GE Filed 57,000-Page Tax Return

The fact that GE paid no taxes in 2010 was widely reported earlier this year, but the size of its tax return first came to light when House budget committee chairman Paul Ryan (R, Wisc.) made the case for corporate tax reform at a recent townhall meeting. "GE was able to utilize all of these various loopholes, all of these various deductions--it's legal," Ryan said. Nine billion dollars of GE's profits came overseas, outside the jurisdiction of U.S. tax law. GE wasn't taxed on $5 billion in U.S. profits because it utilized numerous deductions and tax credits, including tax breaks for investments in low-income housing, green energy, research and development, as well as depreciation of property.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/ge- ... 09137.html

If GE had paid the government all the dollars they paid their lawyers and CPA's to prepare that 57,000 page tax return, the government would of probably done pretty well.

I wonder how serious GE really is about green energy? Or is it mainly for the tax credits?

pineinthegrass wrote: I wonder how serious GE really is about green energy? Or is it mainly for the tax credits?

Does it really matter? Seems like you can never please the treehuggers!

If a company isn't green, you get upset and want to boycott them by not spending your $1.23.

If the company spends millions/billions of dollars in infrastructure investment on becoming a good treehugging neighbor, and takes a tax credit; we get a stupid statement like the above quote.

Get over it! I hear Solyndra is looking to hire...

pineinthegrass wrote: If GE had paid the government all the dollars they paid their lawyers and CPA's to prepare that 57,000 page tax return, the government would of probably done pretty well.

I wonder how serious GE really is about green energy? Or is it mainly for the tax credits?

Er... maybe you missed the elephant in the room? GE PAID NO TAXES. Here's the issue "GE was the primary recipient of 14 stimulus grants, a spokeswoman for Recovery.gov confirmed to CNSNews.com. These 14 grants provided GE with $24.9 million in tax dollars." Sure... only 24.9 million... a drop in the fiscal bucket... lunch money for Congress... but the fact is THEY GOT THAT MONEY AND PAID NO TAXES. Are you happy with that kind of crap? Or has it occurred to you that THE SYSTEM IS BROKE? Go ahead... spend the rest of your life looking through green-colored glasses. Meanwhile the power and money parasites... the Professional Political Class (politicians/kleptocrats/plutocrats/special interest/big money/corporate cronies) are robbing YOU and this country blind. Priorities... yours stink.

WOW. I guess I wasn't very clear or something because I don't see anything I said that would cause such ire. I'll take them one at a time...

MWMGROUP wrote:

pineinthegrass wrote: I wonder how serious GE really is about green energy? Or is it mainly for the tax credits?

Does it really matter? Seems like you can never please the treehuggers!

If a company isn't green, you get upset and want to boycott them by not spending your $1.23.

If the company spends millions/billions of dollars in infrastructure investment on becoming a good treehugging neighbor, and takes a tax credit; we get a stupid statement like the above quote.

Get over it! I hear Solyndra is looking to hire...

Huh? I don't really get what you are talking about. What "stupid statement" did I even say? Those are two questions I asked and not even a statement at all.

Did you even read the article? It mentioned that GE avoided paying tax on $5 billion of profits due to things like energy tax credits. GE is very much into green energy. I was simply asking if GE's green energy business is viable on its own, or are they in it due to the billions of tax credits they get. What's your issue with that? I stated no conclusion of my own.

Er... maybe you missed the elephant in the room? GE PAID NO TAXES.

No, I didn't miss that. We've known GE paid no taxes for a long time. And yes, I know the system is broke. That's why I was talking about how dumb it is that GE spent a fortune to prepare a 57,000 page tax return in order to show that they owe no taxes under our current crazy tax system.

In order to prepare a 57,000 page tax return, you'd have to have a whole department of accountants, lawyers, and IT people (even if much of it is "automatically" generated). All those people and all that expense just for a tax return. Even if it only cost $100 a page (my guess is it's much more), that's over $5 million right there. So yes again, the system is broke.

Great argument for a flat tax on corporations. No deductions, no exemptions. Imagine how many man hours it took to prepare that! Talk about lost productivity.

FredHayek wrote: Great argument for a flat tax on corporations. No deductions, no exemptions. Imagine how many man hours it took to prepare that! Talk about lost productivity.

Why are you being so mean to the tax accounting industry? Are you trying to put all those people out of jobs? I thought the idea now was to create jobs, not destroy them.

Well, a company can get a deduction for "green," but from the article I couldn't determine how EFFECTIVE that "green" investment was for the environment. It certainly was effective for GE.

Why don't we just roll back to the taxes of the Reagan era? Might take care of some of this debt.

Nobody that matters wrote:

FredHayek wrote: Great argument for a flat tax on corporations. No deductions, no exemptions. Imagine how many man hours it took to prepare that! Talk about lost productivity.

Why are you being so mean to the tax accounting industry? Are you trying to put all those people out of jobs? I thought the idea now was to create jobs, not destroy them.

I hope you are being sarcastic. These brilliant minds could be working on ideas to increase profits instead of ways to decrease tax costs.