Look stupid, any system that sets a statutory earnings tax rate of 35% but results in a company like Exxon or others pay taxes in the order of 17% and in some years much lower is fraught with problems...anywhere from registering rigs to setting up shell headquarters in foreign countries to claiming questionable deductions...
Well, I'd be the last to defend the complexity of accounting and taxes. It is absurd. But the reality is our tax system is what it is and in general, a 17% tax rate when it happens USUALLY does so with good reason.
Let's see if you can understand this. The United States, with good reason, taxes companies on their worldwide income. The money they make everywhere. But you cannot do that sensibly UNLESS you allow them a credit for foreign taxes paid. You can't do one without the other or the system makes no sense. This is part of operating in a global economy.
Exxon does business in some places that have ridiculously high income tax rates. Some as high as ~80%. Because THOSE COUNTRIES have the oil and THEY can do it. Now, Exxon may look at those rates and say, "Well, we can still make money off the product we get there". Why? Because the US grants them a credit for foreign taxes paid. If we chose not to do that, they'd say, "Screw it. It isn't worth it", in which case the world supply of oil would be decreased by that much, prices would go up, and and everyone pays.
The end result, in some years, is that Exxon pays a 47% worldwide tax rate -- as it did last year -- but the US share is less.
So, you tell me, how would you change that to make it fairer?
>> that would equate to 45% tax rate . . . i say you are a pathetic serial liar...
I would never lie about anything.
From the Tax Foundation:
In contrast to excise taxes, corporate income tax payments vary as widely as industry profits. As mentioned above, domestic energy companies earned a total of $630 billion in post-tax profits between 1977 and 2004. Tax Foundation economists estimate that companies paid $518 billion in corporate income taxes to federal and state governments during the same period. These payments varied from a low of $5.1 billion in 1995 to a high of $40.4 billion in 1981.
Take it with them. Maybe THEY are pathetic serial liars?
Or could it be you just don't have a f*cking clue what you're talking about. |
