- Pacific
General Electric paid no tax at all in America last year and even managed to get a $3.2billion ‘rebate’ from the government.
The utilities giant allocated just 7.4 per cent of its $5.1billion U.S. profits in tax - around a third of what others companies its size are paying.
But through a complex series of measures GE, which is America's largest company, will not even have to hand that over.
Instead it will get $3.2billion back from the U.S. government after paying top tax lawyers and lobbyists to work the system on its behalf.
The disclosure by the New York Times will enrage small business owners and taxpayers who are struggling to get on their feet after the recession. They end up paying their fair share - or being clobbered by red tape - simply because they do not have the money to hire expensive lawyers to help them avoid paying up.
Across the whole of America such strategies have pushed the corporate share of the nation’s tax receipts down from 30 per cent in the mid 1950s to just 6.6 per cent today.
GE has emerged as one of the most skilled practitioners of tax avoidance. Last year it set aside a mere 7.4 per cent of its $5.1billion U.S. profits for tax. But according to the New York Times, this percentage will only be paid if GE brings overseas profits back to the U.S. If it does not do so the company effectively gets money back from the IRS.
GE has hired a string of lobbyists to ensure it pays as little tax as possible including one law firm made up for former officials from the IRS, the Treasury and almost all the tax committees in Congress.
Over the last five years records show that the firm has chalked up $26 billion profits - but received a net benefit from the IRS to the tune of $4.1billion.
Worldwide GE made $14.2billion last year alone.
‘In a rational system, a corporation’s tax department would be there to make sure a company complied with the law,’ said Len Burman of the Tax Policy Center. ‘But in our system, there are corporations that view their tax departments as a profit centre, and the effects on public policy can be negative.’
GE claims its tax strategy is necessary to help it survive in a competitive global environment but critics say the loopholes are little more than ‘corporate welfare.’The money GE is saving should be used to help small firms and entrepreneurs to create jobs and boost the economy, they say.
President Barack Obama shows no sign of clamping down on corporate tax and even hired GE’s chief executive Jeffrey Immelt to advise him on future changes. ‘He understands what it takes for America to compete in the global economy,’ Mr Obama said after his appointment.
Company spokesman Anne Eisele said: ‘GE is committed to
acting with integrity in relation to our tax obligations. ‘We are committed to
complying with tax rules and paying all legally obliged taxes. At the same time, we have a
responsibility to our shareholders to legally minimise our costs.’ (3,25,2011, Daniel Bates) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370001/General-Electric-avoids-paying-tax-entirely-dodges-incentives.html
Corporations run America with the rottenfeller cvorps leading the way. The American people do NOT live in a democracy or a Constitutional Republic. They live in a dictatorship of corporations
"To Achieve One World Government it is necessary to remove from the minds
of men their individualism, their loyalty to family traditions and national
identification." (Brock Chisholm
- Director of the World Health Organization)
"A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who refuse to
believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a
reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the Police
State Dictatorship it's going to
get." (Ian Williams Goddard)
The fact is that "political correctness" is all about creating uniformity. Individualism is one of the biggest obstacles in the way of the New World Order. They want a public that is predictable and conditioned to do as it's told without asking questions.
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." Thomas Jefferson