>> I want them to be turbo-obscenely profitable...i just want them to also pay a fair, progressively fair tax and let's agree that they don't need our loopholes to avoid paying it. Fair?
Not fair because it is an absurd comment. I don't believe for a moment you understand enough about the subject to discuss it intelligently, however.
1. Please name a couple of the "loopholes" you want to do away with.
2. Corporations don't pay income taxes -- their customers do in the form of increased prices for the goods and services they sell. Probably THE MOST REGRESSIVE TAX OF ALL is the federal income tax on oil companies, which impacts those at the lower income levels more than it does anyone else.
3. Historically, the oil and gas industry is one of the most heavily taxed of ALL businesses:
They are taxed on their income, have been taxed on income they didn't even EARN (the WPT), and Exxon ALONE pays more US taxes annually than the total from the lower half of US residents COMBINED.
Domestic energy companies paid some 500 Billion in corporate income taxes (F&S) over the period 1977-2004, according to the Tax Foundation -- on pre-tax profits of about 1.1 Trillion. You can presumably do the arithmetic.
Because you DO NOT UNDERSTAND SHIT about taxation or accounting, when you hear an idiot like Bernie Sanders demanding more money from the oil companies, you suck it down like a Snickers bar.
The important point, however, is that neither Exxon nor any other publicly held corporation substantively pays income taxes. We, their customers, pay those taxes in the form of increased prices at the pump. And I cannot imagine a more harmful, more regressive tax than that.
You really ought not discuss subjects you know nothing about. |
