Friday, August 15, 2008

All the Incorrect Tax Information That's Fit to Print

If your tax accountant ever worked for the New York Times change accountants as fast as you can! This correction (You'll probably want to bookmark this site. It's humor is priceless) indicates that people at the Times don't understand the difference between gross sales and net taxable income.

An article on Wednesday about a Government Accountability Office study reporting on the percentage of corporations that paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005 gave an incorrect figure for the estimated tax liability of the 1.3 million companies covered by the study. It is not $875 billion. The correct amount cannot be calculated because it would be based on the companies paying the standard rate of 35 percent on their net income, a figure that is not available. (The incorrect figure of $875 billion was based on the companies paying the standard rate on their $2.5 trillion in gross sales.)

So, the paper publishes an article to rally the anti-corporate troops about industrial titans who make money hand over fist without paying any taxes. Then follows that with a correction essentially saying 'Never mind, we have no idea how to compute taxable income.' I'm sure there's no agenda here.

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