Thursday, March 31, 2011 | 2:02 a.m.
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Bob Herbert’s column in Tuesday’s Las Vegas Sun must have contained a shocking revelation to readers:
General Electric evaded paying U.S. taxes last year on profits of $14.2 billion, which included $5.1 billion from U.S. operations.
Herbert mentions that New York Times reporter David Kocieniewski had written in a previous story about GE: “Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.”
One more shock from Herbert: The CEO of GE, Jeffrey Immelt, is the leader of President Barack Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
I love my country and would gladly serve again — I served 30 years in the U.S. Army in such places as North Africa, Sicily and Italy during World War II and later in Korea and Vietnam — but this action of not paying U.S. taxes on profits of billions by a U.S. corporation is absurd and must be curtailed.
What if anything is being done by our politicians?
How do I apply for a job as a “czar” to head a new government agency — the “Bureau of Fair and Equitable Tax Payments”?
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