And because of losses in the US, they paid no taxes for 2009.

"GE had plenty of earnings last year — just not in the United States. For tax purposes, the company’s U.S. operations lost 8 million, while its international businesses netted a .8 billion profit.

That left GE (GE, Fortune 500) with no U.S. profit left for Uncle Sam to tax. Corporations typically face a 35% federal income tax on their earnings. Thanks to its deductions and adjustments, GE reported an actual U.S. federal income tax rate of negative 10.5%. It got to add a "tax benefit" of .1 billion back into its reported earnings."

http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/16/news/companies/ge_7000_tax_returns/index.htm?cnn=yes&hpt=T2

Regarding the GE Bailout: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/28/AR2009062802955.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009062803183

The Obama campaign is using Wall Street’s woes as a new rationale for its massive tax increases and protectionism. The last president to take that approach helped cause the Great Depression. …that kind of reaction by Obama to troubles in the financial sector is reminiscent of President Herbert Hoover’s handling of the Great Depression. Hoover more than doubled the top marginal income tax rate and signed into law the Smoot-Hawley act, raising tariffs to record levels the summer after the 1929 stock market crash. Sen. Obama promises, according to his economic advisers, that "The top two income-tax brackets would return to their 1990s levels of 36% and 39.6% (including the exemption and deduction phase-outs)." That is, he’ll hike taxes during a weak economy. As for the North American Free Trade Agreement, before sewing up the Democratic nomination, Obama’s campaign expressed "serious concerns about the effect that the agreement would have on the American auto, beef, and rice industries, as well as the lack of labor and environmental protections in the agreement. …Massive new taxes and the abandonment of global economic freedom sold as "patriotism" is not only an outrage; it’s a huge danger to an economy that has enough troubles already.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=306630223671321 (Investors Business Dsily)

The U.S. Senate recently released its long-awaited proposal for a government-run hostile takeover of the entire U.S. health care system. Predictably, it includes a barrage of higher taxes to pay for the bill’s immense price tag. [...]

All these increases, combined with state and local income taxes, would raise the average top marginal rate in the U.S. to over 52 percent. This would be higher than traditionally high-tax countries such as Italy, Spain, and even France. [...]

Below is a list of the tax increases Congress and the Administration have proposed to finance health care reform. This list includes taxes in the bill passed by the House of Representatives, the bill the Senate is currently debating, and other taxes mentioned as a possible way to pay for health care reform.

•An income surtax on taxpayers earning more than 0,000 a year,[1]
•An excise tax on high-cost “Cadillac” health insurance plans that cost more than ,500 a year for individuals or ,000 for families,[2]
•An excise tax on medical devices such as wheelchairs, breast pumps, and syringes used by diabetics for insulin injections,[3]
•A cap on the exclusion of employer-provided health insurance without offsetting tax cuts,[4]
•A limit on itemized deductions for taxpayers with a top income tax rate greater than 28 percent,[5]
•A windfall profits tax on health insurance companies,[6]
•A value-added tax, which would tax the value added to a product at each stage of production,[7]
•An increase in the Medicare portion of the payroll tax to 3.4 percent for incomes great than 0,000 a year (0,000 for married filers),[8]
•An excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages including non-diet soda and sports drinks,[9]
•Higher taxes on alcoholic beverages including beer, wine, and spirits,[10]
•A tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage of up to 2.5 percent of their adjusted gross income,[11]
•A limit on contributions to health savings accounts,[12]
•An 8 percent tax on all wages paid by employers that do not provide their employees health insurance that satisfies the requirements defined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services,[13]
•A limit on contributions to flexible spending arrangements,[14]
•Elimination of the deduction for expenses associated with Medicare Part D subsidies,[15]
•An increase in taxes on international businesses,[16]
•Elimination of the tax credits paper companies take for biofuels they create in their production process–the so-called “Black Liquor credit,”[17]
•Fees on insured and self-insured health plans,[18]
•A limit or repeal of the itemized deduction for medical expenses,[19]
•A limit on the Qualified Medical Expense definition,[20]
•An increase in the payroll taxes on students,[21]
•An extension of the Medicare payroll tax to all state and local government employees,[22]
•An increase in taxes on hospitals,[23]
•An increase in the estate tax,[24]
•Increased efforts to close the mythical “tax gap,”[25]
•A 5 percent tax on cosmetic surgery and similar procedures such as Botox treatments, tummy tucks, and face lifts,[26]
•A tax on drug companies,[27]
•An increase in the corporate tax on providers of health insurance,[28] and
•A 0,000 deduction limitation for the compensation paid by health insurance companies to their officers, employees, and directors.[29]

The top 35% marginal income tax rate rises to 39.6%; adding the state income tax, the Medicare tax, the effect of the deduction phase-out and Mr. Obama’s new Social Security tax (of up to 12.4%) increases the total combined marginal tax rate on additional labor earnings (or small business income) from 44.6% to a whopping 62.8%. People respond to what they get to keep after tax, which the Obama plan reduces from 55.4 cents on the dollar to 37.2 cents — a reduction of one-third in the after-tax wage!
Mr. Obama has also opposed other important free-trade agreements, including those with Colombia, South Korea and Central America. He has spoken eloquently about America’s responsibility to help alleviate global poverty — even to the point of saying it would help defeat terrorism — but he has yet to endorse, let alone forcefully advocate, the single most potent policy for doing so: a successful completion of the Doha round of global trade liberalization.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121728762442091427.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Isn’t this the biggest rip you’ve seen??

Got this in the company mail today:

Dear Valued Employee:

As you know, President Obama has asked Congress to pass the beginning of his health insurance plan for all Americans. The starting plan will cost some billion a year, of which the President has proposed billion in higher taxes for firms doing business overseas, which is half our company’s business. He asked Congress to find the rest of the money.

Congress has said the other billion a year will come from disallowing corporate tax deductions for employee health insurance, as well as raising the general corporate income tax rate to 35%.

The company will absorb the higher taxes on our foreign operations and the tax increase to 35% even though we expect this to eliminate our currently low net income.

Our corporation pays approximately ,000 per year per single employee and ,000 per year per employee family for the health insurance coverage you presently have.

This means that Congress has decided to raise our taxes by 00 per employee with single coverage and 50 per employee with family coverage.

As you know, our company’s sales have recently fallen by more than at any previous time in our company’s history. Our company is paying no dividends to the owners and may soon be in danger of not earning the interest cost of our debts.

Accordingly, we must pass onto our employees the entire added tax that Congress will impose on your health insurance plan. It is either this, go out of business, or move operations and most jobs overseas.

Effective the first of next month, all US employees electing single coverage health insurance will have their monthly contribution increased by 175 dollars and those electing family coverage will contribute an added 262.50. For hourly employees paid every two weeks, this is .75 and 1.15 respectively.

Thank you for your continued efforts to make the company profitable,

Human Resources Department

Beacuse these two things ARE NOT the same.

The top 10 percent of income earners in this country pay 71 percent of federal income taxes, though they earn just 39 percent of the nation’s pretax income.

Thirty years of Republican tax policy have now completely eliminated federal income taxes on the poor and lower middle-income Americans, and almost eliminated them on middle America.

The latest data from the Congressional Budget Office and the Internal Revenue Service show that the lowest 40 percent of income earners as a group actually receive net payments from the federal income tax system. (They get 3.8 percent of total federal income tax revenues instead of paying any income taxes.) The middle 20 percent of income earners pay 4.4 percent of federal income taxes. Thus the bottom 60 percent of income earners together, on net, pay less than 1 percent of all federal income taxes.

Obama would end the Bush tax cuts and allow the top two tax rates to return to 36 and 39.6 percent. He also would allow personal exemptions and deductions to be phased out for those with income over 0,000. He would end the Social Security payroll tax cap for those over 0,000 in earnings. (The cap is currently set at 2,000.) These individuals will then face a tax rate of 15.65 percent from payroll taxes and the top income tax rate of 39.6 percent for a combined top rate of over 56 percent on each additional dollar earned.
And this doesn’t include state and local taxes!

What Obama is calling tax cuts for the middle class is really a slew of refundable federal income tax credits that would primarily go to those who are paying little or no federal income taxes now. Such credits would primarily not reduce tax liability, but instead be checks from the federal government for child care, education, housing, retirement, health care, even outright giveaways. These are not tax cuts. They are new federal spending programs hidden in the tax code. Who is going to pay for it? The Rich??

Not likely! At a 56% tax rate, I’m moving my money offshore!

Many individuals will attempt to transfer their compensation from wages to capital gains, since capital gains would only be taxed at 25 percent, or less than half of the top rate on wages. This would put a great deal of pressure on a company to do anything it could to make its stock quickly increase in value. Other individuals would try to incorporate so they could pay business taxes instead of having to pay taxes on their wages. Again, these resources would be diverted away from more productive uses and slow the economy.

High tax rates also encourage capital and income flight to lower-taxed areas. There is ample evidence in the United States of individuals and businesses moving to states such as Florida or Delaware to take advantage of their tax-friendly laws. A higher federal tax rate would encourage individuals to move assets abroad to take advantage of lower tax rates in countries such as Canada, France, and Great Britain.

I’ve read Obama’s tax plan on his site. There are NO TAX CUTS!! NO TAX RATES ARE LOWERED!! These are TAX CREDITS that someone has to pay for. We Conservatives call this "redistribution of wealth."