FHFA Sues 17 firms (banks) to recover losses to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY
NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release Contact: Corinne Russell (202) 414-6921
September 2, 2011 Stefanie Johnson (202) 414-6376

FHFA Sues 17 Firms to Recover Losses to
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Washington, DC -- The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), as conservator for Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises), today filed lawsuits against 17 financial institutions,
certain of their officers and various unaffiliated lead underwriters.  The suits allege violations of
federal securities laws and common law in the sale of residential private-label mortgage-backed
securities (PLS) to the Enterprises.
Complaints have been filed against the following lead defendants, in alphabetical order:
1. Ally Financial Inc. f/k/a GMAC, LLC
2. Bank of America Corporation
3. Barclays Bank PLC
4. Citigroup, Inc.
5. Countrywide Financial Corporation
6. Credit Suisse Holdings (USA), Inc.
7. Deutsche Bank AG
8. First Horizon National Corporation
9. General Electric Company
10. Goldman Sachs & Co.
11. HSBC North America Holdings, Inc.
12. JPMorgan Chase & Co.
13. Merrill Lynch & Co. / First Franklin Financial Corp.
14. Morgan Stanley
15. Nomura Holding America Inc.
16. The Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC
17. Société Générale

These complaints were filed in federal or state court in New York or the federal court in
Connecticut.  The complaints seek damages and civil penalties under the Securities Act of 1933,
similar in content to the complaint FHFA filed against UBS Americas, Inc. on July 27, 2011.  In
addition, each complaint seeks compensatory damages for negligent misrepresentation.
Certain complaints also allege state securities law violations or common law fraud.



As conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, FHFA is charged with preserving and
conserving these companies’ assets and does so on behalf of taxpayers. The complaints filed
today reflect FHFA’s conclusion that some portion of the losses that Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac incurred on private-label mortgage-backed securities (PLS) are attributable to
misrepresentations and other improper actions by the firms and individuals named in these
filings. Based on our review, FHFA alleges that the loans had different and more risky
characteristics than the descriptions contained in the marketing and sales materials provided to
the Enterprises for those securities.

FHFA filed the complaints under the broad authority granted to it by the Housing and
Economic Recovery Act of 2008.  The U.S. legal system provides for addressing such alleged
misrepresentations through the nation’s securities laws and traditional common law.  FHFA is
following those legal remedies in filing these complaints and seeks to recover on losses to the
Enterprises that are the legal responsibilities of others.

Discussions regarding these matters have taken place with several of the firms receiving
complaints and, where constructive, they will continue.

Link to FHFA filings in PLS cases
###
The Federal Housing Finance Agency regulates Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks.
These government-sponsored enterprises provide more than $5.7 trillion in funding for the U.S. mortgage markets and financial institutions.

Reminder where Obama's money came from, folks on this day of infamy

These are where Obama's top contributors in 2008 "worked":

University of California $1,591,395
Goldman Sachs $994,795
Harvard University $854,747
Microsoft Corp $833,617
Google Inc $803,436
Citigroup Inc $701,290
JPMorgan Chase & Co $695,132
Time Warner $590,084
Sidley Austin LLP $588,598
Stanford University $586,557
National Amusements Inc $551,683
UBS AG $543,219
Wilmerhale Llp $542,618
Skadden, Arps et al $530,839
IBM Corp $528,822
Columbia University $528,302
Morgan Stanley $514,881
General Electric $499,130
US Government $494,820
Latham & Watkins $493,835

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/hedge-fund-cantor-and-ron-paul-should-not-both-be-republicans-2011-7#ixzz1TtYZu7el

Corporate Tax Holiday in Debt Ceiling Deal: Where's the Uproar?

Taibblog

by: Matt Taibbi ROLLING STONE

TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images

Have been meaning to write about this, but I’m increasingly amazed at the overall lack of an uproar about the possibility of the government approvinganother corporate tax repatriation holiday.

I’ve been in and out of DC a few times in recent weeks and one thing I keep hearing is that there is a growing, and real, possibility that a second “one-time tax holiday” will be approved for corporations as part of whatever sordid deal emerges from the debt-ceiling negotiations.

I passed it off as a bad joke when I first saw news of this a few weeks ago, when it was reported that Wall Street whipping boy Chuck Schumer wasseriously considering the idea. Then I read later on that other Senators werejumping on the bandwagon, including North Carolina’s Kay Hagan.
This is what Hagan’s spokesperson said:

Senator Hagan is looking closely at any creative, short-term measures that can get bipartisan support and put people back to work. One such potential initiative is a well-crafted and temporary change to the tax code that encourages American companies to bring money home and put it towards capital, investment, and–most importantly–American jobs.

For those who don’t know about it, tax repatriation is one of the all-time long cons and also one of the most supremely evil achievements of the Washington lobbying community, which has perhaps told more shameless lies about this one topic than about any other in modern history – which is saying a lot, considering the many absurd things that are said and done by lobbyists in our nation’s capital.

Here’s how it works: the tax laws say that companies can avoid paying taxes as long as they keep their profits overseas. Whenever that money comes back to the U.S., the companies have to pay taxes on it.Think of it as a gigantic global IRA. Companies that put their profits in the offshore IRA can leave them there indefinitely with no tax consequence. Then, when they cash out, they pay the tax.

Only there’s a catch. In 2004, the corporate lobby got together and major employers like Cisco and Apple and GE begged congress to give them a “one-time” tax holiday, arguing that they would use the savings to create jobs. Congress, shamefully, relented, and a tax holiday was declared. Now companies paid about 5 percent in taxes, instead of 35-40 percent. [ASK YOURSELF:WHAT PERCENT DO YOU PAY IN TAXES AS A WORKER---as opposed to wealthy investors or multi-national corporation?]

Money streamed back into America. But the companies did not use the savings to create jobs. Instead, they mostly just turned it into executive bonuses and ate the extra cash. Some of those companies promising waves of new hires have already committed to massive layoffs..

It was bad enough when lobbyists managed to pull this trick off once, in 2004. But in one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington, companies immediately started to systematically “offshore” their profits right after the 2004 holiday with the expectation that somewhere down the road, and probably sooner rather than later, they would get another holiday.

Companies used dozens of fiendish methods to keep profits overseas, including such scams as “transfer pricing,” a technique in which profits are shifted to overseas subsidiaries. A typical example might involve a pharmaceutical company that licenses the rights or the patent to one of its more successful drugs to a foreign affiliate, which in turn manufactures the product and sells it back to the U.S. branch, thereby shifting the profits overseas.

Companies have been doing this for years, to incredible effect. Bloomberg’s Jesse Drucker estimated that Google all by itself has saved $3.1 billion in taxes in the past three years by shifting its profits overseas. Add that to the already rampant system of loopholes and what you have is a completely broken corporate tax system.


And the whole thing is predicated on that dirty little secret – the notion, long known to all would-be major corporate taxpayers, that there would come a day when there would be another tax holiday.

That time, they hope, is now. According to Drucker, lobbyists met with President Obama last December to ask for another holiday. And now the drumbeats are rolling on the Hill for a new holiday to be included in the debt-ceiling deal.

Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the same Senator who produced the damning report of corruption on Wall Street, has been trying to fight the problem, introducing a measure that would prevent companies from accessing offshored money through correspondent accounts and branches of offshore banks.
Levin’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has also been investigating how companies might use the cash they save from a tax holiday, surveying companies like DuPont, presumably to find out just how many of these firms really intend to create new jobs with their tax savings.

I’m shocked there isn’t more of an uproar about this. Could you imagine what the Tea Party would be saying right now if there was a law on the books that allowed immigrants to indefinitely avoid taxes on income sent back to family members in the old country, in Mexico and Venezuela and India?

Imagine the uproar if Barack Obama, in the middle of this historic revenue crunch and "We're so broke the world is going to end tomorrow!" debt-ceiling hystgeria, decided to declare a second “one-time tax holiday” for, say, unwed single mothers, or recipients of public assistance? Middle America would be running through the streets, firing shotguns out its truck window, waving chainsaws in mall lobbies, etc.

As it is, leading members of the Senate are seriously considering giving the most profitable companies in the world a total tax holiday as a reward for their last seven years of systematic tax avoidance.  Hundreds of billions of potential tax dollars would disappear from the Treasury. And there isn’t a peep from anyone, anywhere, on this issue.

We’re seriously talking about defaulting on our debt, and cutting Medicare and Social Security, so that Google can keep paying its current 2.4 percent effective tax rate and GE, a company that received a $140 billion bailout en route to worldwide 2010 profits of $14 billion, can not only keep paying no taxes at all , but receive a $3.2 billion tax credit from the federal government. And nobody appears to give a shit. What the hell is wrong with people? Have we all lost our minds?

Only Little People Pay Taxes

brianjmatis/Flickr

Why a janitor ends up with a higher tax rate than a millionaire, and seven more charts that show how the richest Americans beat the IRS.

— By Dave Gilson

Mon Apr. 18, 2011 3:00 AM PDT

Click here for more charts on America's growing income gap.

"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes," billionaire hotelier Leona Helmsley famously (and allegedly) sniffed. She wasn't entirely correct: The superrich do still pay taxes. The wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers pay 32 percent of all income tax collected by the federal government.
But the superrich don't pay as much as they used to—and thanks to a combination of tax cuts and preferential tax policies, their tax obligations can be less demanding than the so-called little people's. In fact, the very wealthiest Americans' tax burden has been steadily dropping for years, even as they've enjoyed astounding income growth not seen by the vast majority of Americans.










Tax rates for the wealthy have fallen substantially since they peaked in the 1940s. During the past 30 years, they have been cut at a much faster rate than middle- and low-income taxpayers'.
Just how much of a windfall are tax cuts for the wealthy? The extension of the Bush tax cuts passed last year will provide $146,000 in annual tax savings, on average, to each of the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans.
















The superrich get an additional boost from relatively low tax rates on capital gains. Income from long-term investments, which makes up a larger portion of wealthier taxpayers' incomes than middle- and low-income taxpayers', is taxed at lower rates than wages.










Payroll taxes (deductions for Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance) are mostly paid by the bottom 90 percent of earners. When they're factored in on top of income tax, the gap between the tax rates at the very top and everyone else shrinks even more—so much that the effective tax rate for people earning more than $370,000 is nearly the same as for those earning between $43,000 and $69,000 a year.















Payroll taxes now make up nearly as much of federal tax revenue as individual income tax. Meanwhile, revenues from corporate taxes have decreased significantly over the past 50 years.
















Corporations exploit various loopholes and tax breaks to reduce their IRS bills—perhaps none more notoriously than General Electric. Though the corporate tax rate is 35%, GE has paid nothing near that for nearly a decade.















Leona Helmsley's distaste for paying taxes eventually landed her in federal prison. But the rich have little need to break the law to avoid the tax collector. As Martin A. Sullivan of Tax.com recently calculated, a New York janitor making slightly more than $33,000 a year pays an effective tax rate of nearly 25%. And the effective tax rate for a resident of the Park Avenue building named after Helmsley, earning an average of $1.2 million annually? A cool 14.7%.









More Mother Jones charty goodness: 11 charts that explain America's income gap; how the rich get richer; how the poor get poorer; and who owns Congress?

Advertise on MotherJones.com

Sources

Share of taxes: Tax Policy Center
Top 400 taxpayers: IRS (PDF)
Falling tax rates: Remapping Debate
Bush tax cuts: Tax Policy Center (PDF)
Income vs. capital gains: IRS: Income tax rates (PDF); capital gains tax rates
Effective tax rates: Tax Policy Center
Source of tax revenues: Senate Joint Committee on Taxation (PDF)

Publish Post

GE taxes: ProPublica
Janitor vs. millionaire: Tax.com

Dave Gilson is a senior editor at Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Get Dave Gilson's RSS feed.

U.S. Corporations Paid Far Less Than Legally-Imposed Tax Rate: Study

Source: Huffington Post
By Kevin Drawbaugh

June 2, 2011

Twelve big U.S. companies paid far less than the statutory corporate tax rate from 2008 to 2010, despite making substantial profits in that period, said a report released on Wednesday.

With the Obama administration drafting a corporate tax reform plan, the report found General Electric Co, American Electric Power Co Inc, DuPont Co and nine other companies had a negative 1.5 percent tax rate on $171 billion in profits over the three years studied.

"Not a single one of these companies paid anything close to the 35 percent statutory tax rate," said the report from Citizens for Tax Justice, a left-leaning group based in Washington that promised more details later this year.

The White House and Congress are considering an overhaul of the corporate tax system as a partial solution to the federal deficit, projected to hit $1.4 trillion this year.

Critics say tax loopholes promoted by corporate lobbyists and enacted by Congress are to blame for a system that lets companies avoid taxes, usually in perfectly legal ways.

Some business leaders have said they could live with closing some of these loopholes, but in return, they have said they want the statutory tax rate lowered. It is among the highest rates in the industrialized world.

Both President Barack Obama and Republicans want to trim the rate. Obama has said he wants to end enough corporate tax breaks to compensate for the revenue that would be lost from a lower rate. Republicans have blasted that as "tax hikes."

The Business Roundtable, a lobbying group for corporate CEOs, issued a report in April that said U.S.-based companies faced an average effective tax rate of 27.7 percent in the 2006-2009 period, more than their non-U.S. competitors.

The debate promises to go on for months and possibly years. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner last week predicted movement on tax reform later in 2011.

Citizens for Tax Justice produced a report in the 1980s that helped lead to President Ronald Reagan's landmark 1986 tax reforms. Since then, the tax code has become riddled with exemptions, deferrals and other special breaks.

Companies singled out in Citizens for Tax Justice's newest report also included Verizon Communications, Boeing Co, Wells Fargo & Co, FedEx Corp and Exxon Mobil Corp.

'TIP OF ICEBERG'

"These 12 companies are just the tip of the iceberg of widespread corporate tax avoidance," said Bob McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, which is working on a broader report covering the Fortune 500 companies.

Elected officials should make "reducing or eliminating the vast array of corporate tax subsidies the centerpiece of any deficit-reduction strategy," he said.

GE spokesman Andrew Williams said the company is "fully compliant with all tax laws. There are no exceptions."

He said GE's 2010 tax rate was low because the company lost billions of dollars in GE Capital, its financial arm, as a result of the global financial crisis. "GE's tax rate will be much higher in 2011 as GE Capital recovers," he said.

Citizens for Tax Justice said that in the 2008-2010 period, 10 of the dozen companies studied enjoyed at least one year in which they were profitable, but paid no taxes.

Exxon Mobil had a 14.2 percent effective tax rate over the 3-year period, the highest of the 12 companies cited in the report, according to the group.

Exxon Mobil spokesman Alan Jeffers said, "Our effective tax rate in this country over the past six years has averaged about 32 percent. Last year our total taxes and duties to the U.S. government were $9.8 billion, which includes an income tax expense of $1.8 billion."

American Electric Power and DuPont did not respond to requests for comment. DuPont effectively paid $258 million in taxes in the first quarter of 2011, a 15.2 percent tax rate.

(Additional reporting by Matthew Daily and Ernest Scheyder in New York, Anna Driver in Houston, Scott Malone in Boston; Editing by Richard Chang)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters.

Tax Shell Game: CALPIRG

To download this excellent report:
http://cdn.publicinterestnetwork.org/assets/8d6563bacda5780aa608fa3991994d35/Toward-Common-Ground_Final-Report-2.pdf

2011-04-15

Executive Summary

Tax havens are countries with minimal or no taxes, to which U.S.-based multinational firms or individuals transfer their earnings to avoid paying taxes in the United States. Users of tax havens benefit from access to America’s markets, workforce, infrastructure and security, but pay little or nothing for it—violating the basic fairness of the tax system.

Abuse of tax havens inflicts a price on other American taxpayers, who must pay higher taxes—now or in the future—to cover the government’s revenue shortfall, or must deal with cuts in government services.

The United States loses approximately $100 billion in tax revenues every year due to corporations and individuals sending their money to offshore tax havens.
•    Residents of California paid $440 to make up for the taxes that are avoided by corporations and wealthy individuals through the use of offshore tax havens.
•    In 2010, making up for this lost revenue cost the average U.S. tax filer $434. That’s enough money to feed a family of four for three weeks.

Some of America’s biggest companies—including many who have taken advantage of government bailouts or rely on government contracts—use tax havens. As of 2008, 83 of the 100 largest publicly traded U.S. corporations maintain revenues in offshore tax haven countries.
•    Goldman Sachs, which reported more than $2 billion in profit in 2008, was able to use its 29 tax haven subsidiaries to reduce its federal tax bill to just $14 million. That means that Goldman Sachs’ CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who made $42.9 million that year, earned more than three times the amount that the company paid in federal taxes.
•    General Electric appears to have paid no federal income taxes in 2010, despite reporting profits in the United States of $5.1 billion. The biggest company in the country, GE has lobbied hard for tax breaks and loopholes in the federal tax code, and shifted many of its profits to tax havens to avoid paying U.S. taxes. GE employs nearly 1,000 people in its tax department to help exploit those loopholes, but has laid off one-fifth of its U.S.-based workers since 2002.

To restore fairness to the tax system by preventing corporations and wealthy individuals from avoiding taxes through the use of tax havens, policymakers should:
•    End the ability of U.S. multinational corporations to indefinitely defer paying U.S. tax on their profits. U.S. corporations should pay taxes immediately on profits from U.S. business that companies attribute to their foreign entities, rather than wait until they someday bring the money back to the United States. The United States should not adopt a “territorial” system under which companies temporarily move profits and pay taxes in tax haven countries and then freely bring them back tax-free to the United States.
•    Expand rules against money laundering to cover those who aid and abet. The rules should include lawyers who set up shell companies, hedge fund managers who set up anonymous accounts, and others who help taxpayers avoid tax laws.
•    Increase the penalties and strengthen rules related to offshore tax shelters, including prohibiting tax strategy patents and fees contingent on obtaining tax benefits.
•    Revise tax treaties to enhance sharing of tax information between countries to include the real names of account owners.
•    Require multinational corporations to report financial statements on a country-by-country basis.
•    Close loopholes that allow tax credits from other countries to count against U.S. tax liability.
•    End the ability of U.S. multinational companies to apply tax deductions related to foreign income to U.S. income.
•    Eliminate the incentive for U.S. companies to transfer intellectual property (e.g. patents, trademarks) to tax haven countries for artificially low prices and then pay inflated royalties to use them in the United States. This manipulation masks what would otherwise be U.S. taxable income.
•    Stop the ability of multinational companies to manipulate how they define their corporate status to minimize their taxes, including the ability to represent themselves as different types of corporations to different countries.
•    Treat foreign corporations as U.S. domestic companies if they are managed and controlled in the United States.
•    Increase IRS resources to combat transfer pricing and tax haven abuses.

This Week: GOP’s Reverse Robin Hood Agenda. PLUS: 7 Corporate Tax Evaders | The Nation

On Wednesday, President Obama unveiled his deficit reduction plan as a plausible alternative to the GOP’s cruel budget proposal delivered a week earlier. That plan, presented by House Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), showed that the GOP isn’t interested in cutting the deficit; they would pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans with spending cuts for services that benefit the elderly, the working-poor and a beleaguered middle-class. Even the non-partisan Congressional Budget Offices estimates it would increase the deficit over 10 years. Please check out my post, “Fighting for a People’s Budget,” outlining alternatives to the GOP’s reverse Robin Hood agenda.

Media

[ Click for More ]

• 

[Click to View]

Slide Show: 7 Corporate Tax Evaders

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About the Author

Katrina vanden Heuvel

Katrina vanden Heuvel has been The Nation's editor since 1995 and its publisher since 2005. She is the co-editor of...

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Fighting for a People's Budget

Obama's budget speech was a clear rebuke to the GOP's reverse Robin Hood agenda. But he continues to legitimize the inside-the Beltway consensus that spending cuts are necessary for fiscal responsibility.

Katrina vanden Heuvel

 22 comments

An Offensive Response to the Budget 'Crisis' (US Politics, Economy)

Deficit hawks across the political spectrum and the tea partiers claim America is broke. It isn't. We can deal with our debt by taxing extreme concentrations of wealth.

Katrina vanden Heuvel

 28 comments

Related Topics

Human Interest ObamaPresident Republican Party Social Issues

When President Obama spoke of “shared sacrifice” this week, two-thirds of the cuts he proposes to reduce the deficit with would come from education, health and other social programs while a paltry one-third would come from our bloated defense budget. This week, we ask in our lead editorial, “Whose Shared Sacrifice?

With a government shutdown averted, the budget compromise calling for $38.5 billion in spending cuts passed by Congress on Thursday, touted as “the largest annual spending cut in history,” is now headed to President Obama’s desk for approval. And yet, as Iargued this week in the Washington Post, somewhere along the way we lost the point of having this debate in the first place: a need for a clear strategy to build the economy and revive the middle class.

Also this week…

SLIDESHOW: 7 Corporate Tax Evaders

Tax Day is right around the corner. This week, we’re reminded that while Washington continues to tell Americans to tighten their belts, some of the country’s most profitable corporations aren’t paying their fair share of taxes. Who are they? Be sure to look at our slideshow, looking at seven corporate tax dodgers. And let’s not be fooled: by restoring saner corporate tax policy, we wouldn’t have to balance the budget on the backs of struggling Americans. The slideshow is available here.

AWARD: The Nation Nominated for Best Political Coverage in Utne’s 2011 Independent Press Award

This week we received word that The Nation has been nominatedfor Best Political Coverage in Utne Reader’s 22nd Annual Independent Press Awards. And we’re in good company. Nominees include Dissent, In These Times, Mother Jones, The American Conservative, The American Prospect, The New Republic and The Progressive. We’re honored for the recognition. Winners will be announced May 18th at the MPA-Association of Magazine Media’s Independent Magazine Media Conference in San Francisco. Congratulations to all our co-nominees.

BLOG: Tax Day Activism

Guest-blogger Allison Kilkenny continues to bring us the latest on US Uncut, which most recently pulled off a clever hoax with the cultural activist duo The Yes Men. They widely circulated a false AP report stating that General Electric would refund its entire $3.2 billion tax return. Wouldn't that be something! Be sure to read Allison's report here. More actions are planned across the country for Friday, over the weekend, on Tax Day this Monday, led by US Uncut, MoveOn and others. Be sure to read my colleague Peter Rothberg’s post, “A Primer on Tax Day Activism” for a powerful look at what many will be doing around the country.

WELCOME: Jamelle Bouie

We’re pleased to welcome Knobler Fellow and guest-blogger Jamelle Bouie, who is also a Writing Fellow at The American Prospect. Bouie’s specialty is US politics—with a focus on parties, elections and campaign finance. His writing has appeared in The Washington Independent, CNN.com, and in Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog at the Atlantic. Be sure to head to The Nation’s group blog,The Notion, and check out his latest post, “Democrats Prepare to Embrace Anonymous Campaign Contributions.” Read it here.

We took over a Bank of America on Friday: US Uncut on Daily Kos

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/17/967807/-We-took-over-a-Bank-of-America-on-Friday

On Friday, the San Francisco branch of US Uncut temporarily took over the San Francisco branch of Bank of America.

This is what happened:

Now we want you to do the same thing, with or without musical accompaniment - and we're going to tell you how.

As the video says, the government claims we're broke, and is slashing necessities for working and retired Americans. Meanwhile, corporate tax cheats like Bank of America and GE rake in billions in profit - and pay back zero in taxes.

Something's wrong here - and tomorrow, on Tax Day 2011, Americans are going to stand as one and point it out.

We currently have over 100 actions planned for tomorrow. Click here to find your local US Uncut action. Not seeing one nearby that works for you? Then start your own - it's SUPER easy.

Tomorrow, let's show the powers that be that Americans are seriously opposed to cutting schools, firefighters, police, healthcare, job creation...and seriously in favor of corporations actually paying their taxes.

Thank you,
The US Uncut Team

P.S. You can learn more here about how the San Francisco action was planned and carried out.

ORIGINALLY POSTED TO US UNCUT ON SUN APR 17, 2011 AT 11:12 AM PDT.

SALLY AND FRANK DISCUSS TAXES

by Allen L Roland, Ph.D

Only a animated cartoon can do justice to the absurd reality of our current tax code where General Electric made 14 billion dollars profit and not only paid no taxes but got a 3 billion dollar refund: Allen L Roland

Click on this 3 minute video and enjoy.

http://www.campaignmoney.org/blog/2011/04/14/new-video-how-avoid-paying-taxes

Happy tax day, if you’re not outraged, you’re either GE top management or on life support.

And here are 9 things the financial elite don’t want you to know about taxes.

http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-17350-9_things_the_rich_dont_want_you_to_know_about_taxes.html

This coming Monday, April 18 is Tax Day ~ and that's the day when "we the people" will demand our country back from these corporations in events all across the country.

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/sally-and-frank-discuss-taxes.html

About the Author: Allen L Roland is a Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist.Allen is also available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations. Dr. Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website www.allenroland.com . He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

Important links re Executive compensation

Petition to GE CEO Immelt
GE: $14B profit but paid $0 taxes?
Tell Immelt: Resign from Jobs Board

ImmeltMustGo.com

10 Challenges Facing CFOs
Proven strategies to tackle
challenges facing CFOs and finance.

www.Deloitte.com/us/cfocenter

Executive Salaries & Bios
Access to 85 million executives.
Biographies, salaries, and more!

www.hoovers.com/salaries

2- Co-CEO

3-2010 compensation is for 9 months ended in September due to a change in the company’s fiscal year. Shareholder return is for 12 months ended in Sept.

Salary = Base pay

Bonus = Sum of bonus and performance-based compensation other than stock or options.

Stock and options = Fair value on grant date of stock and option awards made in the year.

Total = Sum of salary, bonus, other compensation, stock and option awards.

Change from ’09 = Calculated only for companies with the same CEO for all of fiscal years 2010 and 2009.

Stock return = 12-month total return, based on closing price of month nearest fiscal year end. Data provided by Standard’s & Poor’s.

About the salaries chart posted separately on another page:  

USA TODAY’s analysis focused on 174 S&P 500 companies that filed proxies and were processed by GovernanceMetrics International by March 25. It includes only companies where the CEO served all of fiscal year 2010. The change in total compensation from 2009 was calculated only for CEOs that served all of 2010 and 2009.