Despite Over $1 Billion Profit Facebook Pays ZERO Federal Tax

It's pays to be a Facebook "friend" of Obama!

It PAYS BIG to be a "friend" of Obama!

I have two Obama quotes to share with you. One you've heard over and over and over and over. The other, probably not but they connect in this story.

Variants of the first quote used widely: "millionaires and billionaires should pay their fair share." The second spoken to a Latino audience in 2010: "We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends."

When it comes to being "friends" with Obama the Facebook corporate crowd is right in tight. Chris Hughes, one of Facebook's founders left the company to help the first Obama campaign with their new media strategy. Obama has been very close to Facebook and it's CEO Mark Zuckerberg is described as having "long maintained a positive and public relationship with President Obama."
It won't surprise anyone that Facebook's employees have been very generous to the Obama campaign.

So, considering how Facebook is a fully paid up friend of Obama, it's no surprise they get a payback. But what a whopper!

Citizens for Tax Justice: Earlier this month, the Facebook Inc. released its first “10-K” annual financial report since going public last year. Hidden in the report’s footnotes is an amazing admission: despite $1.1 billion in U.S. profits in 2012, Facebook did not pay even a dime in federal and state income taxes. Instead, Facebook says it will receive net tax refunds totaling $429 million. Facebook’s income tax refunds stem from the company’s use of a single tax break, the tax deductibility of executive stock options.

There's a third often used Obama quote. In a speech delivered to a joint session of Congress in 2009 Obama said: "if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime." It's a pledge he's made over and over and repeatedly broken. And while middle and lower income workers have seen dramatic tax increases under Obama, Facebook hasn't had to shell out a "single dime" in taxes for 2012.

For the record, let's note that the GOP proposed closing tax loopholes on corporations as part of the Fiscal Cliff deal. Obama, who had been for closing loopholes up until the time the GOP proposed them promptly changed course and said "NO." Why? Because he won the election and wasn't about to accept anything from the GOP except complete surrender.

Let's also note that during the Fiscal Cliff negotiations in which Obama rejected closing corporate tax loopholes he insisted on $76 billion in additional tax benefits for his big corporate buddies like Warren Buffet. It sure does pay to be a friend of Obama!

The next time Obama demands that millionaires and billionaires should pay more in taxes just remember that this doesn't apply to his friends. It only applies to the rest of us. And guess who ends up paying most under Obama's schemes? The little guy; lower and middle income workers!