GE Pays No Taxes - What a Fraud

Actually lower corporate tax is helpful for the economy.

How many people do they employ?

How many companies can afford to use their high quality products?

Do the employees make a lot and spend a lot?

GE = crooks. I never buy anything from GE.

As a GE shareholder, I like that they are keeping their tax bill low. Hurray!

Don't hate the company, hate the system that would allow that to happen. GE is doing what is best for GE, a perfectly reasonable approach.

If you were smart enough to figure out how to pay no taxes you can't tell me you wouldn't do it.

haha YO wrote:

Don't hate the company, hate the system that would allow that to happen. GE is doing what is best for GE, a perfectly reasonable approach.

If you were smart enough to figure out how to pay no taxes you can't tell me you wouldn't do it.

Exactly. That's why we need to trash the current tax system and just come up with a straight tax system. Everyone pays x% of gross income, from those receiving welfare to the mega corporations. Its not rocket science, but the tax code is the way it is FOR A REASON, hmmm...now why would that be...

X% of gross on a business would be pretty much the largest tax hike ever. Salaries would be double taxed (the corp would pay it and then the employee. Of course salaries would need to be slashed as a result) and goods would cost a lot more (instead of paying tax on just profit you would pay it on cost of goods and so on). Now existing rich people would love it as their tax burden would drop and the middle class started to pay more.The tax code is the way it is because of pandering to voters (deductions for kids, college), special interests (mortgage deduction, farm benefits, corp tax breaks) and social interests (need to subsidize churches). One tax rate solves a problem that doesn't exist. Getting rid of deductions and credits would help simplify our system but no one wants to give up their pork.

MedMan wrote:

haha YO wrote:

Don't hate the company, hate the system that would allow that to happen. GE is doing what is best for GE, a perfectly reasonable approach.

If you were smart enough to figure out how to pay no taxes you can't tell me you wouldn't do it.

Exactly. That's why we need to trash the current tax system and just come up with a straight tax system. Everyone pays x% of gross income, from those receiving welfare to the mega corporations. Its not rocket science, but the tax code is the way it is FOR A REASON, hmmm...now why would that be...

truth sayer wrote:

Actually lower corporate tax is helpful for the economy.

How many people do they employ?

How many companies can afford to use their high quality products?

Do the employees make a lot and spend a lot?

"Since 2002, the company has eliminated a fifth of its work force in the United States while increasing overseas employment."

Fair enough.

One reason this country is losing jobs, it because companies can move work to other countries which have better tax laws. Foreign income is not taxable in the U.S.

X-Runner wrote:

"Since 2002, the company has eliminated a fifth of its work force in the United States while increasing overseas employment."

That is changing. GE will be bringing jobs back to the US.

truth sayer wrote:

Actually lower corporate tax is helpful for the economy.

How many people do they employ?

How many companies can afford to use their high quality products?

Do the employees make a lot and spend a lot?

X-Runner wrote:

"Since 2002, the company has eliminated a fifth of its work force in the United States while increasing overseas employment."

That didn't answer his question. 4/5 of a large number is still a large number.

asdasd wrote:

truth sayer wrote:

Actually lower corporate tax is helpful for the economy.

How many people do they employ?

How many companies can afford to use their high quality products?

Do the employees make a lot and spend a lot?

X-Runner wrote:

"Since 2002, the company has eliminated a fifth of its work force in the United States while increasing overseas employment."

That didn't answer his question. 4/5 of a large number is still a large number.

Yeah, and 4/5 is still less than 5/5.

That didn't answer his question. 4/5 of a large number is still a large number.

Well, numbers I am able to find are somewhere around 300,000 employees currently, though that appears to be worldwide. The American work force is estimated to be about 155 million people, or roughly half our population. That gives me a figure of somewhere just under .2% of the population getting the direct arm of GE for their livelihood. Mind you, not a slice of the 14.2 billion worldwide or 5.1 billion in domestic profit. That arm is just a paycheck and I am sure increasingly less benefits. Now if you want to debate how often you want to replace a microwave made overseas by GE and how it helps you because its cheaper in the short term ME ME ME world, that seems to be a completely different angle to the debate. No one in their right mind would look at the history and actions of that company, particular in the recent past, as 'good for Americans'. Good for business, you bet!

exposerman wrote:

asdasd wrote:

That didn't answer his question. 4/5 of a large number is still a large number.

Yeah, and 4/5 is still less than 5/5.

OK... and...? His point was that GE employs a large number of Americans and, because of this, does a great good for the country, despite not having payed any corporate taxes. To respond to this by saying, "Yeah, but they employ less than before!" doesn't change this fact or challenge it in any way.

A key piece of economic information to understand is that corporations and businesses never, ever, pay taxes. Instead, they simply pass the cost of the tax to consumers in the form of higher prices. There reason G.E. is so successful is the very fact that they can keep their tax costs low and pass the savings along to consumers.

If you want to clean up and simplify the current convoluted tax code here is what you do. First, have zero corporate tax. That's right, zero, nada, nothing. Next, eliminate every personal exemption that exists today. Everything, for children, mortgage interest, the whole list. Finally, have everyone pay the same rate on the income they earn. I would peg that rate at 15% but that is not the important part. Just make sure that everyone who earns a wage pays part of it in taxes. No exceptions, no exemptions, not loop hole. Everyone pays the same rate on every dollar they earn.

At that point you can start counting the tax dollars flowing into the government and start adjusting the government expendatures to match the income.

This isn't really too hard is it? Only politicians, lawyers, and economists are stupid enough to mess this up.

asdasd wrote:

OK... and...? His point was that GE employs a large number of Americans and, because of this, does a great good for the country, despite not having payed any corporate taxes. To respond to this by saying, "Yeah, but they employ less than before!" doesn't change this fact or challenge it in any way.

Listen, defender of the tax-free billion dollar corporation, it really doesn't matter how many people GE employs. The fact is, corporate loopholes and zero-tax policies have created massive losses in tax revenues at the local, state, and federal levels.

Because of this, you have to curtail necessary services - schoools, fire, police, social programs - in order to balance the budget.

Basically, GE gets a free ride, myths are propagated about overpaid public servants and unworthy benefactors of social services, and the middle/lower classes ultimately bear the burden.

So congrats, pal. Your line of thinking - that if corporations simply employ a lot of people, they can weasel around tax laws all they want - simply perpetuates the class system into which America is transforming.

What a wonderful world.

Thank you for actual facts and thoughts backing up the facts. While their worldwide profit was $14 billion, their revenue was over $150 billion. That represent a lot of money going into the economy through sales tax, employee income tax, employee salaries (US employees will spend most in the US, which will again be taxed by sales tax), etc. This was the original posters point, which is not countered by the fact that the employment has dropped 20% since 2002 (which is representative of employment as a whole more than GE).

Our GDP, $14 Trillion, is a large number.

You Ok if we just produced 4/5 of that?

I did answer the question.

How many people do they employ? Less than they used to.

I am a bit concerned of the lobbying power that maybe GE can contribute $30 million for a park and coincidently get a law that gives them a billion dollar tax break.

Now I work for a compnay where GE is one of our biggest customers.

If GE does well, they can spend more on us.

So there are economic benefits.

But our country accumulates tax revenue to pay for things.

One of those avenues of revenue is corporate tax.

If one of the most profitable companies is barely paying any tax then there is something seemingly wrong.

Changing the tax code is way easier said than done.

The article is pretty interesting.

hilarious, they have one year of tax benefit and that negates the billions they have paid out, not to mention income tax on employees, and dividend tax on shareholders.

drop your sociology 101 and take a tax class. might learn something useful.