Just a Gentle Reminder: For Every Gallon of Gasoline, 50 Cents in Taxes; XOM Earns 2 Cents Per Gallon

Link here.

I knew it was lopsided, but I did not know it was this bad.

I continue to recommend Carpe Diem as perhaps the best other blog on the internet.

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Flashback

March 28, 2011: After posting the comment about GE not paying taxes this year (as reported by CNBC), someone wrote me saying that XOM had not paid US federal taxes in years. Of course, that was incorrect, and was discussed in the comment section below.  Interestingly enough, CNBC touched on this subject again today, and put up two slides. The first slide listed four Forturne 500 companies that paid less than the statutory corporate tax rate (35%). That slide did not include any oil companies. The second slide had three companies, and the top two were XOM and COP. XOM had an effective 42% US federal tax rate for 2010, and COP had an effective 41% US federal tax rate for 2010, double the average tax rate paid by Fortune 500 companies. The average effective tax rate paid by Fortune 500 companies is 20%.

Here are the notes from the comment section regarding XOM taxes:

That would not surprise me, except that the statement that XOM has not paid federal income tax in years is not accurate.

MotherJones.com confirms that XOM did pay federal taxes in 2009. MotherJones' assertion that XOM did not federal income tax was picked up by many; MotherJones ended up retracting that.

From SeekingAlpha.com:

"Exxon's tax payment in 2007 of $30 billion (that's $30,000,000,000) is a record, exceeding the $28 billion it paid last year. $5 billion of that was US Federal income tax.

By the way, Exxon pays taxes at a rate of 41% on its taxable income." -- Seeking Alpha.com

So that takes care of 2009, 2007, and 2006.

But here's the best source (http://www.stock-analysis-on.net/NYSE/Company/Exxon-Mobil-Corp/Analysis/Income-Taxes):

XOM paid the following taxes below:

US Federal income tax (numbers rounded):

2010: $1.2 billion
2009: ($0.84 billion)
2008: $3 billion
2007: $4.7 billion
2006: $2.9 billion

Total taxes paid by XOM (again, remember, GE paid no taxes in 2010):

2010: $21 billion
2009: $15 billion
2008: $27 billion
2007: $30 billion
2006: $28 billion

In the big scheme of things, XOM's US earnings are small compared to its worldwide activities.

From yet another source:

In 2010, Exxon's total taxes and duties to the U.S. government topped $9.8 billion, making the company one of the largest taxpayers in America, he writes. In the past 5 years, Exxon has paid nearly $59 billion in U.S. taxes.

"Critics often try to ignore these facts by saying the oil and gas industry receives 'subsidies'," Cohen writes. "But what they really mean is that they want to increase our taxes by taking away long-standing deductions for our industry while leaving these same deductions in place for other sectors of the economy."

From yet another source, Carpe Diem.

Also, from same link, speaking of windfall profits tax:

The 6.1% average profit margin for Exxon's industry "Major Integrated Oil and Gas" ranks #112 among all industries for the most recent quarter (data here), so if Obama wants to target "excessive" corporate profits, there are many other industries much more profitable than the oil and gas industry.  For example, the surge in commodity prices has resulted in "windfall profit" margins of 31% for the silver industry, 23% for the copper industry and 19.8% for the gold industry.  Internet providers are capturing 23% in profit margins, cigarette companies more than 21% and periodical publishers are earning a whopping 51.6% profit margin, so perhaps those would be ripe targets for Obama's new lust to confiscate "windfall profits."