"Ignatius Thistlewhite" wrote in message
.8...
You wrote:

JohnH wrote:
If you do not like the fact that ExxonMobil used part of its 9 cents
per gallon profit to compensate a retiring executive, patronize
another supplier of the company's products.

If you do not like the fact that government taxes account for 40
cents per gallon, well, there's nothing you can do about that.

From where comes the 9 cents a gallon figure and the 49 cents a
gallon figure?

Out of his ass. He leaves off how many billions of government dollars
are either given to or spent on the behalf of the fossil fuel
industry, particularly oil.

Here is a link to ExxonMobil's SEC filings:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/sec?s=XOM

Please identify the line items showing "billions of government dollars
given to" ExxonMobil.


Similar question: Are tax incentives mentioned in the financial statement?

April 27, 2006
Second Thoughts in Congress on Oil Tax Breaks
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and MICHAEL JANOFSKY
WASHINGTON, April 26 - As anxiety spread in Congress on Wednesday over
soaring oil prices, lawmakers in both parties said they were ready to take a
tough look at oil and gas incentives they passed as recently as eight months
ago.

Citing record industry profits and huge executive pay packages, the top
Republican and top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee asked the
Internal Revenue Service to turn over tax returns for the nation's 15
biggest oil and gas companies.

Leading Republicans echoed President Bush's call Tuesday to trim about $2
billion in tax breaks Congress passed as part of the energy bill last
August. Several prominent Democrats, not to be outdone, pushed for repealing
oil and gas tax breaks worth more than $10 billion over the next five years.

"Nobody has any sympathy for oil companies on Capitol Hill right now," said
Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia and vice chairman of the
House Republican Conference. "You talk to someone driving to work in an
F-150 pickup and paying $75 to fill up his tank, and everybody's on his
side."

Both parties jockeyed for political advantage even as they were grasping for
ideas. Most experts contend that the government has few options that would
quickly reduce gasoline prices, and competing party agendas could block
Congressional agreement on any meaningful legislation.

Lawmakers have introduced more than 30 energy bills in the last several
months. But they reflect often -conflicting goals of reducing prices,
increasing production and soothing consumer anger about oil industry
profits.

Democrats called for a 60-day halt on collecting federal gasoline taxes,
which are 18.4 cents a gallon, but they were openly split about the more
radical step of imposing a windfall profits tax on major oil companies. For
their part, many Republicans are torn between wanting to show their sympathy
for consumers and maintaining their longstanding support for the oil
industry.

"Nobody's happy with gasoline prices being where they are," said
Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas and chairman of the House
Energy and Commerce Committee, who last year championed scores of new tax
breaks for the industry.

Congressional Republican leaders are negotiating with White House officials
over a bill to expand on Mr. Bush's proposals for alternative fuels and
conservation, but disarray among lawmakers was evident across Capitol Hill.

The energy industry is also politically divided. Most big integrated oil
companies, like Exxon Mobil and Chevron, have shown no interest in defending
the $2.7 billion in tax breaks in last year's energy bill.

But the hundreds of smaller independent producers want to preserve as many
incentives as possible. In singling out tax and spending incentives to be
eliminated, Mr. Bush did not criticize a new expansion of tax write-offs for
smaller oil refineries.

"The big companies don't want them, don't need them and are not asking for
them," said J. Robinson West, chairman of PFC Energy, an oil industry
consulting firm. But the smaller independents, he said, "are not going to
give up easily."

The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimated Tuesday that oil and
gas companies would receive about $10 billion in tax breaks over the next
five years that are specifically aimed at their industry.

Most of those tax breaks have been around for many years. They allow energy
companies to take substantial write-offs on their investments in new
equipment and hefty "depletion allowances" as companies use up the oil and
gas in a particular field.

Neither Mr. Bush nor Republican leaders in Congress have suggested an attack
on the industry's main tax breaks. Nor are they proposing to trim back tax
incentives written primarily for industry in general that also benefit major
oil companies.

One obscure tax cut, for example, included in a 2004 law to promote domestic
manufacturing, is expected to save energy companies at least $3.6 billion
over the next decade. ConocoPhillips, which earned $13.5 billion in 2005,
saved $106 million last year on that provision, which reduces the corporate
tax rate on profits on goods produced in the United States.

President Bush and Congressional leaders are focusing on about $2 billion in
tax breaks in last year's energy bill. Among other things, those tax breaks
let companies write off in just two years the geology studies associated
with exploration. For decades, the courts and the I.R.S. have said that
these are capital investments that can be written off only slowly, as oil is
produced from the fields.

Mr. Bush also called for repealing several hundred million dollars in
subsidies, also in the energy bill, for an industry-run deepwater drilling
research center in Sugar Land, Tex. That project's biggest champion was
Representative Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader whose district
includes Sugar Land.

Many Democrats had opposed the new tax breaks all along, and Senate
Democrats pushed for a provision that would trim them in a broader tax bill
that the Senate passed last fall. But that provision was not approved by the
House.

On Wednesday, leading Republicans made it clear they were now willing and
even eager to eliminate some of those tax breaks.

"I am happy to repeal tax breaks for the development of oil in foreign
countries," said Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico and
chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "I cannot
support the concept of tax breaks for oil companies while some American
families are searching their budgets for the extra cash they need to fill
their gas tanks."

But Republican lawmakers want to combine their seemingly tough new stance
with measures to increase production. High on the list is a new attempt to
open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to exploration.

Democrats are focusing more on taking things away from the industry. Senator
John Kerry of Massachusetts proposed legislation this week to repeal all tax
breaks for oil drilling and production - about $10 billion over the next
five years.

Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, proposed a measure to force energy
companies to pay royalties to the government on all oil and gas they produce
on federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico, if the price of crude oil is above
$55 a barrel. Some energy companies are now allowed "royalty relief"
expected to total about $7 billion over the next five years.

The mounting suspicion of oil companies was apparent in a letter to the
I.R.S. from Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is chairman
of the Finance Committee, and Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the committee's
senior Democrat. They demanded that the I.R.S. let them review the past five
years of tax returns filed by the nation's 15 biggest oil companies.

The senators pointedly noted an "extremely lucrative retirement plan by one
oil and gas industry executive" - an allusion to Lee R. Raymond, former
chairman of Exxon Mobil, who received $398 million in compensation on
retiring last year.

"We're seeing record profits and significant executive compensation in the
oil and gas industry," Mr. Grassley said. "I want to make sure the oil
companies aren't taking a speed pass by the tax man."

Red Caveney, president of the American Petroleum Institute, which represents
the large oil companies, said his group would not fight to retain the newest
tax breaks.

"We understand the frustration that consumers have expressed about energy
prices," Mr. Caveney told reporters on Wednesday.

"Ignatius Thistlewhite" wrote in message
.7...
You wrote:

Here is a link to ExxonMobil's SEC filings:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/sec?s=XOM

Please identify the line items showing "billions of government
dollars given to" ExxonMobil.


Similar question: Are tax incentives mentioned in the financial
statement?

1. You shall earn the right to ask question a question after you answer
those posed to you.

Your question beginning with "Please identify" was not directed at me.