Huge tax breaks for BP, despite record profits

[Adam Gamradt]

http://www.adn.com/money/industries/oil ... 1108c.html

http://www.akdemocrats.org/index.php?legpress_id=244

I'm wondering how a company that makes record profits, can fail to maintain it's own pipeline. You'd think that free market economics would ensure BP's commitment to inspecting and maintaining it's pipes? Perhaps the garuntee of incredible profits through redistrobution of tax dollars makes a company a bit complacent?

Alaska is giving BP hundreds of millions of dollars, yet spends about 50 million on child welfare services.

Seems to me we should end corporate welfare, stop behaving like a nanny state, and we'd all be a lot better off.

[cjwilhelmi]

Alaska is giving BP hundreds of millions of dollars, yet spends about 50 million on child welfare services.

But how many children in Alaska need welfare services? Last time I checked Alaska was pretty cold and not many people lived there.

626,932 in the 2000 Census that live in Alaska
20,851,820 in the 2000 Census that live in Dallas, Texas

Couldn't find how much Dallas spent on Child Welfare.

Needless to say - Alaska is cold.

[Brent Burns]

Needless to say - Alaska is cold.

Although it is a "cool" 88 in Texas right now, we would love to have that cold air from Alaska coming down our way once in a while.

[KnoxVegas]

The Alaska state constitution claims common heritage rights of ownership of oil and other minerals for the people of the state as a whole. Citizen dividend checks are distributed every year in Alaska out of the interest payments to an oil royalties deposit account called the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF) created in 1976 after oil was discovered on the North Slope. The APF is a public trust fund - a diversified stock, bond and real estate portfolio - into which are deposited the oil royalties received from the corporations which extract the oil from the lands of Alaska. The first citizen dividend check from the interest of the APF was issued in 1982 and was for $1000 per every person for everyone in Alaska who had resided in the state for at least one year. Annual citizen dividends have been issued every year since then, for a total of more than $23,000 per person.

http://www.progress.org/cg/cdann.htm

How'd I do, Sonny?

[jessexy]

maybe Dick Cheney is now on the BP board of directors?

[Sonny]

I'm wondering how a company that makes record profits

Do you know the difference between profits and profit margin?

[Adam Gamradt]

Yes Sonny, I do.

I still think we should end corporate welfare. Especially in cases where companies fail to care for their own equipment, and then makes taxpayers pick up the tab, only after it's become a crisis.

We'll see next tax season, but I have a feeling BP will use that tax break we game them.

Even after being warned by US investigators, BP still did not do the right thing. And you're fine giving them a gigantic tax break.

For a fiscal conservative, you don't seem to care to much where your money goes.

http://money.cnn.com/services/tickerhea ... 000990.htm

[Sonny]

I do care where my/our money goes as a taxpayer.

I just get irritated when people rant and rave about record profits for "evil" corporations and they don't understand basic economics. BP may have recorded record "profits" (revenue), yet earned a far lower profit margin because their expenses where much higher (for instance, the cost of oil doubling).