Exxon reported profits of $45 billion dollars for 2008. Most of that was in the first three quarters of 2008.
They paid $36 billion in taxes in 2008, making their tax rate almost 50%.
But the government wasn’t done there.
They also paid $34 billion in sales taxes (which really is coming out of their pocket since without it they could have sold their products for $34 billion more and hit the same price resistance).
AND they paid $45 billion in other taxes (property, capital gain on assets sold, so forth).
Total tax contributions for Exxon for 2008… $116.2 billion, or just about 3 times their earnings.
Yet… I’m sure some liberal (socialist) somewhere is going to bitch that they “made all that money” last year.
Put another way…. of a total of $126 billion in possible investment.
Exxon gets $10 billion or so to divide among dividends and investment in future wealth creators.
The government gets $116 billion to divide among the politically favored and to inefficiently spend on politically driven “investments”.
But apparently that $10 billion still pisses off the socialists. I’m sure they will act to get that too.