How much do oil companies really pay in taxes? - The Washington Pos

Exxon-Mobil paid $0 in federal taxes in 2009.  That's a hell of a lot less than I paid! And they also received federal tax credits of $136 Million.  Plus, the tax incentives that most of the oil companies get typically covers their cost to drill for the oil, AND they claim that they can't survive without those breaks. Bull-shit!

How come the price of gas is steadily going up since they get all of those breaks and further, oil production has increased since last year.  What happened to all the oil that was produced with the increase in production?  You would think that gas prices would be going DOWN, right?  When the US gives oil companies permits to drill for oil off the coast of VA, in Alaska, or like last year when BP's oil well in the Gulf of Mexico blew up and caused environmental disaster in that area that will last for years, what happens to all of that oil that they produce?

The oil companies DO NOT give the US consumers a discount on the oil it produces domestically.  Instead the oil companies SELL their crude oil produced, at great environmental risk to the US, on the world crude market to the highest bidder!  They don't sell that domestically produced oil to the US at a discount; the US has to pay the much higher world crude market price that is set mainly by the demand of so-called emerging economies such as China, India, etc.  The net result is that even though the US takes great environmental risk by allowing the companies to drill in its back yard, the oil companies keep the crude oil and sells it to the world at the highest price it can get.   That is what is driving up the price of gas!  GREED/BLOOD-SUCKING CAPITALISM!

And yet the Cons are screaming DRILL,BABY DRILL as a means of allegedly reducing the price of oil,  when they ought to be passing laws that REQUIRE the oil companies to meet the domestic needs for oil first before they sell it on the world market.  And better yet, the US has had the technology to produce efficient, non-gas vehicles for over 30 years! But, those vehicles will not see the light of day because, again, the greedy oil companies are padding the back pockets of the politicians to keep those vehicles off the market.

I gues you have figured out by now how I feel about tax breaks for big oil.

Kwasi

Click here: How much do oil companies really pay in taxes? - The Washington Post