Goldman Sachs Makes Profit and Pays Little Taxes

  They got $10 billion and debt guarantees from the U.S. government in October because they are supposed to be strapped for operating cost, yet they had an $2.3 billion profit for the year after paying $10.9 billion in employee compensation and benefits ( read: Bonus ). On top of that, the company only has a tax liability of $14 million for the year after having had a $6 billion tax liability the year before. Those are word-wide numbers.   What is wrong with this picture?

  Bloomberg

The company’s effective income tax rate dropped to 1 percent from 34.1 percent, New York-based Goldman Sachs said today in a statement.

  So just how was their tax rate lowered. Can you say offshore?

         Goldman Sachs, which today reported its first quarterly loss since going public in 1999, lowered its rate with more tax credits as a percentage of earnings and because of “changes in geographic earnings mix,” the company said.

The rate decline looks “a little extreme,” said Robert Willens, president and chief executive officer of tax and accounting advisory firm Robert Willens LLC.

“I was definitely taken aback,” Willens said. “Clearly they have taken steps to ensure that a lot of their income is earned in lower-tax jurisdictions.”

U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat who serves on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said steps by Goldman Sachs and other banks shifting income to countries with lower taxes is cause for concern.

“This problem is larger than Goldman Sachs,” Doggett said. “With the right hand out begging for bailout money, the left is hiding it offshore.”

   This is what happens when there is no oversight from our government officials. I'll bet that the Republicans, and some Democrats, are making a fistful in kick-backs for passing this kind of shit ( bailout ).

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