Friday, December 25, 2009

Do oil companies currently pay too little in taxes compared to profits? ?

no lookThe answer to the question is that over the past 25 years, oil companies directly paid or remitted more than $2.2 trillion in taxes, after adjusting for inflation, to federal and state governments鈥攊ncluding excise taxes, royalty payments and state and federal corporate income taxes. That amounts to more than three times what they earned in profits during the same period, according to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and U.S. Department of Energy.





These figures do not include local property taxes, state sales and severance taxes and on-shore royalty payments. at the facts.





Do oil companies currently pay too little in taxes compared to profits? ?
Oil company profit margins are 7%. That's pretty low. If the price of oil goes up, the 7% is obviously worth more.





But...





Oil companies are about 99% publicly owned. Which means they are owned by everyone with a 401K or retirement account.





So when the Democrats say they are going after the oil companies profits, what are they really going after in the name of looking out for you?





That's right, your retirement account.





So since it's my retirement account we are actually talking about here, I think that's a stock I would like to see continue to do well.Do oil companies currently pay too little in taxes compared to profits? ?
Gosh No. For every one dollar, say for instance, that exxon makes in profit they spend ten. Now imagine they make 11 billion in profits in one quarter. Well, that means they spent 110 billion to make that 11 billion. WOW. That's an incredible amount of money put into our economy. It pays a lot of salaries. It buys a lot of equipment. And pays a lot of taxes. In fact, if Congress keeps insisting that these companies that really do us a favor pay windfall profits taxes, they will up and relocate to a country that treats them more favorable. And only the American consumer will be the loser.
All corporations pay too little. Congress is bought and paid for by the campaign contribution they can give. One ';vote'; by a corporation equals hundreds of thousands in contributions. One vote by you means nothing to those who have no greater purpose in holding office but to be reelected and continue to pull down all the perks and pay for making pay-backs for those contributions.
Pharmaceudicals and Computers make a higher profit than oil companies do. I once saw a list and Oil companies were like 4th or 5th on it.





If they take a ';Windfall Profits Tax'; on corporations, then they will have to include ALL corporations, not just oil. And let's use our noodles real quick... if Exxons costs go up because they are paying their profits to the Government and their shareholders are not making any money so they stop investing in oil ... then they will have to either lay off workers or raise prices to make up the difference. Duh. Do you want higher prices or more unemployed people? Think America, PLEASE!!! Our economy is already in the crapper due to corrupt government (i.e. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). Let's not make it worse!
You have to look at % profit not just revenue. People like to throw around big revenue numbers but it costs a lot to drill, refine and transport petroleum products. They spend billions to look for new reserves, in many cases they do not find them but still have to spend money looking. So what if revenue was $10B, it cost them $9B to run the company so they only really made $1B.





My understanding is their profit margins are about 10% which is reasonable, definitely no where near as high as Apple. Why not hammer Apple?
YES they do and it hurts the average every day working person -not that Republican'ts care. Do you see them passing any thing down to the consumer ? NO It is ALL about profit and screw America.
All corporate taxes ultimately get passed on to consumers.
What is wrong with profits? If we target oil company profits who will be next and where does it stop?
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