Rural Power Companies: Forced Greening?

Something the Dog Said wrote: No one has said that corporations were "evil". Just whether profitable companies should be receiving enormous taxpayer subsidies.

Look, I posted a somewhat biased CNN link (you can tell it's biased when "Big Oil" is in the title) which showed the so-called "subsidies".

They were all tax credits and tax deductions which most all other companies can take advantage of too if they qualify. So where is the advantage for oil companies?

Renewable energy companies can also take most of the same tax breaks too, plus they get many more tax breaks on top of it as I pointed out in detail.

And the main reason oil companies have big profits are because they are huge companies just like Apple Computer. Big revenues usually will lead to big profits, if you just look at the absolutes.

Instead, you need to look at the percentages. I already showed that the oil companies pay a much higher world wide income tax based on both absolutes and percentage.

And if you claim the oil companies have huge profits, then compare the percentage of earnings made vs. revenues against other companies. I haven't seen that number yet.

And no, taxes are not profit, which I assume you were trying to set up as a trick answer.

I disagree. Taxes are 100% profit to the government, which has invested nothing, and has risked nothing. It was not a trick question at all, who profits the most? - the government.

No, the government does not profit the most... I disagree.

The government doesn't profit. It recieves tax revenues. The government is not a business. If it were, it would have failed long ago when the first debt was taken on and paid off with additional debt.

LadyJazzer wrote: No, the government does not profit the most... I disagree.

The state does earn more in cigarette taxes than the tobacco companies earn in profits.

Nobody that matters wrote: The government doesn't profit. It recieves tax revenues. The government is not a business. If it were, it would have failed long ago when the first debt was taken on and paid off with additional debt.

Best answer :thumbsup: I would also say that if governmennt was a business, it would have a policy of firing dead weight/incompitent people in order to be profitable and efficient.

jf1acai wrote:

And no, taxes are not profit, which I assume you were trying to set up as a trick answer.

I disagree. Taxes are 100% profit to the government, which has invested nothing, and has risked nothing. It was not a trick question at all, who profits the most? - the government.

Nonsense. The road taxes in the retail price of gasoline are not profit, but the most fair way possible to put the cost of building and maintaining roads on the actual consumers who use those roads. The taxpayers, through their representative government, have decided that rather than impose additional taxes on those who may not use to build and maintain roads, to have those who actually use them to pay for them. The taxpayers have invested tremendously in the intial building of those roads and the road taxes enable those roads to be further built. The road taxes have no impact on the oil companies but do enable the oil companies to further profit from the consumers having roads to travel on.

Or would you rather have additional taxes levied on all taxpayers or go back to dirt unmaintained roads? Taxes are in no way "profits", particularly in this case where the road taxes go to build and maintain roads.

"The most fair way to tax those who use the road"
Not really, but they are the most efficient way to pay for the road system.

And you can even increase the taxes on diesel because the big trucks cause more damage than small cars to the highways.
Or you can take the Euro model where heavy trucks are considered economic necessities so diesel isn't taxed nearly as high as gasoline which is intended to discourage wasteful private driving and encourage more mass transit.

Something the Dog Said wrote:

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.

That's what happens when raw materials increase in price. If a barrel of crude used to cost $50 to purchase, and it was marked up 20%, the company would earn $10 in profit. If the cost of a barrel of crude goes to $100 and the markup remains at 20%, the company now makes a profit of $20 - which is indeed more money. Their profit margin, however, remains the same, 16.6% over their cost.

Then we have the argument of how much their "record profits" is actually capable of buying with an administration that is printing billions of new dollars each month. With every new dollar created out of nothing more than a desire to print more dollars, each existing dollar purchases less, which is part of why the cost of a barrel of crude has remained so high - it takes more of the devalued dollars to purchase the same amount of the raw material. It's a form of hidden taxation employed by governments who have borrowed too much and need more of their currency to pay off the debt they have accrued over the years.

So, once again, do you think it is right for the taxpayers to subsidize profitable companies?