http://www.2009wrc.com/the-proper-way-of-buying-handyortung-gratis-accessories/…

In this sense oil companies, big and small get subsidies. But so does practically every other business in the country. My point is I’m all for eliminating direct subsidies and tax breaks, but it has to be across the board so that everyone pays equally. I won’t accept singling out oil and gas (or coal) just because they happen to be today’s boogieman. If it helps, think of it as my equivalent of the NRA’s “they get it when the pry it from my cold dead hands.”

In case you didn’t read it or just ignored, here is a sample.

fron Steve:
You’re a blowhard, zachv. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Steve Maley (Diary) Sunday, May 6th at 10:24PM EDT (link)
I didn?t read all your tripe, but I didn?t have to read very much to arrive at that judgment.

15% cost depletion applies to oil and gas revenues, to the extent that a property is profitable. Where you come up with 15% ?at every step of the supply chain? is beyond me.

The coment to you is below, look it and realise yo have no clue.

And again, the oil industry gets the same type of write-offs you get.
You want to rescind YOUR tax subsidies on YOUR earned income?

Secondly – do you believe that I’m not going to click on your sources? The literal next sentence after your quote: Of course, these firms are multinational so many of these taxes are paid to foreign governments not just to Uncle Sam.

Furthermore you can’t pull only the Q1 2008 IS statements, because it’s misleading and doesn’t address the point as to how Oil is benefiting from the gov’t subsidies. 1) You’re looking at a single quarter, which yes, income tax is pay-as-you-go, but we’re filing on an annual basis. 2) You do understand that Exxon, Chevron and Conoco are diversified, right? Those numbers include their chemical, lubricant, air/marine, mining, alternative energy and all the other random crap they’ve thrown under their corporate umbrellas. 3) The raw number of taxes they’ve paid is completely irrelevant to the discussion without more information.

THE SOLE POINT of this all is that the Oil and Gas companies benefit from ridiculous sums of tax subsidies, which was proven at the beginning of this back & forth when I pointed out the tax advantages that only the Oil and Gas companies benefit from.

Corporate cronyism is unconservative and anti-free market, and if you wish to defend it like the little socialists like Obama, be my guest.

End of discussion.

15% cost depletion applies to oil and gas revenues, to the extent that a property is profitable. Where you come up with 15% “at every step of the supply chain” is beyond me.

Did you know that percentage depletion only applies to small companies? Big Oil lost depletion long ago. Did you know that every extractive business has an analogous deduction? That’s coal, timber, gravel, gold etc.

You also said something about intangible *and* tangible capital costs being expensed. Absolutely wrong. Tangible items that are used in drilling a well, like casing, are depreciable. Intangible items like fuel or labor have no salvage value and so are expensed. The difference is the timing of the write off.

All businesses get to write off legitimate business expenses. Capital items are written off over time. Many industries have rules that are peculiar to them because of their structure, risk etc. The oil industry is no different.

P.S. Maybe you need a different accountant.

excerpt:
If reporters were to dig just a bit deeper into the company’s earnings statement they would find that Exxon?like all the major domestic oil companies?directly pays or remits a staggering amount of taxes to governments both here and abroad. Before taxes, Exxon had income of $20 billion on total world-wide revenue of $116 billion. Its earnings statement shows that the company paid $9.3 billion in income taxes to governments here and abroad. This amounts to an effective tax rate of more than 46 percent, 10 percentage points higher than the U.S. statutory rate of 35 percent.

In addition to income taxes, the table below shows that Exxon paid or remitted $20 billion in various sales taxes, excise taxes, severance taxes, and property taxes. This brings the total amount of taxes the company paid or remitted to $29.3 billion, nearly three times the net profits it earned for shareholders.

The financial statements of two other large U.S.-based oil companies, ConocoPhillips and ChevronTexaco, show similar large tax payments. Indeed, these three companies paid or remitted a combined $47.8 billion in taxes in the first quarter of 2008, nearly $28 billion more than they earned in net profits.

Now tell me how much in taxbreaks/subsidies they got again.

That’s rather cunning, ha.

2. How am I supposed to know? Like I just said, I’d have to dig through a mountain of IRS tax filings of like 40 companies and their subsidiaries to find the sum total of their write-offs. Do you have any idea how many tax shelters and accounting tricks they pull?

Stick to the two links you referenced, or the Associated Press ding-a-lings who came up with the $4.4 billion in tax break number.

And obviously if I were a Representative or Senator, or if I was working in a conservative or free-market advocacy group, I’d be fighting against the oil and gas subsidies. Those oil, clean energy and (also) agricultural subsidies are all examples of anti-free market acts and corporate cronyism.

Indeed, since 1981, when the failed wind?fall profits tax was first enacted, federal, state, and local governments in the U.S. have col?lected more in taxes from the oil industry than the industry has earned in actual profits for its shareholders. For example, after adjusting for inflation, the combined net earnings (net of taxes and expenses) for the largest petroleum companies between 1981 and 2008 totaled $1.4 trillion. By contrast, the total amount of taxes collected by U.S. governments from the oil companies topped $1.95 trillion, roughly 40 percent more than the industry’s combined profits. Tax collections exceeded company prof?its in 23 of the 27 years surveyed.

Reguardless, what amount was tax write-offs.

2. Wheather to our government or someone elses, they pay more in taxes than they get in profits.

As you excerpted: ? Between 1981 and 2008, the oil industry paid more than $388 billion to the federal and state governments in corporate income taxes, but they paid almost twice that amount, $683 billion, to foreign governments.

Out of that $388b in taxes to our government, how much did they get in write offs, or to you subsidies. and what portion of the foriegn taxes were on profits made in foriegn lands.

The second article from the Tax Foundation just states how much money the Federal gov’t makes from Oil, and then goes on to state, “Between 1981 and 2008, the oil industry paid more than $388 billion to the federal and state governments in corporate income taxes, but they paid almost twice that amount, $683 billion, to foreign governments.”

If you understand that our Federal gov’t has some of the HIGHEST corporate income taxes in the world, but yet Oil pays half the taxes to American than it does to foreign gov’ts, it’s an illustration of how much subsidies Oil gets from the American gov’t.

http://www.oilandgasjointventures.com/tax-benefits.html

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/26555.html

Take a look and then re-evaluate the crap you’re talking.
You just don’t know, but think you do, and that is one of the lefts biggests faults.
Not saying you’re a lefty, just pointing out a comparison.

… I’m not insane? That’d take thousands of hours to figure.

“But when it comes to tax-advantaged investments for wealthy or sophisticated investors, one investment class continues to stand alone above all others: oil. With the backing of the U.S. government, domestic energy production has created a litany of tax incentives for both investors and small producers. (For background reading, check out A Guide To Investing In Oil Markets.)

There are several major tax benefits available for oil and gas investors that are found nowhere else in the tax code. Read on as we cover the benefits of these investments, and how you can use them to fire up your portfolio.”

Oil: A Big Investment With Big Tax Breaks – Investopedia