hypocritexposer
Well-known member
Far from qualifying as selective or excessive government fiscal policy, many of the tax rules President Obama brands as “oil subsidies” are actually credits available to any U.S. manufacturer–from microprocessor producers like Intel to coffee roasters like Starbucks to conglomerates like GE. Notice, though, that the administration didn’t bother to specifically go after any of those sectors in his State of the Union last month.
Consider this: since 1981, oil and natural gas firms have paid more in taxes than their shareholders have earned in profits. Specifically, between 1981 and 2008, the oil industry paid more than $388 billion to the federal and state governments in corporate income taxes alone, not counting excise, property, and other taxes. It also paid almost twice that amount, $683 billion, to foreign governments. That helps explain why ExxonMobil recorded a larger income tax expense than any other U.S. company last year, some $17.6 billion or 47 percent of pretax earnings.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/02/22/obamas-tax-proposal-would-only-hurt-american-energy-competitiveness