Now I know why Obama chose Immelt

[ugonow]

For his creative accounting-------"2009: General Electric Earned A $1.1 Billion Tax CREDIT Despite $10.3 BILLION In Pre-Tax Income. According to Forbes: "As you work on your taxes this month, here's something to raise your hackles: Some of the world's biggest, most profitable corporations enjoy a far lower tax rate than you do--that is, if they pay taxes at all. The most egregious example is General Electric. Last year the conglomerate generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion. Avoiding taxes is nothing new for General Electric. In 2008 its effective tax rate was 5.3%; in 2007 it was 15%. The marginal U.S. corporate rate is 35%." [Forbes, 4/1/10; emphasis added]"

[fairlycrazy23]

Get rid of federal income tax and this problem is gone. This would help small business more than large corporations, it is the large corporations that can get more creative to avoid tax liability. Companies would no longer shift there profits to other low tax havens, the US would be the tax haven.

You could start to try and target all these loops holes, but this would have futile as each year different loop holes and strategies would arise, or companies raise prices or would completely relocate off shore. Just remove the entire mechanize that allows this practice.

[traelin0]

We need a flat tax, period. No VAT, no federal sales tax, but a flat tax. The East attracts businesses not just because of the labor rates, but also because of a friendly tax code.

[fairlycrazy23]

I don't like a flat tax because it taxes production, I prefer to tax consumption, whether we consume domestic made or foreign made it would be taxed the same by a federal sales tax, this would immediately give an advantage to domestic products over foreign.

[Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ]

Most companies like GE who have big lending businesses, took major losses on write downs. This is nothing outrageous.
Anyone who has money in the market is still taking unused tax loss credits suffered in the equities market meltdown.
I still have 1000s in carry forward losses that I harvested in 2008.

[ugonow]

Federal sales tax is no good because tax avoidence would mean buying only what was a necessity and that would be an economy killer.Can you imagine consumers sticker shock when state and local governments continue to hike their sales taxes on top of the feds?

[fairlycrazy23]

Jan 26, 2011 17:32:24 GMT -5 ugonow said:

Federal sales tax is no good because tax avoidence would mean buying only what was a necessity and that would be an economy killer.Can you imagine consumers sticker shock when state and local governments continue to hike their sales taxes on top of the feds?

People are not going to buy only what is necessary, they don't now. Domestic products are priced with federal taxes included in them, those taxes would be gone, so the price of products could go down.
People would be able to get a prebate of the taxes paid on the necessities and they would get no federal taxes taken from there pay check. If people want to avoid taxes by only buying the necessities then more power to them, that would be there simple easy choice.

[rockon]

I couldn't figure out why so many on both sides were pleased with Obama's choice of Immelt to head his economic advisory commission. He is the one most likely to benefit form many of Obama's policies. It seems like a Chicago style appointment to me not to mention a huge conflict of interest. This is no different then the Cheney/Haliburton connection. While GE has already benefited greatly from Obama's policies it is hard to look at Immelt's record as successful. Of course at one point he was asking Jennifer Granholm to sit on this commission and she was in charge of the economy in Michigan if that tells you anything.