Last year, the Big Five oil companies – Exxon Mobil, BP, Conoco Phillips, Shell, and Chevron – made $119 billion in profits. Yet, they will receive $40 billion in tax breaks and subsidies over the next decade. The biggest three publicly owned U.S. oil companies—ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips—also paid relatively low federal effective tax rates in 2011. Reuters reported that their tax payments were “a far cry from the 35 percent top corporate tax rate.” It estimated that ExxonMobil’s effective federal tax rate in 2011 was 13 percent, Chevron’s was 19 percent, and ConocoPhillips’s was 18 percent. The oil and gas industry gave more than $70 million in federal campaign contributions during the 2012 cycle, with a whopping 90 percent going to Republican candidates. The big five oil companies spent nearly $50 million on lobbying Congress in 2012, or more than one-third of the entire oil and gas industry’s expenditures. Congress is bought and paid for.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 06:42:07 +0000
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