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Originally Posted by garentee  I will bite.. Why did they pay NO income taxes? |
Do you understand what losses are, and what caring over losses means? As well as making money overseas and making money here?
They are not paying any Federal income tax this year, because they took massive losses last year, and carried it forward.
I'll give you an example of how that works, and why "Carrying forward" losses is a good idea. Take a research company. They spend 10 years developing a product, incurring severe operating losses all of those years. (Say $10 Million a year). They then make the product, and sell the patent for it for $100 Million.
They've actually made no money over 10 years. But their one year profit is $100 Million.
So, the headlines would be " Research company makes $100 million dollars!!! Yet, they did not pay a dime in federal income tax, while their secretary had to pay 35% of her income in taxes!! ".
See how silly that sounds, now that it's explained?
They did not profit domestically, but they did internationally from their lending. They don't bring home the money they make overseas so they don't have to pay taxes on it. As far as a corporation doing what it is legally obligated to do (maximize profits) they're doing great. Is that the best thing for America? Probably not. But when you get pushed into paying for the bottom 51% of non income tax payers, you tend to push back.
I'd like to add, that I haven't paid income taxes in a few years. Why don't I have to, and you do ? Because I have a business, and can show losses, where as an individual has no true losses, aside from cost of gas, and a few other tax write offs that they can use. My neighbor, uses his home as his business as well his car. He was paying a ton in income tax, working the same job, for some other guy. Now, he's working for himself, doing the same job, and paying barely any income tax. The reason you don't want to over tax business, is because it will squelch innovation, and there will be less jobs for people, who would have then paid income tax. If there is income tax, then this is the way it needs to be done. If we get rid of income tax, then we'll do things a different way. At the moment, this IS fair.