Boeing Paid No Corporate Taxes For Three Years, Still Wants A Tax Cut

[Donnachaidh]

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/02/234490/boeing-wants-tax-cut/

Yesterday, Citizens for Tax Justice released a report showing that, over the last three years, 12 of the country’s biggest corporations made $171 bullion in pretax profits while paying a negative tax rate. So the U.S. taxpayer has been subsidizing these giant corporations, even as their profits soared.

One of the companies on the list was mega-manufacturer Boeing, whose vice president of tax, James Zrust, was on Capitol Hill today, testifying on corporate tax reform before the House Ways and Means Committee. Even though Boeing hasn’t paid a dime in federal taxes over the last three years, Zrust still asked for a cut in the corporate tax rate:

Everyone here today is well aware that the combined US statutory tax rate is almost 15 percentage points higher than the average combined rate of other OECD member countries. It is our view that significantly reducing the corporate tax rate will improve U.S. competitiveness. We believe lowering the corporate rate would dramatically reduce tax policy pressure and rhetoric by ensuring that U.S. companies are competitive, and importantly, would not tip the scale in favor of foreign production.

Boeing is far from alone in paying nothing into the federal coffers in recent years. General Electric, for example, made $7.7 billion in pretax profits over the last three years, and collected $4.7 billion in tax benefits. And even when corporations are paying something, it’s far below the statutory 35 percent tax rate. Last year, Google used tax havens to lower its tax rate all the way to 2.4 percent.

More at the link --

[denverbill]

1. Not only that, but probably 1/2 their profits come from military spending and MY hard earned taxes.

[JPZenger]

2. Meanwhile... back on to important topics like this

[Scuba]

3. Tax working Americans and give the money to wealthy foreigners. Yeah, that makes sense....

...Since Boeing and other companies like GE and Exxon are traded on international markets, and international traders trade on US markets, part of their ownership is made up of wealthy foreigners. And US taxpayers are subsidizing their profits.


Disgraceful. And almost every Republican in both the Senate and the House voted to continue this practice when they voted for the Paul Ryan budget plan.

[w8liftinglady]

4. sigh. Boeing is a major employer in my area. ne-er the twain shall meet

most of their profit comes from military-backed production.
what a fucked-up mess....pardon my french.

[Donnachaidh]

6. my area too hun.

Between them and Lockheed Martin -- rock and a hard place.

[LiberalAndProud]

5. Negative taxes still aren't low enough.

Oh please, let's cut corporate taxes some more. I can't think of a better way for my tax dollars to be spent then to hand them over to Boeing and Wells Fargo. It's the right thing to do.

/sarcasm

[Bake]

7. This is disgusting!

Enough of Weinergate. This is the kind of crap that MATTERS.

Bake

[smirkymonkey]

8. Wait, how do you cut NOTHING??

Assholes.