It is an untenable situation in this country when the top five oil companies profit by $123 billion dollars in a year. Our utilities are regulated in amounts of profits. Our nation is hurting. Because of this, I am in full support of Congress passing an $18 billion tax over the next 10 years.
I would support a 10-percent tax per year on profits above a 7-percent allowable margin based on stringent accounting principles of reporting. This $18 billion dollar tax is chicken feed to the current $1.23 trillion profits over 10 years that they stand to make. However, bravo to using the money for developing alternative solar power, wind, etc.
Bush says he will veto a passed bill of this sort. I must say he is an idiot. He needs to go back to Yale for remedial economics, and pass the course called "Ethics and Greed for Dummies."
Michael J. Rhoden, Augusta
Comments
Last year Exxon paid as much in tax as the entire bottom half of wage earners in the U.S. while only making about 19% as much money. When big corporations are taxed, they actually pass the cost on to the consumer so it falls to them to pay the tax. Raising this tax is like raising any other tax on the general population. I'm with Micheal Rhoden, but I'd like to see a 50% tax on profits. If 10% is good, 50% would be wonderful. Why be a little stupid when you can be really stupid.
The easy way around this is to nationalizie the oil and gas industry. A liter bottle of water costs more than a gallon of gasoline in Saudi Arabia, and Hugo Chavas is willing to help out the poor people of the USA. Don't expect any help from Mr. Bush--He doesn't even know how much a gallon of gasoline costs. Why should he. He's an oil man. I think we should give all the Illegal Aliens a map to his Crawford, Texas ranch so he can take care of them.
Please return to school and learn the term "margin". Do you really think that they wouldn't pass the cost of increased taxation along to the consumers?
The oil company profit percentage is much less than many other companies. The total dollar amount means nothing. They aren't making a big percent of profit. State and federal taxes on gas create more money than the profits of the oil companies. Why not get the federal and state government to lower their profit on gas?
If you owned a company and only made a 1% profit and you grew it big enough you could pay more taxes than anyone in the country.
It is all math and folks are poor at math. Someone said life is just math and relationships and if you have trouble with either life becomes very difficult to live and understand.
One thing overlooked is the pharmaceutical industry. Pfizer makes roughly $11 billion in profits from $51 billion in sales. The Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 has a provision that prohibits Medicare and other government programs from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices.
Thanks PT - yes all taxes on businesses are paid for by the consumer. When I was in business and had to pay "my half" of the social security tax, it came from the wages that the person would have earned, same with the unemployment tax and any other taxes. Any benefits the person earns and all businesses taxes are built into the cost of doing business and guess who pays for all of that? Yes, the consumer pays because when my taxes go up, the cost of the product has to go up in order to assure it is still profitable for me to stay in business. What will occur if taxes are too high or, as deportem recommends, we nationalize the oil industry (a "brilliant" idea), is that businessmen will lose their incentive for being in business and will; find another way to make money. If you remove the incentive for business, you lose the business. This is simple economics but apparently that is a subject the public did not have to take.
Surprisingly, I agree with PT and The Last Word. If you start taxing them more, the consumers just pay more. They are in a business and are obligated to maximize profits for their share holders.
I don't want to upset the gas companies. they could easily cut production and crush the economy. I don't think it's right to punish someone for making a profit. OPEC cuts production because we use too much gas, it's a way to make us conserve. The first time gas hit $3 a gallon traffic slowed down alot, Washington Rd looked like a ghost town. Now that we are use to it, we quit conserving. Traffic is horrible around here. On my way to work last Sunday night at 10:30pm, Washington Rd was so packed with cars I thought it was Saturday evening. If you don't want them to profit, keep your driving to a bare minimum.
You would think that the government would want Exxon to teach them how to "balance a budget" instead of making them "an evil predator". Maybe it is jealousy. Or maybe it is we always have to have a "villan or devil" to great fear and mistrust among the masses. For Hitler, the Jews were the problem. For America it was the Soviet Union. For Muslims it is Christians. Governmental control by fear. lies and confusion.
hi Michael,
remember when everyone laughed at Ronald Reagan's trickle-down economics. well, everything you buy in this country from bread to gasoline has a markup due to taxes placed by the federal government on ALL businesses - small & large. if the feds increase taxes on Shell or Exxon by $1 per gallon, guess what??!! your payment at the pump will increase by $1 per gal. if they increase taxes on bread by 10 cents, your cost will increase by 10censt. its always the consumer who suffers. don't let your politicians convince you otherwise. businesses, small & large, must make a profit... otherwise, who are you going to work for?
when govt increases taxes on any product or service, be realistic. who are the stock holders in these businesses? your teachers, firemen, and employee retirement funds, mutual funds held by employees of companies that have 401k or other retirement funds. it isn't the poor that are furnishing jobs to people. it's those evil rich.
If Rhoden's surcharge tax of 10 percent on profits above 7 percent is good for the oil companies, then why isn't it good for any and all companies in the United States? For me, I say reduce the corporate tax rate. It is the consumers who pay those taxes anyway. Reduce corporate tax rates and prices will go down.
If you think corporations pay taxes you're uninformed. taxes are just a part opf the cost of doing business. The cost of doing business is recovered from the customer.
BTW, all you folks who worship the poor and demonize the rich - show me where the poor are hiring people.
Rhoden is the one who needs a course (not remedial as obviously he doesn't understand basics). Those "evil" oil companies belong to Amerifcan citizens of just about every socio-eonomic class other than the lowest and expect good dividends on theri investment. The corporations in America already pay more in taxes than any other country in the world. Yeah, why not just take all the profit from the oil companies and just nationalize them such as the socialist/communist Hugo Chavez has done. How democratic and idea!
PM me if you want to try your hand at getting a piece of the gasoline profit pie. By the way, if you want to know where, by far, the vast amount of corporate profit is made.....look at your bank.
Oil company profits=higher gains in 401Ks, stocks, mutuals, private and government pension funds, and new research and development. They don't go into the CEO, COO, CIO, and CFO's pockets. Great plan, Libs, let's all be equally miserable.
The next time you fill up at a CitGo gas station, you are supporting Hugo Chavez. That's who owns CitGO.
Ah, that's why I avoid CitGo, and, I avoid Exxons and Mobils too because of the handling of the Exxon Valdese spill and the refusal to compensate the Alaskan fishermen whose livlihood was destroyed by a second or third mate who had to take over for the captain who was drunk on duty.
The companies hire the poeple.....leave the big companies alone.
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