I find it somewhat apalling to hear politicians and all the haters of “big oil” call for windfall taxes on the profits of these companies. They routinely call them excessive, as if they were in business to only make a certain amount of money (let’s all say it together folks, SUPPLY AND DEMAND!).
Yet everyone seems to give the government (or shall we call it big government?) a pass on the windfall taxes they are taking in lately.
First big government rakes in a shitload of cash directly at the pumps in excessive taxation. Then big government goes after the oil companies and rakes in cash from the profits that the oil companies produce. Talk about the ultimate parasite!
The article below states it very well, “like any parasite, if it eats too much it will kill the host.”
Who Profits at the Pump?
by Jonathan Williams and Scott A. Hodge
[u]Over the past quarter century, oil companies directly sent more than $2.2 trillion in taxes, adjusted for inflation, to state and federal governments - three times what they collectively earned in profits over the same time period.[/u] Yet some politicians say this is not enough and are proposing a new “windfall profits” tax to raise billions more for federal coffers.
Gas Taxes Exceed Oil Companies’ Profits
[i]With BP, Exxon-Mobil, and Shell reporting record profits, the Tax Foundation reminds us in its latest Fiscal Fact that the biggest beneficiaries of gasoline sales are federal and state governments, not the oil industry
High gas prices and strong oil company earnings have generated a rash of new tax proposals in recent months. Some lawmakers have called for new “windfall profits” taxes?similar to the one signed into federal law in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter?that would tax the profits of major oil companies at a rate of 50%. Meanwhile, many commentators have voiced support for the idea of increasing gas taxes to keep the price of gasoline at post-Katrina highs, thereby reducing gas consumption. However, often ignored in this debate is the fact that oil industry profits are highly cyclical, making them just as prone to “busts” as to “booms.” Additionally, tax collections on the production and import of gasoline by state and federal governments are already near historic highs. In fact, in recent decades governments have collected far more revenue from gasoline taxes than the largest U.S. oil companies have collectively earned in domestic profits…
Federal and state taxes on gasoline production and imports have been climbing steadily since the late 1970s and now total roughly $58.4 billion. Due in part to substantial hikes in the federal gasoline excise tax in 1983, 1990, and 1993, annual tax revenues have continued to grow. Since 1977, governments collected more than $1.34 trillion, after adjusting for inflation, in gasoline tax revenues - more than twice the amount of domestic profits earned by major U.S. oil companies during the same period.[/i]
So again I ask, who’s gouging?