Goldman Sachs’s Tax Rate Drops to 1%, or $14 Million

[keep_it_real]

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which got $10 billion and debt guarantees from the U.S. government in October, expects to pay $14 million in taxes worldwide for 2008 compared with $6 billion in 2007.

The company’s effective income tax rate dropped to 1 percent from 34.1 percent, New York-based Goldman Sachs said today in a statement. The firm reported a $2.3 billion profit for the year after paying $10.9 billion in employee compensation and benefits.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=a6bQVsZS2_18

[Newsjock]

1. 'You got a problem wif dat?'

The bankster thugs say to America. "Wouldn't want anything ... bad ... to happen to your economy, y'know."

[Octafish]

4. + $24 Trillion

Fuhgedaboudid.

[Robb]

2. "We 'made' our money overseas so it can't be taxed."

"...Can we have another $10 billion?"

[cbdo2007]

3. Can an economist out there explain how this is even possible? In normal person terms??

I'm a small business owner and pay a shitload in taxes.

[JoeyT]

6. Well I'm not an economist

but the short version is: You can neither afford to lobby for better rates nor can you afford an army of accountants. You also don't qualify for unreasonable exemptions.

I was a small business owner and taxes were pretty rough. As a single man with no children I ended up paying roughly half of what I took in in taxes when it was all said and done. (Sales tax alone was 12%) Which I wouldn't actually have minded if the people at the top had to pay it too. This is why I loathe conservatives in general and trickle down economics in particular.
In the end the profit margin wasn't high enough to justify the frustration, at least once the trickle downers wrecked the economy.

[pa28]

5. This is a story from last year but the underlying facts remain the same.

They got away with excess and abuse because too many people bought into the idea financial institutions were creating wealth. What's the excuse now?