[JPZenger]

10. NBC and CNN's Parent Companies - $13 Billion in Loopholes

The following report summarizes how corporate income tax breaks and loopholes during the Bush Administration have allowed many profitable large corporations to avoid paying corporate income taxes.

http://www.ctj.org/corpfed04an.pdf

I suggest scrolling down to page 8 of the report. It shows how CNN's parent company Time Warner avoided paying taxes on $5 BILLION in profits, while NBC/CNBC/MSNBC's parent General Electric avoided paying taxes on $9 BILLION in profits during the Bush years.

(As noted above, General Electric is also one of the largest defense contractors in the U.S. The reporters know who signs their paychecks.)

[gratuitous]

11. But of course, they created soooo many jobs, right?

I mean, that's the rationale, isn't it? All these tax breaks, and these large corporations will create a whole slew of good-paying jobs with insurance benefits and pensions?

How many new hires has GE taken on in the last three years? We've certainly emptied a substantial portion of the Treasury into their corporate coffers, including the Social Security funds we're collecting now to pay benefits 10 and 20 years down the line. What is the public getting for this outpouring of largesse?

[BiggJawn]

12. "SOME"??? I figure it's really "MOST"

I would not want to be the soon-to-be-former CFO at some Fortune 500 that did not have its snout in the tax trough up to its ears...Too hard to tap-dance and explain to the stockholders why you didn't fuck the middle class to build their dividends...

[Supersedeas]

13. Who topped the list with the largest total tax breaks -- Tweety grins