Stories abound about giant corporations raking in bug profits, but paying no taxes. Whirlpool will have to go into spin cycle to explain a big tax refund, big profits and no taxes paid in the last three years.
As ThinkProgress has been reporting, Main Street America’s services, investments, and jobs are under attack while many of the nation’s wealthiest individuals and corporations are getting away with paying little to nothing in federal income taxes. Today, BusinessWeek reports that Whirpool, the world’s largest appliance maker, has been a major tax dodger. The company had negative income tax rates over the past three years, and reported a $64 million income tax benefit last year. It expects similar results this year:
Sales at the appliance maker rose 7 percent to $18.4 billion last year after dropping during the housing slump of the previous two years. In the year-earlier quarter, the company attributed a rise in revenue to increased productivity.
Whirlpool had negative effective income tax rates in 2010, 2009 and 2008. Last year, the company reported an income tax benefit of $64 million and an effective tax rate of negative 10.9 percent, according to company filings. The company expects a similar tax benefit in 2011, corporate controller Larry Venturelli told analysts today.
… [emphasis original]
Inserted from <
Our clothes may get clean, but we, the taxpayers, are getting soaked!
8 Responses to “The Whirlpool Spin Cycle”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Whirlpool outsourced its jobs several years ago–destroying the economy in its USA home–
oops–this year–check this out:Whirlpool to outsource refrigerator manufacturing to Mexico
By Eartha Jane Melzer | 02.22.10 | 2:24 pm
*
The Benton Harbor-based Whirlpool corporation, which recently received a $19 million dollar stimulus grant from the Dept. of Energy to develop smart grid capable appliances, is moving forward with plans to close it’s Evansville, Indiana refrigerator plant and build a new plant in Mexico.
KCRG TV-9 reports that Whirlpool plans to close the plant in June, eliminating 1,100 full-time jobs. Union members are angry that the company is collecting public subsidies while eliminating jobs.
“Whirlpool is a bad corporate citizen who is twisting this country’s desire to reduce energy usage and using it to export jobs,” said [Industrial Division of the Communication Workers of America] President Jim Clark. “We are pushing hard to ensure that good intentions on going green don’t help fund loss of good manufacturing jobs.”
The local and the Division also are planning informational protests at retailers such as Lowes and Sears because they sell Whirlpool products.
Though the company announcement on the plant closing cited “excess capacity” as a driver, Whirlpool will be building a new plant to expand its complex about 100 miles from the U.S. border. The refrigerators are primarily for the U.S. market.
Whirlpool sells the refrigerators, which have freezers on the top, under the Amana, Roper, Maytag, Kitchenaid and Kenmore brand names.
The Whirlpool factory is a major employer of blind workers in the Evansville area, Tristate Homepage reports, and the Evansville Association for the Blind has issued a pleas for help in finding new opportunities for its members.
Whirlpool is also expected to benefit from state rebate programs that promote the purchasing of newer, more efficient appliances.
can you handle even more??
Whirlpool gets $19 million in Taxpayer Stimulus funds, Offshore Outsources the Jobs
Submitted by Robert Oak on Tue, 03/02/2010 – 13:1
Believe this or not, Whirlpool received Stimulus funds to create jobs and instead they are closing plants! This is obscene that they are being given funds to create jobs and instead offshore outsourcing them. We should demand at least those funds be rescinded.
It can barely get greedier than this: We’re in tough economic times, so Whirlpool receives $19 million in taxpayer funds to create jobs. Then it turns around and announces it will shutter its Evansville, Indiana refrigerator plant and displace the 1,100 workers there. Disgusting.
Public Citizen is requesting all write their representatives to pass The Trade Act. I’ll add to that, when, when, when are we going to stop giving away U.S. taxpayer money to these Benedict Arnold corporations which take the funds, the incentives and simply offshore outsource the jobs??? Put that in your letter for me, please.
It gets even worse, Alan Tonelson points out the Obama administration puts another outsourcer in power.
President Obama’s decision to put Honeywell Chairman David M. Cote on the new bipartisan commission to reduce America’s debts and deficits is like putting Tiger Woods on a national commission to promote marital fidelity. And here’s why this unflattering comparison is eminently justified.
Like so many of America’s other manufacturing giants, Honeywell has long been a champion outsourcer, and the strategy has continued under Cote. Since Cote assumed the top job in 2002, Honeywell figures show that its foreign assets have remained at about 20 percent of its global assets. But through 2008, the American share of its workforce has sunk from 55.05 percent of the global total to 45.31 percent, as the company shed 2,000 domestic employees and hired 21,000 foreign employees. Final 2009 figures aren’t yet in, but news reports indicate that last year, Honeywell sent at least 1,100 more jobs offshore – along with the associated production work (in jet engines and elsewhere in aerospace, no less).
Folks, I’m positive you didn’t vote for Obama so he could put a host of offshore outsourcers, making policy, in charge of U.S. trade and economic direction. Complain!
Read Lori Wallach’s review of USTR policy, it’s a glorified Bush Trade Policy Redux.
Wow Phyllis! Thanks. I knew that they had been outsourcing, but not the details. You covbered this better in comments than I did in the article. Kudos and thanks.
There’s a simple solution here: for corporations like Whirlpool, who outsource jobs and then pay no taxes while showering their boards and wealthy stockholders with immense dividends, we should just tax their capital gains at 99% with no loopholes. Then we ought to jail the entire corporate board with a five year sentence at very hard labor.
These thieving bastards have got to PAY!!!!!
Jack, currently the US encourages outsourcing by subsidizing it. We need to subsidize job creation here and penalize outsourcing with tariffs.
I’m sick of companies getting incentives and not paying taxes. There should be a penalty associated in the tax code that you pay an extra $10K for every job you export. No more “incentives” or subsidies; pay your fucking taxes and keep you employees here. Period. Nice Job Phyllis for filling us in. 😡
Lisa, see my reply to Jack. Phyllis sure did!