Remember how President Obama told the American people that BP was going to make the gulf oil spill right? You know, how they were going to pay out the nose for their fuckup?
Well, you and me will be subsidizing the cleanup cost, and the fund to help gulf coast residents, by a whopping 35 percent.
You know how? Because of how our corporate laws were written, which enables a corporation to write off 35% of losses for their tax bill.
From the TPM story (please read it in full).
Under U.S. corporate law, companies can take credits on up to 35 percent of their losses. In this case, that means U.S. taxpayers are indirectly subsidizing at least part of cost for the cleanup and the $20 billion fund BP created to compensate people, fisherman and businesses along the Gulf Coast hurt by the spill.
BP may spread that $40.9 billion loss over 2010 and the next few years until all the payments are paid to the victims. Companies can only deduct the amount of losses paid out in any given year, and the trust fund likely will be paying victims for years to come.
When I married my wife, I got into a family of Republicans who constantly whine about how the unemployed have no incentive to get a job, and that the welfare state needs to be destroyed for the sake of America. They've got theirs I suppose.
/start sarcasm. But what about the corporate welfare state? Isn't this place supposed to be a bastion of capitalism, where corporations can rise and fall on their own merits? /end sarcasm. But of course not. The same entities that control our politicians already wrote the law to help themselves, even when they fail.
In fact, every time a corporation fails, we subsidize it to the tune of 35% of all losses. Considering that most corporate CEOs make out like bandits even after the corporation goes belly up... yeah.