BP to get big TAX BREAK for poisoning the Gulf?!

[annabanana]

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/14/bp-to-get-huge-tax-break-for-poisoning-the-gulf/

BP cannot write off future government fines and penalties, including criminal fines, but it can write off punitive damages that are awarded by courts, according to a report by Center for American Progress tax expert Sima Gandhi. Over the opposition of 36 Republicans and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), the Senate passed an amendment to the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010 to eliminate the deduction for punitive damages in June, but the tax reform bill has since been filibustered three times.

This blanket filibuster is killilng us!.. Can't there be rules to limit the number of times it can be used in any legislative session?, just to make them do a little work when they try to stop America in it's tracks?

[dipsydoodle]

1. Works both ways

BP plc is UK registered and under UK company law fines and penalties can't be treated as allowable expense against tax. Same probably applies here in the UK to punitive damages.

The down side is that reduces their ability to pay such fines and damages etc so it starts to work back to front. :shrug:

Different parties could have totally opposing vested interests on this subject.

[annabanana]

2. "their ability to pay such fines" . .?

I don't think there's much danger of that with this, what?, 6th largest company on Earth..

[dipsydoodle]

3. It was punative damages I had in mind.

Profit isn't necessarily cash : can exist in a number of forms. They're struggling to round up dosh for the escrow a/c. The plan was : bank loans, bonds and non core asset sales. Bank loans were sorted, bonds went out of the window when their credit rating dropped and asset sales are pending.

btw : Don't ever fall into the trap of relating their share prices to their balance sheet. Wholly unrelated issues. Company shares are on balance sheets at issue prices which in the case of BP plc is 25 cents each

[obxhead]

4. We should have ended the filibuster when we had the chance under Bush.