Bush says no to tax on big oil companies

[kurth]

April 28, 2006, 11:08AM
Bush says no to tax on big oil companies
By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- President Bush today rejected calls in Congress for a tax on oil company profits, saying the industry should reinvest its recent windfalls in finding and producing more energy.

"The temptation in Washington is to tax everything,'' Bush said in an exchange with reporterse in the White House Rose Garden. Rather than for the government to reap the benefit from oil company profits driven by the recent surge in global oil prices, he said, "The answer is for there to be strong re-investment.''

"These oil prices are a wakeup call,'' Bush said. ``We're dependent on oil. We need to get off oil.''

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3827094.html

[Missy M]

1. There he goes again with the 're-investment' for the oil....

companies. Why aren't they doing it? I thought that is what the tax cuts were for. The monkey telling us we are dependent on oil, I guess he just found out recently. Again, why weren't the oil companies reinvesting years ago?

[NewJeffCT]

2. How do you tax excess profits?

First, I want to say that I think there should be some sort of excess profits tax...

But, how do you do it?

ExxonMobil made $36 billion last year. However, their revenues were around $360 billion in total, meaning their net was about 10 cents on the dollar

By contrast, Pfizer made a "mere" $8.1 billion last year, on revenues of "only" $51 billion. However, they made over 15 cents on the dollar, a much higher rate of profit than ExxonMobil.

On the other side, Wal-Mart had $312 billion in revenues, but their profits were a fraction of ExxonMobil's at $11.2 billion. Their profit was 3.6 cents on the dollar.

Do you tax anybody over a certain dollar amount of profit? Do you tax them over a certain revenue threshold & profit rate? Do you then worry about big corps playing more accounting tricks to avoid paying the excess tax?

[lostinacause]

5. You don't. Taxing people is a better way to do taxation. The money from

the high profits has to go somewhere using a graduated tax is the most effective mechanism for getting money from highly profitable companies.

[lostinacause]

6. I should add that part of the reason why the percent profits are

higher for Pfizer and ExxonMobil is that they both have large investments that to not show up as costs in accounting. Wal-Mart puts products through so fast that there level of investment required is relatively low. Keep in mind that gas prices are high so ExxonMobil will have profits due to price being higher then expected. If demand had been lower their profits would have also been lower.

[SoCalDem]

3. Big oil paid him a visit, and he did like he always does

He did what is "good for oil companies"....and will no doubt remind us that since "most of us" are stockholders these days, it's good for us too:eyes:

Of course what we all know is that our "shares" are probably as a miniscule part of a 401-k investment, so we won't be seeing huge dividend checks anytime soon ..

[Virginia Dare]

4. He'll be in the mid-20's by next week, that's my prediction...n/t

[unhappycamper]

7. Exxon is going to re-invest $6,000,000,000 a quarter on a

stick buy back plan. Does that count? :sarcasm:

[DELUSIONAL]

8. And the oil companies will engage in R&D and reinvestment

out of the goodness of their hearts?

Since the corporations don't have hearts -- and run by humans without empathy and compassion -- what do you want to bet that the corporations are going to take the money, as much money as they can grab and run. Hell they have a cash cow -- they can pay themselves whatever.

I won't be holding my breath, waiting for the oil companies to reinvest in alternative energy or anything at all that will benefit future generations. Modern American Corporations seem to be about the here and now -- the bottom line.

[dogday]

9. But until we can get off oil

you will be paying out the ass for it... :mad::evilfrown: :wtf: :wtf: :hurts: