The Catalyst

By T.J. Pollock, Reporter

After filing over 7,000 tax returns this year, General Electric has been left with it’s tax bill total; a whopping $0. This is due to the fact that they made no profit in the U.S. this year. However, their international industry made a blistering $10.8 billion. Crazy huh? It may seem as though things don’t quite add up, but so far, everything with the filed returns has been true.

Corporations usually see 35% of their earnings shipped off to the government, but after U.S. operations lost $ 408 million, there was nothing left to tax.

"That's one way of escaping taxes," said Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation. "Companies get to deduct their losses, so if there's no earnings, then they pay no income tax."

GE is not the only fortune 500 company that is in a similar situation. Bank of America also did not make a profit this year in the U.S. This shows just how poorly the economy was last year. GE isn’t totally making out like a bandit in this situation however. It was not cheap to pay all of the accountants needed to file those 7,000 returns. They are also being forced to pay lawyers to defend each of those returns, which have come under great scrutiny by the IRS. They are making sure things are the way they seem, and so far they have proven to be that way.