Oil industry pays billions in taxes

Last year, the U.S. oil and natural gas industry delivered record amounts of fuel to American consumers.

[Bob]

Lets tell OPEC to pump there oil up there a**..and for the USA to start drilling here....off shore..where i understand is enough oil to keep us independant

[Mike Calo]

Gee, no possibility that Mr. Felmy is biased...?

I also find it interesting that Mr. Felmy fails to mention the record profits reported by the oil companies last year.

Finally, for those who are wont to defend the oil companies' profits with the hackneyed claim that the profits all went back into exploration and research: "profits" are what's left AFTER dividends, salaries, and operating costs - including distribution, exploration and research - are paid.

It's been a long time since I was in high school, but darned if today's situation with "W" in the White House and the oil companies raking in huge profits doesn't sound an awful lot like theTeapot Dome scandal...

[Be Reasonable]

Exxon / Mobil - 40 billion in profits, and I believe that was for one fiscal quarter. The oil industry represents a brand of greed that is dispicable. Their attempts to spin it any other way is laughable. No one should expect any altruism from this quarter.

[Richard K]

What's laughable "Be Reasonable" and Mike Calo is that basic mathematics is exempt from any of your thought processes. You want to focus on the bottom line then put the focus where it belongs....% profit margin.

If you took Exxon/Mobil and split them up into 10 smaller companies, each making 1/10 the gross profit $ there would be no screaming. What if you consolidated the retail industry into 5 large players, each with profit $ similar to Exxon/Mobil but at the same time kept their % profit margin the same. Would they be guilty of "representing a brand of greed"?

How can you go attack an Exxon/Mobil without attacking other companies that have so much higher profit margins like Microsoft, Google, GE and Wells Fargo?

Time to go back to school boys and girls for the remedial course in mathematics 101. While your at it you should brush up on Logic 101 as well

[interested reader]

Profits are calculated "before" dividends for those who don't know accounting I.

[djm]

Also what is never reported is the insane amount of taxes government gets from gas ... more than the profits the oil company makes. The ultimate evil "big business" is big government!

[mike p]

Oil companies want to explore and build refineries in the US but the liberals (progressives) put a stop to it every time. Then they blame Bush for the high prices. We haven't built an oil refinery in the US for over 25 years. Don't be so quick to blame the oil comanies and Bush for high energy costs. The Americans need to look in the mirror for who to blame.

[Sergey_S]

You can took Exxon/Mobil and split them up into 10 smaller companies, if only you can took technological line-up and split them up into 10 smaller technological line-up, but if you can’t, so each making 1/10 the gross losses $ there would be much more of screaming. For an example, you took management of a gas piping and split them up into 10 smaller companies for to have chaos.
What if you particulate nationalize the retail industry into 5 large players, each with profit $ similar to Exxon/Mobil for not kept their % profit margin the same. Europe is not afraid of adequate and pragmatic socialist methods.

[Mike Calo]

What's laughable, Richard K and "interested reader", is that you assume I don't know basic math or basic accounting principles. I'm talking about NET profits, not GROSS profits; I think you knew that, but it sounded better in your posts to make me sound uneducated. I know basic mathematics - and accounting - thank you, as well as ADVANCED logic; I'm a senior computer programmer/analyst.

I don't give a a hairy rat's behind about "percentage profit margins" - I'm talking dollars. Percentages can be skewed to say anything one wants them to say unless they are put into proper context; dollars, however, are dollars, no matter how presented.

Furthermore, we're discussing the oil companies, not retail. Let's stay focused - even though obfuscating an issue is a favorite ploy of the pro-oil faction. The fact is that Exxon/Mobile is NOT ten individual companies; it IS one big company...which happens to have reported obscene profits last year.

Finally, Richard K, the companies you named produce items or services that are optional expenedtures in our lives; oil companies, on the other hand, control everything from the oil and gas used to generate electrity and natural gas to heat homes and fuel appliances to gasoline, which everyone who drives needs every day. The comparison you ask us to make simply cannot be made, any more than one can honestly compare the running styles of gazelles and earthworms.

[Sergey_S]

Real alternative to petroleum can to be only natural gas. The heavy crude is very expensive and synthetic petrol are not economically profitable alternative, but it is necessary for using. The biofuel takes away the foodstuffs from poor. USA can be received by large enough streams of natural gas only from Russia, but the administration of the president Bush not was diligent with Russia owing to desire is disparate to use. Now Russia is historically similar to USA of times of civil war, because there were only north states, and the separatism prospered. The democracy of times of civil war was a little imperfect, but also now US democracy is very incomplete and requires development. Destructive desire to negate availability of democracy in Russia is Anglo-Saxon tradition of a segregation and discrimination. Now there are designs of an south stream and Boreal north stream, but there is no design of a transatlantic stream ... The transportation more than hundred billions of cubic metre through ocean to USA can be profitable. Really Russia is capable to provide with natural gas about 200-300 years, but the political balance in Eurasia owing to weakening Russia is now outraged (or you prefer China). your neocon preferred experiments with the nationalists and even islamic. They wanted to control Eurasia, but it is impossible for USA.
Yes I mean a pipeline under the ocean (Atlantic or Arctic)? You can believe all we have the technology to do that.(but all we haven’t the diligent policy to do that). ExxonMobil and Gazprom to have discrepancies. Gazprom prefers gas pipings as more economically profitable. ExxonMobil prefers to stage petroleum technologies of transportation to reducing profitability.
Do you know a length of gas pipings from Siberia to Europe? This spacing interval is equivalent to breadth of Atlantic. Russia has of 250000 billions of cubic metre of natural gas.
Yes, USA have more energy in domestic coal and must produce liquid fuels from coal. The fuels from coal is more socially accountable technology, than the biofuel from corn, but real alternative can be only natural gas,(only the natural gas is economically equivalent alternative).

[PacificGatePost]

Money will have to come from somewhere to pay the overwhelming debt that all three candidates are ignoring....

Tax rebates are great on the surface, however, if they are borrowed money, then the hole is just getting bigger.
http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/04/c...

…. If only one of them could present a plan.

[ThatGuy]

I thought the Liberals said big companies are evil and don't pay their share? I guess they misremembered the facts.

[The Real Reality Check]

Oil industry pays billions in taxes....

THIS IS THE BIGGEST REPUBLICAN SCAM TO DATE.

[Richard K]

Wow Mike Calo you really do miss the point. You want to point to "hard dollars" made in profit and "obscene profits". You can't have that discussion without talking percentages because it will always be about the percentages and NOT the hard dollars. It's the percentages that make the hard dollars. Obviously even with your "ADVANCED Logic" you still lack the ability discern the importance and the relation between the two.

And I'll say it again, if Exxon/Mobil where 10 smaller and similar sized companies (each making 4B in profit using someone elses statement) would you still be screaming? Would that be fair? What different would it make for the company and their respective shareholder to their "bottom line"? I can think of alot of companies making much higher profits and MUCH higher profit margins.

As for the "obscene profits".... who are you or anyone else to use the word "obscene"? How much do you make as a senior computer programmer / analyst? 80-100k/year? To the average Walmart worker your "profits" are "obscene". Would that be a fair statement?

[Richard K]

btw, has anyone ever checked out how much Exxon/Mobil payed in taxes the past year? Try 30 BILLION or about 40% of their taxable income. How many of you payed 40% of your income to federal taxes last year?

[Eric]

If I sold a record amount of my product last year, and didn't make a record amount of money, that would me an idiot. Do you guys get mad when Under Armor increases the sales they made the year before and makes more money?

[CCCP]

Richard K wrote:

What's laughable "Be Reasonable" and Mike Calo is that basic mathematics is exempt from any of your thought processes. You want to focus on the bottom line then put the focus where it belongs....% profit margin.
If you took Exxon/Mobil and split them up into 10 smaller companies, each making 1/10 the gross profit $ there would be no screaming. What if you consolidated the retail industry into 5 large players, each with profit $ similar to Exxon/Mobil but at the same time kept their % profit margin the same. Would they be guilty of "representing a brand of greed"?
How can you go attack an Exxon/Mobil without attacking other companies that have so much higher profit margins like Microsoft, Google, GE and Wells Fargo?
Time to go back to school boys and girls for the remedial course in mathematics 101. While your at it you should brush up on Logic 101 as well

Richard K, you are exactly right. Most of these morons complaining about oil company profits are looking at earnings not profits. The oil companies P/E ratios are much lower than many companies and certainly lower than those you mention.
Hey I don't work for an oil company and am unhappy about the price per gallon but if you really want to do something call your state and federal representatives because thats where the real cost is going. Do any of you notice that Daley and Blago and the rest of our elected officials aren't doing anything? It's because this is a state and city windfall of tax revenue and do you think they want to give that up?
So go take a couple of simple business or economics courses before you are critical of the oil companies about their profits. If you want lower gas costs allow off-shore drilling and refineries to be built here otherwise don't drive.

[CCCP]

Mike Calo wrote:

What's laughable, Richard K and "interested reader", is that you assume I don't know basic math or basic accounting principles. I'm talking about NET profits, not GROSS profits; I think you knew that, but it sounded better in your posts to make me sound uneducated. I know basic mathematics - and accounting - thank you, as well as ADVANCED logic; I'm a senior computer programmer/analyst.
I don't give a a hairy rat's behind about "percentage profit margins" - I'm talking dollars. Percentages can be skewed to say anything one wants them to say unless they are put into proper context; dollars, however, are dollars, no matter how presented.
Furthermore, we're discussing the oil companies, not retail. Let's stay focused - even though obfuscating an issue is a favorite ploy of the pro-oil faction. The fact is that Exxon/Mobile is NOT ten individual companies; it IS one big company...which happens to have reported obscene profits last year.
Finally, Richard K, the companies you named produce items or services that are optional expenedtures in our lives; oil companies, on the other hand, control everything from the oil and gas used to generate electrity and natural gas to heat homes and fuel appliances to gasoline, which everyone who drives needs every day. The comparison you ask us to make simply cannot be made, any more than one can honestly compare the running styles of gazelles and earthworms.

Take some business courses because you sound like an IT idiot. Learn about profit earnings ratios and then you may have a clue.

[Sergey from St-Petersburg]

Any diverse oil company (except for USA) pay much more taxes...
Britain collects more oil profits...

[Womba]

Richard K wrote:

btw, has anyone ever checked out how much Exxon/Mobil payed in taxes the past year? Try 30 BILLION or about 40% of their taxable income. How many of you payed 40% of your income to federal taxes last year?

Wish I was in their tax bracket to be able to afford 40% and still come away wihth billions.