Don’t you think Exxon should pay at least SOME taxes?

One of the caricatures made of us progressives is that WE have a caricature of the Vast, Evil Corporation. And it is easy to fall into thinking and talking that way, what with all the destructive ways that corporate behavior affects us all every day. But we have to remember corporations only do what they are supposed to do, what they’re required to do – make money for their shareholders. Until such century as we can amend the Constitution with a corporate bill of social responsibilities, the best we can do is regulate the hell out of them, and enforce those regulations.

Otherwise it’s only natural and to be expected that we’ll keep seeing our friendly corporations:

  • funding deceptive studies to avoid taxes and regulations;
  • funding politicians’ careers to avoid taxes and regulations;
  • employing armies of lobbyists to remind those politicians who’s in charge;
  • funding our favorite TV shows with their lying and manipulative ads;
  • happily paying relatively small fines for their misdeeds as a cost of doing business;
  • devoting teensy percentages of their budgets to feelgood causes to soften their images;
  • and working every loophole possible to minimize their tax liability.

Oh, did I mention yet that Exxon Mobil, which this year made $19 BILLION in profits (out of over a QUARTER-TRILLION revenue) paid NO taxes  to the United States government? While you paid… how much?

Although Exxon paid $15 billion to foreign governments, they managed the feat of contributing nothing to their own country, through the ingenious use of various loopholes, particularly the  twenty wholly-owned subsidiaries in Bermuda, the Bahamas and Cayman Islands that legally shelter their cash flow.

President Obama (who is neither at the top nor the bottom of the list of politicians I trust right now) is reportedly trying to close many of these loopholes, but could use our encouragement as he negotiates an ocean of silver-tongued lobbyists.

Right now I’m more concerned about our own Bleeding State of California, which is the only oil-producing state in the nation that lacks an oil-extraction fee to help with its education and infrastructure needs.

So I propose not sending anyone to Sacramento this year who won’t commit to supporting AB 656. Candidates for assembly & senate who will support this vital bill include (and I will update) :

Gubernatorial candidates who would sign AB 656 are limited to Jerry Brown, and the Green candidate Laura Wells.  Let’s do this thing in November, and bring our state back to fiscal health by making the oil companies pay their fair share!  And if you want to argue that this will cost us at the pump, I’ll argue with you, but short answer it won’t.

UPDATE:  Exxon is disputing the Forbes and Mother Jones articles I linked to, claiming that they will eventually end up owing some Federal taxes for 2009, but they refuse to say how much.   And this claim is contradicted by the following “10K report” they released to their shareholders which those  stories were based on.  Can you say “obfuscation?”

We do know that they:

  • Limit their US tax liability “with the help of 20 wholly-owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi;”
  • Bragged to their shareholders of no US tax liability until this story hit the press and caused an uproar, and still refuse to answer in any detail;
  • Stand in sharp contrast to other Fortune 100 companies, such as Walmart, the only company bigger than them, who actually made less profits last year, but paid 5.9 billion in income taxes to Uncle Sam;
  • Paid out plenty in taxes to other foreign governments – 15$ billion globally.

Until Exxon is more forthcoming, this story stands.

About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist/composer in Orange County, and official political troubadour of Anaheim and most other OC towns. Regularly makes solo performances, sometimes with his savage-jazz band The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.