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FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019
- sarcasmatwork 7y agoExpected behavior coming from New York Times. Good on Fedex for pushing back.
- mmazing 7y agoCare to elaborate?
- chrismeller 7y agoNot OP, but I’ll take a stab at it: he’s saying that the NYT is overly liberal, frequently trashes businesses as being tax evaders and plagues on society, misses its own hypocrisy, and doesn’t live up to its historical pedigree when it comes to fact checking.
- mmazing 7y agoThere, that wasn't so hard. Take a lesson, OP, list specific verifiable arguments instead of ad hominem "yeah those guys suck as usual".
- chrismeller 7y agoWait, I’m verifiable? Who knew?!
- Shivetya 7y agoNYT and a few other papers are pretty much running in campaign mode, floating trial balloons of policy ideas of candidates they favor if not outright pushing forward a narrative which aligns with the direction one campaign or another is following. So stories align to support the narrative. The 2020 narrative for the Democratic Party is again wealth envy and how all the woes can be solved if X just pays their fair share. The easy villains are billionaires and large well known companies. After all it is damn easy to make numbers appear however you want; see the recent claim Amtrak might make a profit which is only true if you don't look hard. we are already deep into the election cycle for the next President and Congress so you must use a heavy filter on stories you read on the NYT and even here. you can pretty much toss any story that gets around to mentioning one candidate or another.
- unethical_ban 7y agoYou have to use a filter on just about anything that you read, but the point by so many others remain: Not a single person in this thread or from Fedex has actually rebutted the journalist's claims in the original article.
- mmazing 7y agoHow do you feel about the difference in income tax rates from the mid twentieth century to now for the upper wealth brackets?
- whatthesmack 7y agoThe rates that nobody paid, because of tax "loopholes"? There's no reason to compare rates that nobody paid.
- larnmar 7y agoI’d rather go back to the early 20th century when income taxes weren’t even a thing, and yet everything still worked somehow.
- frockington1 7y agoA step in the right direction. The lower the better in my opinion, the federal government is long past its prime
- mmazing 7y agoIs that because you think that the federal government doesn't properly utilize the tax dollars that it receives? If the federal government is past its prime, what do you think that the future of the United States should look like?
- malvosenior 7y ago> Is that because you think that the federal government doesn't properly utilize the tax dollars that it receives? Not the OP but this is absolutely how I feel. I think I would only be happy to pay taxes if every single dollar I spent was accounted for with a way to track progress on what is being funded. Missing milestones or goals would result in me paying no more taxes on that project until whatever management in place was restructured.
- mc32 7y agoYou’d think they’d have their house in order before besmirching someone else... good on FedEx calling them out.
- scott_s 7y agoJournalists and editors should not let the business practices of the paper they work for prevent them from investigating and publishing stories. This is a feature, not a bug.
- dantheman 7y agoThe story is inconsistent - we have tax policy to encourage innovation and investment, the new york times supports this style of policy. They call out people who actually then take the government up on the incentives. The critique of the tax cut also didn't make a lot of sense. It's just a poor story - it's unclear what it's objective is.
- mc32 7y agoIf they are going to do that, I’d expect disclosure: “Your revered newspaper is misrepresenting facts and also does worse than the entity we’re calling out”. Or at least “We also do the things we call others out on.”
- nkrisc 7y agoWhich facts about FedEx were misrepresented?
- pastor_elm 7y agowhat exactly was not factual in there article? The statement doesn't mention any specifics.
- tootie 7y agoIt's not at all incumbent on journalists to moderate their reporting based on the ownership of their publication. I don't understand why it's relevant. FedEx is within their rights to criticize the NY Times as an institution, but it doesn't make their reporting any less accurate. And Smith didn't even try to refute any of the details of the story.
- pastor_elm 7y agoThere's nothing less genuine than flat out claiming a claim is not factual without providing proof or even pointing out specifics. It's clear Fedex is deflecting here. Nothing more.
- DerpyBaby123 7y agoThey can 'push back' best by saying what was incorrect about the article in question
- mcguire 7y agoOr just say, "Nuh-uh! You did it, too!" That seems to work.
- jmull 7y agoUh, I don't see any substance in the pushback. Is there any? E.g., how does the fact that the NYTimes paid no federal income tax in 2017 address or refute anything in the article? Likewise the other financial facts about the NYTimes doesn't seem related. The times article is about how the tax cuts did not result in the capital investments promised, by FexEx and others. Now, if the times had lobbied for the tax cut and likewise claimed capital gains investments would increase but then they didn't, that would be relevant.
- ryanmercer 7y ago>The times article is about how the tax cuts did not result in the capital investments promised, by FexEx and others. Drive by IND on 70, you can see the capital investment that was one of the promises of this. Hub expansion via construction (similar construction at MEM). The construction at IND is so large you can actually see it from the other side of the airport, I know because I see it every weekday when I pull into the parking lot at work. https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2018/01/26/fedex-credits-tax-cuts-1-5-billion-expansion-indianapolis-hub/1068813001/ https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2018/01/26/fedex-credits... 800,000 sqft expansion at IND alone https://bgabuilders.com/fedex-indianapolis-ob4-project/ https://bgabuilders.com/fedex-indianapolis-ob4-project/
- drak0n1c 7y agoThank you for providing evidence. That's certainly a much larger capital investment than the NYT has ever made. Why is this downvoted when the parent comment asked for proof?
- jrockway 7y agoThey spent $850,000,000 on a new building in New York City in 2007.
- ryanmercer 7y agoWhat does 2007 have to do with this article or subject?
- callmeal 7y agoLets look at the facts as reported by the NYT: 1. Fedex owed 1.5 Billion in taxes in 2017. 2. They owe 0 in taxes after the bill. 3. As for capital investments, the company spent less in the 2018 fiscal year than it had projected in December 2017, before the tax law passed. It spent even less in 2019. Much of its savings have gone to reward shareholders: FedEx spent more than $2 billion on stock buybacks and dividend increases in the 2019 fiscal year, up from $1.6 billion in 2018, and more than double the amount the company spent on buybacks and dividends in fiscal year 2017. They are not disputing those numbers at all. What they want to do is "The focus of the debate should be federal tax policy and the relative societal benefits of business investments and the enormous intended benefits to the United States economy, especially lower and middle class wage earners." Bet seeing those numbers (2017 Tax bill: $1,500,000,000, 2018 tax bill: $0) must have stung and Fedex is frantically trying to change the topic of conversation.
- mmazing 7y agoMore of the "but what about them" logic, or "they did it too so it's fine". NYT should put out an article criticizing themselves AND FedEx, maybe they're both shitty but doesn't excuse one or the other.
- mthoms 7y agoIf the NYT made the same B.S. arguments in favor of the tax cut then sure. But they did no such thing.
- tathougies 7y agoIt is indeed odd to single out a particular company for paying zero in tax (fedex in this case) as the result of a temporary tax reform bill which it seems the newspaper also took part in. While perhaps the NYT's story was 'correct', it neglected to point out that other companies also took advantage of this fact and that indeed this was the purpose of the tax reform. Instead, it sounds like the NYT made Fedex into some kind of bogeyman attempting to avoid taxes, instead of telling the full story, which is that, by American government policy, the government of the United States of America decided to offer businesses a way to significantly reduce their federal tax bill by investing their money into capital assets. This is a much less sinister sounding headline, which is likely why the NYT neglected to publish it. It's like if the government passed a bill to reward families that have children in the next five years with 10k USD each, and, instead of reporting on this bill in general, the new york times decided to only report on why bob and sally had four kids in those five years to milk the government of money. It's dishonest reporting, which is unsurprising coming from the new york times.
- nkrisc 7y agoBut based on the this statement, I'm inclined to believe that everything the NYT published was, in fact, true. No where in the statement does it call into question any of the facts, just calling it an "outrageous distortion" of the truth. Which implies it is true, though he certainly takes issue with the characterization of the truth. So if expected behavior of the NYT is factual reporting, I'd say they're on the money!
- rahimnathwani 7y agoResponse to this: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/17/business/how-fedex-cut-its-tax-bill-to-0.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/17/business/how-fedex-cut-it...
- TheCraiggers 7y agoToo bad it's impossible to read because of multiple overlays. I guess I'll take FedEx's word for it.
- Miner49er 7y agoFedEx didn't even dispute any of the article. They're just doing some whataboutism. Edit: Can someone downvoting point out where I'm wrong? They say the NYTimes distorted the truth, but give no indication of how.
- remarkEon 7y agoThe "whataboutism" is the crux of the issue though. Everyone does their best to minimize their tax burden every year - this is completely rational behavior. I don't know what point the NYT was trying to make, other than maybe showing that FedEx has some good accountants. The debate that we should be having, and the one that FedEx is perhaps crudely trying to edge us toward, is whether these tax policies actually "help". They are going to say it does, and that they invest that money in the broader economy. The NYT would probably say something similar with regard to the value of journalism.
- Miner49er 7y agoDid you read the NYTimes article? The article is more about how FedEx didn't re-invest the money saved on taxes like they claimed they would. Instead they put used it for stock buybacks and dividends. The NYTimes article was about the very thing you said it should be about.
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- atonse 7y agoI love this idea – of an actual, genuine debate on this topic where an actual corporate executive can make some points (I know they will be Tim-Cook-like spin but debate is better than asynchronous speeches where people talk at each other) Update: I realized I didn't write the second half of my sentence... which makes me sound like a corporate shill. The second half is... AND someone on the other side can immediately call bullshit on their spin, but we can have a proper debate on the inadequacy of current Federal tax policy.
- Shivetya 7y agoWell only if an explanation about how these companies arrive at these low tax payments. It is one thing to say "You did it too" but the public cannot be properly served unless we have a factual discussion of why their tax payments are this low and the benefits to both the company and public at large are shown. eighty thousand plus pages of tax laws aren't meant to be simply to understand nor do the outcomes always make sense. the NYT would better serve the public showing just how abusive the tax law is because it mostly it is a political tool for calling in favors and punishing those who don't play ball besides being a revenue tool.
- nartz 7y agoIt would be great to have a few fact sheets sent through beforehand, and main questions published and moderated properly, as opposed to a political high level back and forth solving nothing.
- mcguire 7y agoIn my opinion, debates are all about spin. They're too short to allow proper analysis of the responses, and mostly concern the personalities of the people. Two examples: T.H. Huxley and Samuel Wilberforce, and a round-table I once attended with Dijkstra and Larry Loucks of IBM, along with a couple of other professors who were completely outclassed by those two. EWD was slow and very precise, it was clear that he was thinking deeply about the topics, but he didn't actually say much in the time alloted; Larry was fast, facile, and rather shallow, he was of the IBM style (he who talks loudest is in charge).
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- systemdtrigger 7y agoFailing new York times. If only liberals weren't so enamored with their deliveries while they sit at home and watch CNN they'd probably label FedEx as orange man coconspolirator. The establishment media made up Russian collusion and after 2 years refuses to apologize for 100% made up claims. They had the balls to give themselves pulitzer and ruin it's legacy. Thank God FedEx is pushing back.
- dwoozle 7y agoDamn, can’t believe Fred Smith is still running FedEx.
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- scott_s 7y agoThis statement is a farce. They claim the story is factually incorrect, but provide no corrections. They point out the NYT does the same thing, but that does not contradict anything in the NYT article, and has no bearing on what they did. Finally, they yell "debate me!" but rather than proposing a debate on the facts in dispute, instead want to debate federal tax policy which neither controls.
- appleiigs 7y agoI think it's a great statement. They aren't disputing the facts. Fedex is disputing that cutting taxes is a bad thing and is saying lets talk about it. EDIT: and as you pointed out Fedex is just following fed tax policy that it doesn't control.
- burkaman 7y ago> They aren't disputing the facts. > The New York Times published a distorted and factually incorrect story [...] this outrageous distortion of the truth [...]
- jjoonathan 7y agoThey don't actually list the facts they dispute, they just make that generic statement and then list some unrelated facts that paint them in a flattering light and hope that you assume those were the facts the NYT got wrong.
- scott_s 7y agoTo be clear, I believe burkaman agrees with you. The post they responded to said that FedEx "is not disputing the facts." burkaman pointed out the part of FedEx's statement where they do just that - except, as you correctly point out, FedEx never says which facts.
- slg 7y ago>They aren't disputing the facts. I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion. The first sentence says the story is "distorted and factually incorrect" and they later call it an "outrageous distortion of the truth". This statement is screaming "fake news" and "debate me" like some Twitter troll. It is crazy to see this as an official statement from a Fortune 100 company.
- gregwtmtno 7y agoSo this response says the story is factually incorrect, but doesn't dispute a single fact. If the story is inaccurate, FedEx should describe what was wrong, in detail, and ask for a correction. That they didn't do that makes me wonder.
- lstroud 7y agoCorrections don’t sell papers...err get clicks. They also don’t evolve the narrative. Fedex isn’t just challenging the facts. They are challenging the underlying premise that corporations are a net negative on society. I think it would be fascinating to see an actual debate by folks that aren’t politicians, but are willing to put their public reputation on the line.
- gregwtmtno 7y agoThe Times newsroom doesn't posit premises (and certainly not the one you suggest) or debate tax policy, it reports facts. I find the ignorance on the basics of journalism and its role in American society on hacker news to be shocking and embarrassing.
- frockington1 7y agoNo person/group/company is ever perfect. Always be skeptical of everything. Here's a humorous mistake where the Times created inception-esque corrections: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/09/new-york-times-aleppo-story-inception-but-for-corrections.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/09/new-york-times-a...
- learc83 7y ago>Fedex isn’t just challenging the facts. But they are also challenging the facts, and then refusing to state what facts are incorrect.
- mthoms 7y ago>Fedex isn’t just challenging the facts. Actually, they didn't say anything that challenges a single specific fact from the article. > They are challenging the underlying premise that corporations are a net negative on society. The article never made that claim (nor even implied it). What Fedex is doing is attempting to change the discussion from a very specific accusation to, well, anything other than what the specific accusation were. I can't believe otherwise intelligent people fall for this nonsense.
- licebmi__at__ 7y agoBesides the call for a debate (which frankly, I don't think will amount to anything worthwhile), isn't this exercise just "whataboutism"?
- CPLX 7y agoThis is stupid. The NY Times, as a business, wasn't a subject of the article. It's not a competition between a media company and a shipping company. It's a piece of journalism. Either that journalism is accurate or it isn't. If it's wrong they should issue a correction, or review how it could be misleading or slanted and offer an alternate perspective. If it's correct they should stand by it. In no event does the writing of a journalist, edited by an editor, have anything to do with the NY Times company as a business institution. To claim otherwise is to buy into a frame that makes literally no sense here. I see why Fedex is doing it, it's apparently effective, even with the analytically sophisticated HN crowd. But this response is nonsense, it's almost a complete non-sequitur. If I were the writer or editor of the story I'd tell Fedex to get bent. And if I were the publisher I'd patiently explain, yet again, the concept of independent journalism.
- panarky 7y agoThe FedEx statement seems like a classic example of corporate deception. It seems very carefully worded, probably by a team of attorneys, to be technically true but grossly misleading. The tell is that FedEx calls the NYT article "factually incorrect" but never states exactly what assertions they dispute. It's as if they want the reader and the media to infer that FedEx actually did pay taxes on billions in profit, or that FedEx actually did increase their investments as the phony rationale for the tax cut promised. But since FedEx never actually says any of that, and instead just tries to infer it through clever wording, I'm going to trust NYT over this corporate snow job. When FedEx twists the argument to accuse the NYT of also not increasing their capital investments, the whole thing reeks of Facebook's disinfo campaign to "deny and deflect" fundamentally factual reporting.
- partiallypro 7y ago> The FedEx statement seems like a classic example of corporate deception. This coincidentally also describes the NYTs piece which was also misleading, bordering on activism.
- Someone1234 7y ago
- WhompingWindows 7y agoWow, let's get more debates between various institutions, not sure why we don't have more to begin with. For instance, why is it that the Democratic and GOP primaries never crossed paths? Shouldn't they have organized some R vs D debates before the final two candidates? Or what about FCC vs net neutrality advocates? Kaepernick vs Police Chief? I can think of lots of interesting pairings that will sadly never happen.
- frockington1 7y agoI would be interesting in opening up debates like those you mentioned. The hard part would be attracting the average person and not just people with extreme or conspiracy-theorists views
- sonofaplum 7y agoDoesn't respond to any of the claims in the story. The story is about 1) how FedEx lobbied for the Trump tax cuts, 2) what they claimed they would do with that money if the tax cuts were passed, 3) what they actually did with that money and 4) what the implications are for the efficacy of the Trump tax cuts in general. If the New York Times corporation followed exactly the same playbook as FedEx with regard to lobbying, how would that change any of the four points above? And what would Arthur Sulzbergers opinions about tax cuts have to do with the reporting of the story? It's an extremely blatant and I thought transparent attempt to change the subject, but, if the first fifteen comments here are any indication, a surprisingly effective one.
- pitaj 7y agoCorporate taxes shouldn't exist, especially in their current form. Corporate taxes are just reflected to consumers as higher prices or to workers as lower wages. In the current structure, corporate taxes benefit large businesses more with large legal departments because they can afford to take advantage of deductions etc. Corporate taxes should be replaced by an increase in capital gains tax.
- js2 7y ago> Corporate taxes are just reflected to consumers as higher prices or to workers as lower wages. The United States has had a corporate income tax since 1909, but in all the years since there is a major question about it that economists haven’t been able to answer satisfactorily: who pays it? [...] Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices. All economists reject that idea. [...] That leaves two remaining groups that may bear the burden of the corporate tax: workers and shareholders. [...] Most economists now agree that the burden of the corporate income tax falls on labor to some extent, but there is disagreement over the degree. [...] People should be aware that even the best academic economists disagree on the basics of who actually pays the corporate tax. https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/who-pays-the-corporate-income-tax/ https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/who-pays-the-c...
- nybble41 7y agoWho are the consumers? We are. Who are the workers? We are. Who are the shareholders? We are. No matter which role you allocate the cost of the tax to, in the end it's us who are paying the bill. Even if you're one of those rare individuals without investments of your own, you still benefit from them. Punishing the shareholders who provide the capital to produce goods more efficiently isn't going to make the goods you consume any cheaper.
- evgen 7y ago
- sxyuan 7y agoFrom the article this statement is responding to: > Companies that make up the S&P 500 index had an average effective tax rate of 18.1 percent in 2018, down from 25.9 percent in 2016, according to an analysis of securities filings. More than 200 of those companies saw their effective tax rates fall by 10 points or more. Nearly three dozen, including FedEx, saw their tax rates fall to zero or reported that tax authorities owed them money. > From the first quarter of 2018, when the law fully took effect, companies have spent nearly three times as much on additional dividends and stock buybacks, which boost a company’s stock price and market value, than on increased investment. This is concrete, relevant data (unlike the argument made by the FedEx CEO, as others have already mentioned). I'm curious if anyone in the pro-Fedex crowd can provide evidence to the contrary. The increasing share of wealth that is moving from the bottom 90% into the hands of the top 1% in the US is a real concern to me. And I suspect a big part of that has to do with the recent trend of stock buybacks and dividend increases, which benefits shareholders and not workers. How many people in the bottom 50% (or even 90%) actually own a significant amount of stock, do you think? The first source I found on this topic states: [1] In 2016, American households headed by someone aged 32-61 averaged $120,809.40 in retirement savings, or $264,453.30 using an expansive calculation. Using the same calculations and definitions, American households have a median of $7,800 and $17,000 saved, respectively. [1] https://dqydj.com/retirement-savings-average-median-percentile-united-states/ https://dqydj.com/retirement-savings-average-median-percenti...
- appleiigs 7y agoInvestors have stock. Dividends and stock buybacks move idle cash out of the corporation and back into the hands of investors. Investors now have cash instead of stock. Those investors are better at distributing cash to good investments than Fedex or Apple or Google is. The cash doesn't get redistributed from the non-1% to the 1%. The idle cash that corporations have aren't generating jobs.
- Majromax 7y ago> The idle cash that corporations have aren't generating jobs. But that contradicts the claimed raison d'être for the 2018 tax cut: that corporate direct investment was being restrained by corporate income taxes. A call to lower corporate income taxes so more money could flow to investors would have been consistent, both with economic orthodoxy and with the observed outcome.
- dabernathy89 7y agoThe NYT piece seems to be a great example of factual statements not telling the full story. I'm a NYT subscriber and value their reporting, but I think they fell short here. It's easy to get a sense from the article that tax reform simply saved FedEx about $1.5 billion (the amount they owed the previous year). But it's more complicated than that. Yes, tax reform helped FedEx lower their tax bill. But a huge chunk of that was due to temporary behavior changes FedEx made in response to the bill - not a permanent reduction in how much they will owe each year. One of the ways they saved a lot of money was investing a lot into assets for which they could deduct 100% of future depreciation immediately. This is a temporary part of tax reform. They would have been able to deduct that value eventually anyway, just over a long period of time.
- jmull 7y agoThe information you're using to show the article doesn't tell the full story is in the article.
- dabernathy89 7y agoThey could go into a lot more detail about exactly which provisions of tax reform helped FedEx, and how. They did not explain the 100% deduction for asset depreciation, or the fact that it's only a temporary provision of the law. They merely included a brief statement from FedEx referencing this provision in sort of generic terms. They also mentioned very briefly that a large part of the reduced tax bill was FedEx's pension contribution, but didn't provide any additional details about how tax reform encouraged this behavior. They also include misleading statements like this: > “Something like $1.5 billion in future taxes that they had promised to pay, just vanished,” said Matthew Gardner, an analyst at the liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington. The idea that FedEx had "promised" to pay that money is just ridiculous.
- mlyle 7y ago> One of the ways they saved a lot of money was investing a lot into assets for which they could deduct 100% of future depreciation immediately. Yup, which also means subsequent year taxes will be higher, because the assets are fully tax depreciated.
- AzzieElbab 7y agoA public debate would do much more good than outright suing the NYT
- objektif 7y agoWhy is everyone on this thread running to rescue NYT? Most of what NYT does in the last 10 years as far as I remember is crony-corporatism and warmongering. And occasionally support social liberal causes to deceive people.
- malvosenior 7y agoAgreed. They also post continuous anti-tech coverage. They are definitely yellow journalism at this point and I wish they'd stop being voted to the front-page of HN as if they're an impartial source.
- malvosenior 7y agoI'm much, much more concerned about The New York Times deceptively pushing a political agenda during an election year than I am about FedEx legally paying as few taxes as possible. We all do that every tax season! It seems like the real story is how the NYT is actively campaigning for the DNC and I'm glad FedEx is calling them out.
- mceachen 7y ago> "paying as few taxes as possible" Here lies the problem. One's tax burden should not be determined by your cleverness to dodge them, but some inarguable, tangible value. Like a bill. The tax law holes that allow for "creative" corporate financial "solutions" (like moving HQ to Ireland) and their ilk should be patched with dramatically simpler tax law. The government should simply bill people and corporations for their tax, outright, like they do in many other countries.
- malvosenior 7y agoI think it would be great if the tax was straightforward and simple and what it was going to be spent on was also clearly defined as part of the "bill". As it stands today, neither side of that equation is in any way simple or transparent. That being said, it's a non-story that people will use all the laws available to them to lower their taxes. They are after all the actual tax law and not "holes", as tempting as it is to label them that.
- atombender 7y agoNYT has been publishing articles about big corporations evading taxes for many years, including during the Obama administration. This is not new, and it's part of the NYT's social agenda, not the election year. Here are some examples: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/business/economy/corporate-tax-report.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/business/economy/corporat... https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/business/apples-tax-strategy-aims-at-low-tax-states-and-nations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/business/apples-tax-strat... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/business/yesterday-outraged-by-apples-tax-dodge-today-by-its-tax-bill.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/business/yesterday-outrag... https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/business/apple-avoided-billions-in-taxes-congressional-panel-says.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/business/apple-avoided-bi... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/06/us/panama-papers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/06/us/panama-papers.html
- bilekas 7y agoSo they lay out what the discussion should be about : The focus of the debate should be federal tax policy and the relative societal benefits of business investments and the enormous intended benefits to the United States economy, especially lower and middle class wage earners. But this above is not what the piece was about.. Now I'm confused..
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- Simulacra 7y agoI would love to see this debate. I don’t trust the media, and I don’t really trust corporations, so I’m not sure who to believe here. A public debate would go along way towards bringing transparency an open discussion. Those are not bad things.
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- crisdux 7y agoStock buybacks serve important purposes that are often overlocked when this topic comes up. One major purpose of stock buybacks is to reduce the company's cost of capital. With debt financing being so cheap right now, we've seen fedex significantly increase it's long term debt. For fedex, using their cash to buy back stock improves their overall financial picture because even if they need to raise more debt to financing their business, their overall cost of capital actually decreased - because the carrying cost of debt is cheaper then equity!
- moneywoes 7y agoThis can't be real
- chadlavi 7y agoFacts are not up for debate, FedEx. either rebut with evidence or sit down.
- stakhanov 7y agoYou've kind of got to respect them for a pretty gutsy move right there. Will be interesting to see what happens.
- Itaxpica 7y agoThis is so absurd that the only response that would make any sense for the Times would be to double down. Sulzberger should challenge Fred Smith to a fistfight live on CNN.
- jszymborski 7y agoStreissand-Effect much? I hadn't heard about this story at all, and all a public debate would do hear is make the story even higher profile.
- malvosenior 7y agoI don't know, I have a much more favorable view of FedEx because of this. It's good marketing to push back on bad journalism in 2019 (for a lot of people).
- annoyingnoob 7y agoSounds like FedEx wants a public forum to push Reaganonmics. Arguing for trickle-down theory is a bad look, FedEx. 'Creating jobs' is not an excuse for skipping out on taxes. You invest to grow your business but you still need to pay taxes. If I invest all of my money in a house I create, at least temporary, jobs. I push a bunch of cash through the economy in taxes, fees to a number of services, etc. I would have invested a lot into the local economy. Should I then get to skip paying taxes for one or more years? I mean, I'm creating or sustaining jobs.
- frockington1 7y agoShould I then get to skip paying taxes for one or more years? - Yes and you do. You get a tax credit on interest paid and many new build come with tax abatement to encourage investment opportunities
- annoyingnoob 7y agoMy tax bill tells me otherwise. The interest on my home loan does not and cannot erase my taxes. That deduction is not what you think it is: https://www.fool.com/millionacres/taxes/real-estate-tax-deductions/can-i-still-deduct-my-mortgage-interest-2018/ https://www.fool.com/millionacres/taxes/real-estate-tax-dedu... My home happens to include Mello-Roos taxes for local improvements, like schools and a fire station. This more than doubles the property tax that I pay. Sorry to tell you, I don't have it anything like FedEx. I paid over 26% of my gross income on taxes last year.
- frockington1 7y agoTaxes suck, no denying it. Thankfully where I live its relatively easy to find nice properties with long tax abatement for investment. Beyond that max your 401k, IRA, HSA and live or "live" somewhere with low taxes
- annoyingnoob 7y agoTaxes suck, even big corporations that produce a lot of jobs need to pay them.
- nraynaud 7y agoRich people debating poor people's issues, in DC, as is proper. What temperature should the champagne be served at?
- madenine 7y agoIs this the Fortune500 version of challenging the person who beat you on Xbox Live to fight IRL? On a different note, the biggest standout to me from the NYT piece was how the tax cut effected FedEx's outstanding tax liabilities. Doesn't this set up an scenario where the megacorps of our era can just kick their tax bill down the road until they get a favorable WH/Congress they can lobby?
- tshanmu 7y agoIf I were NYT I would make that article free and advertise it more
- SanchoPanda 7y agoFrom their annual filings, these are broad numbers, and adjustments should be made, but it helps with context. | Period Ending: | 5/31/2019 | 5/31/2018 | 5/31/2017 | 5/31/2016 | 5/31/2015 | 5/31/2014 | 5/31/2013 | 5/31/2012 | 5/31/2011 | 5/31/2010 | 5/31/2009 | 5/31/2008 | 5/31/2007 | 5/31/2006 | 5/31/2005 | 5/31/2004 | 5/31/2003 | 5/31/2002 | 5/31/2001 | 5/31/2000 | 5/31/1999 | 5/31/1998 | | Income Tax | 115,000 | (219,000) | 1,582,000 | 920,000 | 577,000 | 1,334,000 | 1,622,000 | 1,109,000 | 813,000 | 710,000 | 579,000 | 891,000 | 1,199,000 | 1,093,000 | 864,000 | 481,000 | 508,000 | 435,000 | 343,202 | 449,404 | 429,731 | 401,363 | | Capital Expenditures | (5,490,000) | (5,663,000) | (5,116,000) | (4,818,000) | (4,347,000) | (3,533,000) | (3,375,000) | (4,007,000) | (3,434,000) | (2,816,000) | (2,459,000) | (2,947,000) | (2,882,000) | (2,518,000) | (2,236,000) | (1,271,000) | (1,511,000) | (1,615,000) | (1,893,384) | (1,627,418) | (1,769,946) | (1,880,173) |
- eigenvalue 7y agoThat's their GAAP taxes. If you instead look at cash taxes paid it's significantly lower on average: Period Cash Taxes Paid ($mm) May-31-2010 43 May-31-2011 387 May-31-2012 257 May-31-2013 468 May-31-2014 766 May-31-2015 1113 May-31-2016 991 May-31-2017 377 May-31-2018 189 May-31-2019 371 Aug-31-2019 324
- SanchoPanda 7y agoBoth are important to look at for sure. But accrual is a fairer picture wihtout a lot of notes imho when using such a broad brush. Thank you for adding it though. I should have included it probably.
- fortran77 7y agoI certainly would have liked to the facts rebutted point by point. But I don't think their response was completely void of substance. It is worth noting the NY Times also uses the tax laws to pay little or no taxes. And reinvesting money to shore up pensions -- so many of which are inadequately funded -- seems like a valid point to make when justifying how they used tax laws to their advantage. It's not like all the money used to defer tax payments went to pay executive bonuses, as the NY Times would have readers believe.
- a0zU 7y agoStupid as this may be it will be incredibly entertaining to watch this debate if NYT accepts it that is.
- 1986 7y agoIt's a bit strange that this statement says "FedEx has paid federal income tax every year, including fiscal year 2018.", while the fact sheet they link to within the statement ( https://about.van.fedex.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/FedEx_Tax_Facts_v8.21.19.pdf https://about.van.fedex.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/FedEx... ) specifically calls out that their effective income tax rate was negative in 2018 due to TCJA, the year and legislation in dispute: > The FedEx effective income tax rates for the last five fiscal years (June - May) were 17.6% in 2019, (5.0%) in 2018 (this rate is an anomaly due to the impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) Maybe this is due to state income taxes?
- jswizzy 7y agoI don't trust the New York Times. They lost credibility a long time ago.