quote:Originally posted by Chuck:
Jrlz: if I may use your quote. Please don't use Big Oil as your example because they are the industry (along with Finance/Banking/Investment) that need the most adjustment. Can you in any way justify the "Oil Depletion Allowance" given to Big Oil permitting them to essentially "depreciate" the Oil they're taking from the ground andselling to us? They're billions of dollars of profits IN A FISCAL QTR is terrible. Is oil costly to produce, sure but those costs are passed on to consumers. I was saying to tax their revenue so that when their rev decreases so do the taxes they owe but when they are selling more and more oil products they pay higher and higher taxes. But to allow deductions for sold inventory, its not right - an MFP dealer can't offset his SOLD inventory against his PROFITS can he?quote:If we increase taxes on say "big oil", a popular target of the left. What is big oil going to do? They will pass that increase on to the wholesalers. The wholesalers will pass that cost onto the retailers. The retailers will pass that cost onto the consumer. This will result in gas, heating oil, anything delivered viz a truck costing more. This results in taking more money from the consumer. This hurts the middle class and the poor more than it will hurt the wealthy. There are a lot of struggling middle class and poor familes. Increasing thier fuel costs, fuel costs and the cost of all sorts of other items will hurt them
By tax cheats I was referring to those who manipulate their cash flows and revenues to avoid taxes, e.g. Apple's Irish revenues and profits.
The "Fair Tax" Art mentioned has some merit but more as a Value Added Tax (a la Europe) than as a Nat'l Sales Tax but proponents of the "Fair Tax/Nat'l Sales Tax" concede that we'd need a rate of 30-35% unless there are rebates to lower income families.
I can justify the oil depletion allowance. It is a form of depreciation built into the tax code. Also, billions in profits in a fiscal quarter is great, not terrible. Why is profit bad? Profit helps companies to grow, create more jobs, buy more equipment again creating more jobs, and pay dividends to share holders. An MFP dealer can use depreciation on their inventory. In addition at this time of year many companies will use the depreciation allowance to justify end of year purchases, hopefully giving the economy a boost. I wonder why the democrats did not change the tax code regarding the oil industry when they had control of congress and the whitehouse for the first two years of the Obama administration. They obviously want a target to beat up and create class warfare with rather than fixing what they say is a problem. How much tax revenue does the government make from the various taxes on oil? My guess is that it is also in the billions, may even be more than the oil companies make. Why is that not terrible? The government who had no hand in extracting and refining is profiting greatly, but that is ok?