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Chances are you have used a GE appliance, turned on a GE light bulb, flown on a plane powered by a GE aircraft engine, seen a GE locomotive or wind turbine, taken out a loan from GE Capital (its lending division), or watched a program on NBC (partly owned by GE).
General Electric Company (GE) is a multinational conglomerate corporation with 287,000 employees. It is one of America’s oldest and largest companies. GE was one of the original twelve companies listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is consistently ranked near the top on the Forbes Global 2000 and Fortune 500 lists. GE is also one of the best-known global brands. The company has been ranked first in Fortune magazine’s “Global Most Admired Companies” and “America’s Most Admired Companies” lists.
But GE has a major public-relations problem. It has been widely reported, including in the New York Times, that GE earned $14.2 billion in worldwide profits last year, including $5.1 billion in the United States, and paid nothing in federal corporate income tax.
This has upset both conservatives and liberals.
Conservatives charge that the leadership of GE is in the pocket of the Democrat Party and stands to benefit from its green agenda. After all, is not GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt the head of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness? Although liberals many times deserve it, conservatives have a bad habit of blaming liberals for everything bad about government without checking the facts. For example: “As soon as Democrats took over Congress that’s exactly what they did: they criminalized incandescent light bulbs and made GE’s mercury-laden CFL bulbs the ‘Big Brother’ alternative.” But the legislation that criminalized incandescent bulbs is the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that was signed into law by a Republican president, passed with the votes of ninety-five Republicans in the House, and only opposed by seven Republicans in the Senate.
Liberals are predictably up in arms that GE is shirking its responsibilities and not paying its fair share of taxes. They complain that GE lobbies Congress for special tax treatment and moves its profits to offshore tax havens. But, of course, the same liberals that condemn GE for seeking corporate welfare are aghast that anyone would think of cutting federal funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives all of its yearly $430 million budget from the federal government.
Libertarians oppose the taxing of corporations for the same reason they oppose the taxing of individuals: taxation is theft. And even worse, as the nineteenth-century classical-liberal political philosopher Lysander Spooner it: “If the government can take a man’s money without his consent, there is no limit to the additional tyranny it may practise upon him; for, with his money, it can hire soldiers to stand over him, keep him in subjection, plunder him at discretion, and kill him if he resists.”
But aside from the onerous nature of taxes in general, there are other problems with the corporate income tax as well.
First, corporations are more properly tax collectors rather than tax payers. Taxes paid by corporations merely add to their cost of doing business. It is consumers and employees that ultimately pay corporate taxes as they are embedded in the prices paid for products and reduce wages paid. The corporate tax is just another of the government’s vehicles by which it masks Americans’ true tax burden.
The state masks taxation in many different ways. Other than businesses and self-employed individuals that submit quarterly income tax payments, few Americans pay taxes directly to the government thanks to the withholding tax. The curse of the withholding tax is that it allows the U.S. government to confiscate the wealth of its citizens systematically, effortlessly, painlessly, and benevolently. This latter point is especially insidious because interest-free loans to the government known as tax refunds are generally viewed as gifts from the government instead of the return of stolen property. Other forms of government tax masking include the Social Security and Medicare taxes taken out of paychecks, the employer portion of these taxes, unemployment taxes paid by employers, excise taxes on things like alcohol and gasoline, corporate taxes, and, of course, the estate tax, since you don’t pay it until after you’re dead.
Printer Friendly PDF Format Subscribe to FFF Email Update Subscribe to Freedom Daily DONATE TO FFF
Chances are you have used a GE appliance, turned on a GE light bulb, flown on a plane powered by a GE aircraft engine, seen a GE locomotive or wind turbine, taken out a loan from GE Capital (its lending division), or watched a program on NBC (partly owned by GE).
General Electric Company (GE) is a multinational conglomerate corporation with 287,000 employees. It is one of America’s oldest and largest companies. GE was one of the original twelve companies listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is consistently ranked near the top on the Forbes Global 2000 and Fortune 500 lists. GE is also one of the best-known global brands. The company has been ranked first in Fortune magazine’s “Global Most Admired Companies” and “America’s Most Admired Companies” lists.
But GE has a major public-relations problem. It has been widely reported, including in the New York Times, that GE earned $14.2 billion in worldwide profits last year, including $5.1 billion in the United States, and paid nothing in federal corporate income tax.
This has upset both conservatives and liberals.
Conservatives charge that the leadership of GE is in the pocket of the Democrat Party and stands to benefit from its green agenda. After all, is not GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt the head of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness? Although liberals many times deserve it, conservatives have a bad habit of blaming liberals for everything bad about government without checking the facts. For example: “As soon as Democrats took over Congress that’s exactly what they did: they criminalized incandescent light bulbs and made GE’s mercury-laden CFL bulbs the ‘Big Brother’ alternative.” But the legislation that criminalized incandescent bulbs is the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that was signed into law by a Republican president, passed with the votes of ninety-five Republicans in the House, and only opposed by seven Republicans in the Senate.
Liberals are predictably up in arms that GE is shirking its responsibilities and not paying its fair share of taxes. They complain that GE lobbies Congress for special tax treatment and moves its profits to offshore tax havens. But, of course, the same liberals that condemn GE for seeking corporate welfare are aghast that anyone would think of cutting federal funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives all of its yearly $430 million budget from the federal government.
Libertarians oppose the taxing of corporations for the same reason they oppose the taxing of individuals: taxation is theft. And even worse, as the nineteenth-century classical-liberal political philosopher Lysander Spooner it: “If the government can take a man’s money without his consent, there is no limit to the additional tyranny it may practise upon him; for, with his money, it can hire soldiers to stand over him, keep him in subjection, plunder him at discretion, and kill him if he resists.”
But aside from the onerous nature of taxes in general, there are other problems with the corporate income tax as well.
First, corporations are more properly tax collectors rather than tax payers. Taxes paid by corporations merely add to their cost of doing business. It is consumers and employees that ultimately pay corporate taxes as they are embedded in the prices paid for products and reduce wages paid. The corporate tax is just another of the government’s vehicles by which it masks Americans’ true tax burden.
The state masks taxation in many different ways. Other than businesses and self-employed individuals that submit quarterly income tax payments, few Americans pay taxes directly to the government thanks to the withholding tax. The curse of the withholding tax is that it allows the U.S. government to confiscate the wealth of its citizens systematically, effortlessly, painlessly, and benevolently. This latter point is especially insidious because interest-free loans to the government known as tax refunds are generally viewed as gifts from the government instead of the return of stolen property. Other forms of government tax masking include the Social Security and Medicare taxes taken out of paychecks, the employer portion of these taxes, unemployment taxes paid by employers, excise taxes on things like alcohol and gasoline, corporate taxes, and, of course, the estate tax, since you don’t pay it until after you’re dead.
Printer Friendly PDF Format Subscribe to FFF Email Update Subscribe to Freedom Daily DONATE TO FFF
Chances are you have used a GE appliance, turned on a GE light bulb, flown on a plane powered by a GE aircraft engine, seen a GE locomotive or wind turbine, taken out a loan from GE Capital (its lending division), or watched a program on NBC (partly owned by GE).
General Electric Company (GE) is a multinational conglomerate corporation with 287,000 employees. It is one of America’s oldest and largest companies. GE was one of the original twelve companies listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is consistently ranked near the top on the Forbes Global 2000 and Fortune 500 lists. GE is also one of the best-known global brands. The company has been ranked first in Fortune magazine’s “Global Most Admired Companies” and “America’s Most Admired Companies” lists.
But GE has a major public-relations problem. It has been widely reported, including in the New York Times, that GE earned $14.2 billion in worldwide profits last year, including $5.1 billion in the United States, and paid nothing in federal corporate income tax.
This has upset both conservatives and liberals.
Conservatives charge that the leadership of GE is in the pocket of the Democrat Party and stands to benefit from its green agenda. After all, is not GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt the head of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness? Although liberals many times deserve it, conservatives have a bad habit of blaming liberals for everything bad about government without checking the facts. For example: “As soon as Democrats took over Congress that’s exactly what they did: they criminalized incandescent light bulbs and made GE’s mercury-laden CFL bulbs the ‘Big Brother’ alternative.” But the legislation that criminalized incandescent bulbs is the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that was signed into law by a Republican president, passed with the votes of ninety-five Republicans in the House, and only opposed by seven Republicans in the Senate.
Liberals are predictably up in arms that GE is shirking its responsibilities and not paying its fair share of taxes. They complain that GE lobbies Congress for special tax treatment and moves its profits to offshore tax havens. But, of course, the same liberals that condemn GE for seeking corporate welfare are aghast that anyone would think of cutting federal funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives all of its yearly $430 million budget from the federal government.
Libertarians oppose the taxing of corporations for the same reason they oppose the taxing of individuals: taxation is theft. And even worse, as the nineteenth-century classical-liberal political philosopher Lysander Spooner it: “If the government can take a man’s money without his consent, there is no limit to the additional tyranny it may practise upon him; for, with his money, it can hire soldiers to stand over him, keep him in subjection, plunder him at discretion, and kill him if he resists.”
But aside from the onerous nature of taxes in general, there are other problems with the corporate income tax as well.
First, corporations are more properly tax collectors rather than tax payers. Taxes paid by corporations merely add to their cost of doing business. It is consumers and employees that ultimately pay corporate taxes as they are embedded in the prices paid for products and reduce wages paid. The corporate tax is just another of the government’s vehicles by which it masks Americans’ true tax burden.
The state masks taxation in many different ways. Other than businesses and self-employed individuals that submit quarterly income tax payments, few Americans pay taxes directly to the government thanks to the withholding tax. The curse of the withholding tax is that it allows the U.S. government to confiscate the wealth of its citizens systematically, effortlessly, painlessly, and benevolently. This latter point is especially insidious because interest-free loans to the government known as tax refunds are generally viewed as gifts from the government instead of the return of stolen property. Other forms of government tax masking include the Social Security and Medicare taxes taken out of paychecks, the employer portion of these taxes, unemployment taxes paid by employers, excise taxes on things like alcohol and gasoline, corporate taxes, and, of course, the estate tax, since you don’t pay it until after you’re dead.
Printer Friendly PDF Format Subscribe to FFF Email Update Subscribe to Freedom Daily DONATE TO FFF
Chances are you have used a GE appliance, turned on a GE light bulb, flown on a plane powered by a GE aircraft engine, seen a GE locomotive or wind turbine, taken out a loan from GE Capital (its lending division), or watched a program on NBC (partly owned by GE).
General Electric Company (GE) is a multinational conglomerate corporation with 287,000 employees. It is one of America’s oldest and largest companies. GE was one of the original twelve companies listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is consistently ranked near the top on the Forbes Global 2000 and Fortune 500 lists. GE is also one of the best-known global brands. The company has been ranked first in Fortune magazine’s “Global Most Admired Companies” and “America’s Most Admired Companies” lists.
But GE has a major public-relations problem. It has been widely reported, including in the New York Times, that GE earned $14.2 billion in worldwide profits last year, including $5.1 billion in the United States, and paid nothing in federal corporate income tax.
This has upset both conservatives and liberals.
Conservatives charge that the leadership of GE is in the pocket of the Democrat Party and stands to benefit from its green agenda. After all, is not GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt the head of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness? Although liberals many times deserve it, conservatives have a bad habit of blaming liberals for everything bad about government without checking the facts. For example: “As soon as Democrats took over Congress that’s exactly what they did: they criminalized incandescent light bulbs and made GE’s mercury-laden CFL bulbs the ‘Big Brother’ alternative.” But the legislation that criminalized incandescent bulbs is the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that was signed into law by a Republican president, passed with the votes of ninety-five Republicans in the House, and only opposed by seven Republicans in the Senate.
Liberals are predictably up in arms that GE is shirking its responsibilities and not paying its fair share of taxes. They complain that GE lobbies Congress for special tax treatment and moves its profits to offshore tax havens. But, of course, the same liberals that condemn GE for seeking corporate welfare are aghast that anyone would think of cutting federal funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives all of its yearly $430 million budget from the federal government.
Libertarians oppose the taxing of corporations for the same reason they oppose the taxing of individuals: taxation is theft. And even worse, as the nineteenth-century classical-liberal political philosopher Lysander Spooner it: “If the government can take a man’s money without his consent, there is no limit to the additional tyranny it may practise upon him; for, with his money, it can hire soldiers to stand over him, keep him in subjection, plunder him at discretion, and kill him if he resists.”
But aside from the onerous nature of taxes in general, there are other problems with the corporate income tax as well.
First, corporations are more properly tax collectors rather than tax payers. Taxes paid by corporations merely add to their cost of doing business. It is consumers and employees that ultimately pay corporate taxes as they are embedded in the prices paid for products and reduce wages paid. The corporate tax is just another of the government’s vehicles by which it masks Americans’ true tax burden.
The state masks taxation in many different ways. Other than businesses and self-employed individuals that submit quarterly income tax payments, few Americans pay taxes directly to the government thanks to the withholding tax. The curse of the withholding tax is that it allows the U.S. government to confiscate the wealth of its citizens systematically, effortlessly, painlessly, and benevolently. This latter point is especially insidious because interest-free loans to the government known as tax refunds are generally viewed as gifts from the government instead of the return of stolen property. Other forms of government tax masking include the Social Security and Medicare taxes taken out of paychecks, the employer portion of these taxes, unemployment taxes paid by employers, excise taxes on things like alcohol and gasoline, corporate taxes, and, of course, the estate tax, since you don’t pay it until after you’re dead.
Printer Friendly PDF Format Subscribe to FFF Email Update Subscribe to Freedom Daily DONATE TO FFF
Chances are you have used a GE appliance, turned on a GE light bulb, flown on a plane powered by a GE aircraft engine, seen a GE locomotive or wind turbine, taken out a loan from GE Capital (its lending division), or watched a program on NBC (partly owned by GE).
General Electric Company (GE) is a multinational conglomerate corporation with 287,000 employees. It is one of America’s oldest and largest companies. GE was one of the original twelve companies listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is consistently ranked near the top on the Forbes Global 2000 and Fortune 500 lists. GE is also one of the best-known global brands. The company has been ranked first in Fortune magazine’s “Global Most Admired Companies” and “America’s Most Admired Companies” lists.
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