“The oil and gas industry benefitted to the tune of billions of dollars from the Trump tax cut bill… And you didn’t.”
“This oil company bonanza was the anticipated result of a bill well crafted for this purpose.”
—Antonia Juhasz,
Pacific Standard
That’s how the Center for Biological Diversity responded to a new analysis published Tuesday, which shows how the fossil fuel industry has saved $25 billion so far—”with many more billions more to come”—from the Republican tax plan signed by President Donald Trump in December.
Antonia Juhasz at Pacific Standard reviewed 2017 Securities and Exchange Commission filings by 17 American oil and gas companies, “looking at the largest companies in production, refining, and pipelines that also clearly specified the impacts of the Tax Act in their result.”
Confirming reports that the new tax code has “supercharged the oil industry,” she found that “it is the oil and gas industry, including companies that backed the presidency of Trump and whose former executives and current boosters now populate it, that are among the tax bill’s largest and most long-lasting financial beneficiaries.”
Noting that the so-called Tax Cut and Jobs Act slashed the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to just 21 percent—a 40 percent reduction—Juhasz explains that “these immediate $25 billion in oil company benefits are primarily the result of companies that had deferred payment of taxes they owe to some point in the future. The more billions of dollars they deferred, the more savings they got from the Tax Act. This is because money that they would previously have been required to pay a tax rate of 35 percent on is now taxed at just 21 percent.”
Additionally, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which reviewed filings for 11 of the companies, found that five “will actually receive federal income tax refunds this year” thanks to “newly added and pre-existing loopholes, giveaways, and other advantages” that businesses use to reduce the amount of taxes they pay.
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