ExxonMobil's Record Taxes

[adrock3215]

Here's a topic very rarely discussed, the amount of taxes Exxon pays. We always hear about their profits though. Turns out, in 2007 ExxonMobil paid $30,000,000,000 ($30 billion) in taxes. This website has a nice chart of Exxon's taxes last year and this year. It was interesting to note that, although profits rose in the last year, their taxes rose more in percentage terms. Here is another unbelievable statistic from that page:

Adjusted Gross Income for the Bottom 50%: $922 billion

Total Income Tax Paid by the Bottom 50%: $27.4 billion

Conclusion: In other words, just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers, which is 65,000,000 people! Further, the tax rate for the bottom 50% is only 3% of adjusted gross income ($27.4 billion / $922 billion), and the tax rate for Exxon was 41% in 2006 ($67.4 billion in taxable income, $27.9 billion in taxes).

Here is another site with interesting numbers, some of which I have pasted below:

In fact, previous Tax Foundation research found that from 1977 to 2004, federal and state governments extracted $397 billion by taxing the profits of the largest oil companies and an additional $1.1 trillion in taxes at the pump. In today's dollars, that's $2.2 trillion.

And no doubt there will be renewed calls to punish energy companies with windfall profits taxes and special legislation that prohibits them from tax credits that others may take. The problematic truth is that these responses will always hurt more than help because they ignore basic economics. Businesses don't pay corporate taxes any more than a plot of land pays property taxes. Ultimately, people have to pay.

[KevinDW78]

Some of the idiotic comments below that article are even more sad than the article itself

Add to this today's story of Obama wanting to hand out $1,000 stimulus checks paid for by windfall profit taxes:

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/08/01/ob...t-energy-costs/

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday called for a $1,000 “emergency” rebate to consumers to offset soaring energy costs amid fresh signs of a struggling economy with the nation’s unemployment rate climbing to a four-year high.

Obama told a town-hall meeting the rebate would be financed with a windfall profits tax on the oil industry.

“This rebate will be enough to offset the increased cost of gas for a working family over the next four months,” Obama said in the crucial swing state of Florida.

Edited August 1, 2008 by KevinDW78

[tito]

...Is Obama serious? That is quite literally forcing the companies to give their products away for free. Obama is nothing more than a slave driver.

[Tenure]

It gets worse out here too. The Treasury is considering taxing oil producers, because energy prices are so high:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...mp;refer=europe

So, basically, the whole process will be more expensive then, for the oil companies, and then they'll have to raise their prices because they can't keep up with such regulation, and then energy prices will rise.

Great move Mr Milliband, you dickhead.