Be sure to pay your taxes.

[MikeA]

These guys are depending on YOU.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Tax/ge-exxon-paid-us-income-taxes-09/story?id=10300167

[TimM]

And so are these guys.....

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704462704575590642149103202.html

An excerpt....
__________
Now it turns out, according to documents filed with federal regulators, the revamping left the car maker with another boost as it prepares to return to the stock market. It won't have to pay $45.4 billion in taxes on future profits.

____________

A $45 billion gift from you and me to "Government Motors".

[MikeA]

It's things like this that make me see red when someone tells me I need to pay more taxes for the services I use.

[bd]

Tim, if GM doesn't have the tax liability on its balance sheet, and that increases GM's share price for the sale of government-owned GM stock back to the public (remember the recent IPO), then it's a wash.

If we collected the $45B from GM in taxes, but that made its stock worth much less, then the government takes a loss from the sale of the GM stock instead of coming out ahead.  

You can't automatically hate anything associated with GM because it is vaguely connected to Obama's name - the country is better off all around at this point if GM does well and the gov't sells off what stock it still has at the highest price possible.

And Mike, maybe Exxon should pay more for the services you use instead?  I'll drink to that.  

bd

[jarrod white]

here we go, now that I have my popcorn and water, let the arguments begin 
FWIW, I really enjoy paying taxes and hope that they increase my portion soon because I managed to scrape by this year only paying a small fortune and that just is not right  I'm drinking to that

[TimM]

You've got to be kidding Brian - you really think this is "remotely" related to Obama? Really?  His fingerprints are all over it. It's a give away to his buddies in the UAW. Plain and simple. Just as it would be wrong for me disagree with everything based strictly on it's source (a fallacious assumption on your part) it would be equally wrong for you to support everything that is "remotely" related to Obama. 

One glaring issue with your analysis Brian is that almost immediately after the IPO the feds said they're suspending sale of the GM stock held by the feds. Why? Well of course so the UAW can sell theirs at a higher price now. Watch...the UAW will make a pile of $ on our backs and then once they're done the share price will drop and then the feds will say "oh well we don't want to sell at this lower price" thereby having lined their buddies pockets while leaving us on the hook for the balance and maintaining control of this business.

I completely disagree with the policy of using  public monies  to prop up a failing business model as was done here. It's a fallacy to assume that if Obama hadn't stepped in, taken control of the business and then given majority share to his supporters in the UAW that it would have been completely devastating to the economy. Yes, it would have been economically painful but other private interests would have stepped in to buy up the pieces from which to build new, stronger, potentially more viable businesses and not put the US taxpayer on the hook for the benefit of Obamas' buddies in the UAW...and it's not like this option has been painless or without issue.

I have done a lot of work with GM and all the other automotive OEMs' for a long time and I KNOW from first hand experience that the GM model sucked. It needed to fail. It's called the process of natural selection or maybe evolution if you prefer. Propping up a failed business model doesn't help us in the long run.  It just siphons off more money from the taxpayer for the benefit of a more or less captive voting block to which Obama was and is beholden.

How is it bad for some companies to pay little or no tax and good when others don't bear the same burden? Oh and btw GE (one of my former employers btw) is a big Obama supporter. So they can be painted with the same brush. Private enterprises  should all bear a comparable burden. Picking and choosing which businesses succeed based on how much they contribute to a political party or politicians campaign is not an appropriate use of my tax dollars.

Le fin.  I'm done on this one.

[bd]

I'm not sure, but I don't think the gov't ever intended to sell all the GM stock at once.  It would be dumb of them to do so, if the goal is to get as much money back for the taxpayers as possible.  There's a difference between a phased sell-off of the stock and the government "suspending" sale of the fed-owned stock.

Apparently you're privy to information that I don't have about how much stock the UAW has, how much they bought it for, and how much they're selling now.

Of course, I don't have the crystal ball that lets you "know" the GM stock is going to go down in the future and cause all the things you predict.  To the contrary, I think the gov't is hoping the rest of the stock will go up, to allow the remainder of the stock to be sold at a break-even price or even a profit, instead of a loss.

As far as all this being a "giveaway" to the UAW, I'm sure the UAW would laugh its butt off to hear that.  The GM reorganization was a big kick in the teeth to UAW's pensions.  This hasn't been a picnic for the UAW in the least.

As far as letting GM fail goes, we've got a massive number of suppliers and vendors out there to GM who are still in business because thinking like yours was rejected.  The armchair bloggers don't like it, but the people who actually know about economics[/i] are pretty much unanimous in agreing that the country has been better off as a result.

bd