FredHayek wrote: Highly profitable energy companies? More talking points? What percentage is highly profitable in your book? 5%? 10%
Good point. The top three US based oil companies (ExxonMobile, Chevron, ConocoPhillips) have huge profits just like Apple does (as I previously mentioned). But they also have huge revenues so high profits are not surprising. As you mention, you really need to look at the percent of profit. Do you have those numbers?
In fact if you just go by absolute numbers, oil companies pay much more income taxes than most companies. Of the top ten income taxes paid by US based companies, three of them are the above oil companies with ExxonMobile leading the way. Again, it's not too surprising because they also have the huge revenues. By my arithmetic, the top three paid $58.99 billion in world wide income taxes in 2012 ($31.05+$20+$7.94) based on $140.48 billion ($78.73+ $46.33+$15.42) of earnings. That's a whopping 42% of earnings income tax bill. How much is left to milk from that turnip?
By contrast, Apple paid a huge $14.21 billion in world wide income taxes. But they had $55.96 billion of earnings for a net of "just" 25%.
Yes, the portion of income taxes paid to the US federal government for oil companies will be less, but most of their business is overseas. So only looking at US taxes is just part of the total picture.
Here is another link from a slightly different time frame, but similar numbers. The effective tax rates are calculated in this article and are also similar...
The "highly profitable" energy companies, like all other "evil" corporations, are totally owned and manipulated by "evil capitalists". None of us, or our relatives, friends, or neighbors, profit in any way from the actions/profits/research of these "evil" corporations. Rural power companies, like rural fire departments, are no different from their urban counterparts, and face no different challenges, right?
Therefore, we should force them to waste as much money as possible in unrealistic pet projects, because after all, they sound good, and if they don't work out, nobody will have lost anything except for those "evil capitalists", and they don't deserve any return on their investment.
Besides, politicians know a lot more about how to do anything than people who are actually trained and experienced in doing it.
Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again - Jeanne Pincha-Tulley
Comprehensive is Latin for there is lots of bad stuff in it - Trey Gowdy
FredHayek wrote: Highly profitable energy companies? More talking points? What percentage is highly profitable in your book? 5%? 10%
Depends on the industry. In commodity industries such as fossil fuel exploitation, 5% is more the norm. Particularly as the past few years they have reported record profits.
"Remember to always be yourself. Unless you can be batman. Then always be batman." Unknown
Something the Dog Said wrote: No one has said that corporations were "evil". Just whether profitable companies should be receiving enormous taxpayer subsidies.
You sure like the vague terms don't you, "record profits", so if the company increased its profits $1000, that could be a record.
Enormous taxpayer subsidies? How much of a percentage in tax breaks did Exxon get versus Vesta and Solyandra?
And how many Americans are benefiting from domestic oil companies? I just saw that the highest paying job out there for college graduates is in the petroleum industry. Sounds much better than the Vesta employees being furloughed.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
As far as profits, there are numerous entities involved in the production of gasoline. The oil exploitation entity accounts for about 68% of the retail price, distribution and marketing entity accounts for about 8% of retail price, refining entity accounts for about 10% and road taxes account for about 14%. Profits are not necessarily broken out for each entity, but many are vertically integrated. In the vertically integrated entities, the overall profit margin are estimated around 8%, which is very good for a commodity market. And no, taxes are not profit, which I assume you were trying to set up as a trick answer.
"Remember to always be yourself. Unless you can be batman. Then always be batman." Unknown
Something the Dog Said wrote: No one has said that corporations were "evil". Just whether profitable companies should be receiving enormous taxpayer subsidies.
You sure like the vague terms don't you, "record profits", so if the company increased its profits $1000, that could be a record.
Enormous taxpayer subsidies? How much of a percentage in tax breaks did Exxon get versus Vesta and Solyandra?
And how many Americans are benefiting from domestic oil companies? I just saw that the highest paying job out there for college graduates is in the petroleum industry. Sounds much better than the Vesta employees being furloughed.
Apples and oranges. So you are just trying to deflect from the question. Should profitable companies receive enormous taxpayer subsidies?
"Remember to always be yourself. Unless you can be batman. Then always be batman." Unknown
Yes, instead of rewarding companies that bring jobs and reasonably priced goods to the economy, you prefer the green model of rewarding failures, and leave them on the goverment tit because they can't compete with tried and true energy sources.
Tax the successful and propup the failures with tax dollars.
Doesn't it actually make more sense to reward the companies that have reduced unemployement and generated wealthor the ones that have bad business models and are leaches?
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
