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General Electric Faces Occupy Protest Over its Low Taxes, CEO Falsely Claims it Pays a High Rate
Think Progress / News Report
Published: Sunday 29 April 2012
“We pay 29 per cent,” Immelt responded. A GE spokesman later told CBS that “the 29 percent tax rate was what the company paid globally in 2011. In the U.S., the rate was 25 percent.”
Occupy protesters chanting “we pay taxes and you should too” interrupted General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt today during a speech in Detroit before the SAE World Congress. Other protesters in the hall chanted “we are the 99 percent” before being escorted off the premises by police.
“We pay 29 per cent,” Immelt responded. A GE spokesman later told CBS that “the 29 percent tax rate was what the company paid globally in 2011. In the U.S., the rate was 25 percent.”
However, that doesn’t jive with what Citizens for Tax Justice found in a recent report. CTJ calculated that GE paid an 11.3 percent tax rate in 2011, which is actually a huge increase over previous years. In 2010, for instance, GE paid -76.6 percent. In 2009, it was -52.9 percent. So in each of those years, the government subsidized the hugely profitable mega-corporation:
GE’s low taxes stem mainly from its finance arm, GE Capital, which makes big profits, but generates huge tax “losses” that reduce GE’s taxable income from its other operations. Over the past decade, GE has paid virtually nothing in federal income taxes, paying a paltry 2.3% tax rate on its $83 billion in pretax U.S. profits.
26 major corporations, GE included, had no federal income tax liability for the period between 2008 and 2011 (thought they might have owed something in an individual year), while they made billions in profits. Occupy protesters plan to protest GE’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Detroit tomorrow.
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ABOUT Pat Garofalo
Pat Garofalo is Economic Policy Editor for ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Pat’s work has also appeared in The Nation, U.S. News & World Report, The Guardian, the Washington Examiner, and In These Times. He has been a guest on MSNBC and Al-Jazeera television, as well as many radio shows. Pat graduated from Brandeis University, where he was the editor-in-chief of The Brandeis Hoot, Brandeis’ community newspaper, and worked for the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life.
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By Ronnie Cummins
16 comments on "General Electric Faces Occupy Protest Over its Low Taxes, CEO Falsely Claims it Pays a High Rate"
May 01, 2012 6:01pm
And they do not have never paid a 25% tax rate. They love to obfuscate. That's the theoretical marginal tax rate, which they will never come close to..
May 01, 2012 5:59pm
Living, working, operating in the USA is a privilege not a right.
Multinationals have no right saying they are one of us with the same rights. Yet they say that and our bought off supreme court agreed!! Imagine that? Where in the constitution are artificial paper corporations afforded any rights?? NADA So, who is the Activist court? The Warren court or the current gang of slow thought slugs?
May 01, 2012 5:56pm
Multinational corporations are not citizens of any country and as such all income earned in the USA should be taxes as a customs duty not as an income tax. And there should be no tax write offs, etc. Here's my sales in USA here's my tax on the sales. No deductions or exemptions. Then remove the tax on dividends to individuals from corporations who pay the customs tax.
May 01, 2012 7:28am
Forget most of the garbage comments posted here and understand that GE is one of the biggest beneficiaries of Obama policies. Multiple visits to the White House to get deals to build turbine blades, etc. in return for buying Chevy Volts (and other things) that actually cost about $250,000 each; subsidized of course by you and I. No business goes into the White House and comes out opposed to their policies and some kind of deal, except for the medical device makers who refused and were then slapped with a tax on medical devices! Think about that, Obama put a tax on Pace Makers to punish an industry that would not agree with his Health Care Plan.Wake up folks. If BHO really cared about the financial health of America he would stop short selling of stock, ban Hedge Funds who manipulate the market and require a certain amount of all goods sold in America be made in America. But that is not his agenda, his agenda is the Establishment of a Marxist World Government with the redistribution of American (that would be yours and mine) wealth and total control over our lives.
April 30, 2012 9:43pm
OBAMA'S HYPOCRISY! "PAY A FAIR SHARE" HUH! BUT NOT FOR HIS BUDDY GE CEO JEFFREY IMMELT... NO WAY!! THE FACTS! GE has paid virtually nothing in federal income taxes, paying a paltry 2.3% tax rate on its $83 billion in pretax U.S. profits. 26 major corporations, GE included, had no federal income tax liability for the period between 2008 and 2011 (thought they might have owed something in an individual year)”
HEY OBOZO? "FAIR SHARE??"... SHUT-UP! YOU HYPOCRITE! AN "UNHOLY MARRIAGE!"
April 30, 2012 8:46am
CEOs are not heroes! They are tax evaders and pathological liars. Their avaricious, predatory, anti-union "austerity" economic policies have turned 99% of the world's population into jobless paupers. I repeat, CEOs are not heroes!
We, the people, must demand that our leaders stop violating their solemn oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, as well as wrongfully creating titles of nobility that would shock and awe those Age of Enlightenment founders.
Just the thought of using a word such as "Czar" to identify any member of our representative republic befouls all the blood shed to establish the Commonwealth.
Please join me in a letter writing campaign via Congress.org to demand redress of this grievance that violates our Constitutional priniciples by reminding them that, after all, this is the 21st, not 12th, Century and just by stopping GE's Crusade in the Holy Land, our nation's debt would cease to exist.
Article 1, section 9, paragraph 8:
"No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state."
I asked these questions before with reference to that Article when this nation was unconstitutionally dipping its flag to that grossly sickening absurdity called the Royal Wedding:
Why are our Alleged Public Servants recognizing more than 45 monarchies world-wide?
At long last, have you no shame?
April 29, 2012 8:02pm
Immelt tells the investors GE have enough cash and then they downgrade GE again. Investors believe that cash that Mr Immelt is claiming is not large enough for its size and operations, thus keeps downgrading the firm. Immelt has serious credibility issue.
Most recently he started claiming to be a republican after a backlash from republicans about his involvement with government, while GE kept laying off and not paying enough taxes. I don’t think any republican belives that Immelt is a republican. He is desperate to save his job after backlash.
Immelt becomes the Jobs Czar of President Obama and had been seen in pictures leading the jobs creation council, but guess what he himself was laying off hundreds and gradually thousands of his workforce. GE is good at working under the radar. They tend to layoff in smaller chunks to avoid media frenzy. A friend of mine was saying that GE has more VISA workers working than any company but Immelt was gradually laying off American workforce.
May 01, 2012 6:04pm
I once worked for GE and saw them in action. They are real quick at firings for good, poor, no reason at all except money.
Even so they are really a piss poor return on investment unless you are in a corner office with the CEO. As in most companies the board of directors and executive officers are in an incestuous relationship raking in the $$$$$$$$$$ regardless of shareholder returns or citizenship.
April 29, 2012 1:54pm
The Midas Touch ???? but these guys are smarter than the guys at ENRON - the smartest guys on the block.......
KILLING THEIR GOLDEN GOOSE -.- TO REAP THEIR BONUSES - JUST LIKD WALL STREET DID...BUT THEY'RE KILLING THE GOOSE
EVER WONDER HOW MANY OF THE INSIDER TRADING POLITICIANS HOLD G.E. STOCK ???
IF THEY WEREN'T BEING PAID OFF / WITH STOCK TIPS/ WOULD THEY HAVE ALLOWED ANY OF THIS RIP-OFF OD THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ?????
HOW MANY OF THESE LAWS WERE WRITTEN TO COVER FOR THEM - BY THESE WONDERFUL INSIDER TRADERS??????
....THE REAL QUESTION IS NOW THAT A LAW WAS PASSED AGAINST THEIR INSIDER TRADING - - - DO YOU THINK IT'S STOPPED???????????
April 29, 2012 1:34pm
And just imagine, Obama appointed this guy as his jobs Czar.
April 29, 2012 8:09pm
thats right.. now he want to be a republican..
April 29, 2012 1:22pm
What would happen to the national debt if ALL corporations actually paid their REAL tax burdens?
May 01, 2012 6:01pm
The national debt would disappear, poof.
April 29, 2012 12:52pm
Right Txjack! The money passed on to the shareholders will be taxed so therefore, the company has already been taxed, kinda. By that logic, I could say that the money I make as a house painter comes from my clients who have in effect paid the taxes on the money that they in turn pay me with and therefore the money has already been taxed so why on earth should I have to pay any taxes on it? For the same reason your argument that the taxes will be paid by the shareholders should somehow exempt the company from it's corporate tax liability makes really good sense. In fact, after the first person in possession of the monies in question have paid the taxes on it, why should anyone in the line of custody of those funds ever have to pay taxes ever again. I should be the next head of GE myself, I'm so damn smart.
April 29, 2012 11:54am
The real question is whether companies like GE are passing their tax burden on to their shareholders. If the shareholders are paying taxes on the company's profits, aren't the company's profits being taxed, albeit indirectly? To me, this is the key to whether companies are paying taxes or not. Texas Jack
April 29, 2012 11:43am
Facts and TRUTH are minor inconveniences and insignificant technicalties to corporate trash. Corporate CEOs aren't degenerate, liberal, elitist college professors -- their only concerns are Corporate Profits and Executive Bonuses so GREED and Selfishness are their specialities.