GE may move its HQ after Connecticut passed state corporate tax increases.

[ou48A]

The odds are good that GE moves to Texas or Florida or someplace with better weather and a “more pro-business environment,"….

Oklahoma needs to move toward getting in this ball game and develop its own more pro-business environment. Maybe we don’t land a GE but would help our existing business grow and help with the relocations of smaller corporations to our state that could grow.

But this is what high taxes do….. They drive away the creation of wealth and all its benefits.

GE Stock Declining on Possible Headquarters Move After Connecticut Approves Tax Hike - TheStreet

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of General Electric (GE - Get Report) are falling 0.06% to $27.25 on reports that the company may explore moving its headquarters after Connecticut passed a budget that includes $1.2 billion in tax increases for some of the state's biggest corporations, Reuters reported.

On Wednesday, lawmakers approved a $40 billion biannual budget, CNBC.com reported. The budget would increase business taxes by around $500 million over two years, Reuters pointed out. The measures, extend a 20% surcharge on corporate tax, and introduce a tax on group-wide income even if it originates out of state.

CEO Jeff Immelt sent an email yesterday to GE's Connecticut employees saying that he had asked the team to examine the company's options to relocate the headquarters to a state with a "more pro-business environment," according to Reuters. He claimed GE's state taxes have increased five times since 2011.

"I believe we should pay our fair share and that all of us should give back to our communities. But, we can compare Connecticut with other states where small and large businesses have a better environment to thrive and compete," Immelt wrote in the email, CNBC.com noted.

GE currently has about 5,700 employees in Connecticut.

[bchris02]

I agree. I wish OKC could be in the game for just a small percentage of these huge corporate relocations currently flooding into Dallas, Houston, and Austin. For a small market like OKC, just landing one or two of them would be a complete game changer.

[Anonymous.]

OKC needs to go full frontal and show GE all the goods. What could it hurt?

[Just the facts]

How much more pro-business can OKC possibly be?

[Jersey Boss]

Press Release: General Electric's Ten Year Tax Rate Only Two Percent | Tax Justice Blog

General Electric Paid Only Two Percent Federal Income Tax Rate Over the Past Decade, Citizens for Tax Justice Analysis Finds; Actual Payments Were Probably Lower

Washington, DC – General Electric’s (GE) annual SEC 10-K filing for 2011 (filed February 24, 2012) reveals that the company paid at most two percent of its $80.2 billion in U.S. pretax profits in federal income taxes over the last 10 years.

Following revelations in March 2011 that GE paid no federal income taxes in 2010 and in fact enjoyed $3.3 billion in net tax benefits, GE told AFP (3/29/2011), “GE did not pay US federal taxes last year because we did not owe any.” But don’t worry, GE told Dow Jones Newswires (3/28/2011), “our 2011 tax rate is slated to return to more normal levels with GE Capital’s recovery.”

As it turns out, however, in 2011 GE’s effective federal income tax rate was only 11.3 percent, less than a third the official 35 percent corporate tax rate.

[Jersey Boss]

Imagination at Work? GE Once Again Pays Less Than 1% in Federal Taxes | Tax Justice Blog 3-3-2015

[Just the facts]

Is attracting a tax parasite the best thing for Oklahoma to be going after?

[Jersey Boss]

Cry me a river. It would be nice if these so called "corporations are people" paid in taxes what real people do.

[Just the facts]

Cry me a river. It would be nice if these so called "corporations are people" paid in taxes what real people do.

Maybe we could have no state income tax if corporations were paying the actual effective rate they should be paying.

[gopokes88]

Lol shares are falling .06% on news. That's just bad reporting.

You could put together a MASSIVE tax package to get GE and still make money.

GE has revenue of 147 billion. That's 14 times the size of Devon. It is a massive company. We'd probably have to build another terminal at the airport simply to handle their air traffic alone.

Good news is because the shareholders meeting was here okc is on their radar. If they don't come here it won't be because of a lack of exposure. If they moved to Dallas (most likely) or Austin (probably second option) they are still close and we could still continue to get more jobs here.

Bad news. They aren't going anywhere. It's a threat so Conn writes them a loophole and exempts them.

Oh and stop whining about GE taking every tax advantage they can find. (Unless of course you leave off some tax deductible items to pay a little more cause you're such a great guy). It's ultimately the governments responsibility to write the tax code, not GE's.

[Jersey Boss]

Calling out the hypocrisy of GE claiming they are over taxed is not whining. Sorry, I don't have a battery of lawyers exercising "free speech" for me by campaigning for tax breaks while whining , dining, and contributing to super pacs.

[ou48A]

How much more pro-business can OKC possibly be?

Oklahoma could improve its corporate business environment by huge amounts…. and there is no doubt about this…….

On something like this Oklahoma really isn’t even competitive and IMHO it’s in large part due to the fact that we do not provide across the board funding for the higher education sciences at competitive levels…

Oklahoma has way too many duplicate and near worthless degree programs that should be shut down with the funding switched to degree programs such as engineering that corporations like GE want.

[dankrutka]

Oklahoma could improve its corporate business environment by huge amounts…. and there is no doubt about this…….

On something like this Oklahoma really isn’t even competitive and IMHO it’s in large part due to the fact that we do not provide across the board funding for the higher education sciences at competitive levels…

Oklahoma has way too many duplicate and near worthless degree programs that should be shut down with the funding switched to degree programs such as engineering that corporations like GE want.

Which degree programs should be shut down?

[Just the facts]

This just in for those who think the State will make back the incentive money - GE is moving because they don't want to pay taxes. If they wanted to pay taxes they would just stay in CT.

[Snowman]

This just in for those who think the State will make back the incentive money - GE is moving because they don't want to pay taxes. If they wanted to pay taxes they would just stay in CT.

If I remember correctly they have been a perennial top five on ability to structure their business in such a way to pay practically no tax, I am guessing the issue may be the laws are now closing some loopholes previously available.

[David]

Even if GE as a company manages to work its tax situation very favorably for itself, I suspect that the amount of personal income tax and sales tax paid by their employees is not insignificant in the slightest. Not to mention the amount of income such a population would be spending in an area simply to live there.

[Snowman]

Even if GE as a company manages to work its tax situation very favorably for itself, I suspect that the amount of personal income tax and sales tax paid by their employees is not insignificant in the slightest. Not to mention the amount of income such a population would be spending in an area simply to live there.

It does, which is why most mid to large relocation get some level of subsidy, possibly even why they are letting the word get out to solicit offers. Though it is not uncommon for the employee numbers to come in well under (or at least the low end) of projected job numbers. Plus if governments are not careful some parts may either be relocated or departments downsized long before the subsidies end.

A recent article that comes to mind was a Seattle writer was talking about how poorly Seattle's recent deal with Boeing was, grudgingly praising some of our deals, I can not remember if he outright mentioned how some of our claw-back measures were but they certainly would have helped in parts of the worst part of their deal. I think our proximity to Texas kind of forced Oklahoma's hand on going in aggressively early on incentives and having done that learned some painful experiences on how to at least put in some reasonable protection measures for when deals go bad.

[mugofbeer]

Even if GE as a company manages to work its tax situation very favorably for itself, I suspect that the amount of personal income tax and sales tax paid by their employees is not insignificant in the slightest. Not to mention the amount of income such a population would be spending in an area simply to live there.

I worked in Greenwich and Stamford,CT and had a lot of GE Execs for clients. Believe me, the state of CT makes billions in personal taxes off these folks. Also, i will say, GE and its employees are highly woven into Fairfield county and have been for decades. If the HQ is moved, it will just be the sign and a few token employees. More likely there will be little future growth i CT and more ops set up elsewhere like GE is doing here and Boeing is doing. OKCs job is to show we can handle things that arent oil and gas related.

[gopokes88]

Calling out the hypocrisy of GE claiming they are over taxed is not whining. Sorry, I don't have a battery of lawyers exercising "free speech" for me by campaigning for tax breaks while whining , dining, and contributing to super pacs.

See what your doing right there, most would call that whining because you don't have the same advantages they do. You are holding the wrong people responsible. It's the government who writes the tax code, not GE. GE just takes advantage as I'm sure you do on your taxes. Sure the amounts are different but you have the exact same attitude they do. Since you aren't the tax morality god you don't get to decide when a corp or person has too much money and shouldn't use the tax code to their advantage. In a way you're the real hypocrite.

Of course you won't hold the government responsible for their complete incompetatance. that goes against the liberal dogma that the government has a clue what it's doing and a force good.

[Just the facts]

I seriously doubt the State of Connecticut is making billion off employee taxes. They only have 5,700 employees in the State and you can bet you backside that the high paid corporate executives have done everything in their power to structured their compensation to avoid as much taxation as possible.

[Jersey Boss]

See what your doing right there, most would call that whining because you don't have the same advantages they do. You are holding the wrong people responsible. It's the government who writes the tax code, not GE. GE just takes advantage as I'm sure you do on your taxes. Sure the amounts are different but you have the exact same attitude they do. Since you aren't the tax morality god you don't get to decide when a corp or person has too much money and shouldn't use the tax code to their advantage. In a way you're the real hypocrite.

Of course you won't hold the government responsible for their complete incompetatance. that goes against the liberal dogma that the government has a clue what it's doing and a force good.

What you are doing is deftly changing the argument that GE is full of it when claiming to be overtaxed. When it is shown that GE is engaged in hypocritical whining about being overtaxed, you become a corporate apologist claiming "you would do it to if you had their advantages". What I would do or would not do, does not shield GE from being called out for a hypocritical argument. Instead of calling me a whiner, refute the claim that GE is in fact not avoiding taxes is in fact paying more than they should and as a consequence must flee their oppressors.

[Jim Kyle]

Instead of calling me a whiner, refute the claim that GE is in fact not avoiding taxes is in fact paying more than they should and as a consequence must flee their oppressors.

Their complaint is not about the tax rate they have been paying in the past; it's about a 20% surcharge added to all corporate taxes. To be fair, should such a surcharge be required, it should be on all taxes, not just those of corporations. "Corporate persons" should be treated the same as "organic persons" under the laws of the land; otherwise "equality" becomes more of a farce than is the current definition of personhood.

[mugofbeer]

OK. Billions is too high. But those 5700 earn far more than any OK corp pays. Between higher income taxes, far higher property taxes and relative sales taxes, they are well into hundreds of millions. There is definitely a tight link to the area so i dont see them moving significant numbers.

[TU 'cane]

OKC just has to be aggressive, that's all the Chamber can do for both OKC and Tulsa.

Education, politics, yes, those play heavily into companies decisions, but we can try and change those on local levels. But as for trying to actively draw the companies themselves, city leadership MUST step up.

I wish OKC would keep on the aerospace draw as it's a growing industry again. That could really propel OKC forward even further.

We'll see what the GE research facility does. I'm hoping a lot.

[Just the facts]

What GE does is lobby Congress to grant the industries they operate in favorable tax status. In many of their product markets they operate in an almost tax-free environment . Take solar pannels and wind turbines as an example. They get federal subsidies to make them, their customers get tax credits to buy them, and they get Congress to mandate the use of their output. And if that isn't enough handouts they come to places like OKC and ask for million more in taxpayer money.

Meanwhile back at the farm, their executives get high 8 figure incomes and Wall Street makes billions. I've concluded if we did close all these tax loopholes most companies would go out of business. Now we know why we are $17 trillion in debt.