Out of all the CEOs who sit on the Campaign to Fix the Debt’s Steering Committee, Jeffery Immelt’s company General Electric (GE) has the most to gain by amending the U.S. tax code so that corporations can permanently avoid paying taxes on offshore profits. Immelt is also a member of the Business Roundtable’s Executive Committee.

GE avoided paying U.S. federal income taxes on $108 billion in accumulated offshore profits by the end of 2012, a 5.8% increase from 2011.[1] If these offshore profits were taxed at the statutory corporate income tax rate of 35%, the company would have to pay $37.8 billion in additional income taxes.

Overall, GE reported an actual income tax rate of 14.4% on its consolidated operations for 2012.[2]  According to an analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice, between 2002 and 2011, GE paid an average federal tax rate of just 1.8%, including four years in which it received a net tax refund.[3]

Fix the Debt and the Business Roundtable have called for “reforming” Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—programs that working Americans depend on for their retirement.[4]  Meanwhile, for his retirement, Immelt has accumulated $51.7 million in pension benefits and $6.1 million in nonqualified deferred compensation plans.[5]

^{[1] General Electric 2012 Form 10-K, Note 14.
[2] General Electric 2012 Form 10-K, Note 14.
[3] General Electric Paid Only Two Percent Federal Income Tax Rate Over the Past Decade, Citizens for Tax Justice Analysis Finds; Actual Payments Were Probably Lower, Citizens for Tax Justice, Feb. 27, 2012.
[4] www.fixthedebt.org/core-principles; Social Security Reform and Medicare Modernization Proposals, Business Roundtable, January 2013.
[5] General Electric 2013 Proxy Statement.}