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Comment by belltaco | Hacker News Reader

Can't read because of the paywall, but their previous response amounted to "No, you."

>The Times article is “distorted and factually incorrect,” Smith said in a statement in response to the article. The CEO lobbied for the tax cuts in 2017.

>“Pertinent to this outrageous distortion of the truth is the fact that unlike FedEx, the New York Times paid zero federal income tax in 2017 on earnings of $111 million, and only $30 million in 2018 — 18% of their pretax book income,” he said.

>Smith didn’t dispute any specific details of the article in his statement, but challenged Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger to a public tax debate.

Edit: Source for the above is https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nyt-fexex-case-study-shortcom...

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"Smith didn’t dispute any specific details of the article in his statement"

This is factually incorrect.

Here are some direct rebuttals:

NY times allegation: "In the 2017 fiscal year, FedEx owed more than $1.5 billion in taxes. The next year, it owed nothing. "

FedEx rebuttal: "FedEx has paid federal income tax every year, including fiscal year 2018."

NY Times allegation:" FedEx reaped big savings, bringing its effective tax rate from 34 percent in fiscal year 2017 to less than zero in fiscal year 2018, meaning that, overall, the government technically owed it money. But it did not increase investment in new equipment and other assets in the fiscal year that followed, as Mr. Smith said businesses like his would."

FedEx rebuttal: "Following passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), FedEx invested billions in capital items eligible for accelerated depreciation and made large contributions to our employee pension plans"

Etc, etc, etc... These are literally the first few sentences from BOTH the article and the response. Either you're being intellectually dishonest by claiming that they didn't dispute and specific details or you're incompetent.

> FedEx rebuttal: "Following passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), FedEx invested billions in capital items eligible for accelerated depreciation and made large contributions to our employee pension plans"

That's not a rebuttal, because they were investing that before the tax cuts too. They actually invested less in 2018 than they had been projecting before the tax cut!

>NY times allegation: "In the 2017 fiscal year, FedEx owed more than $1.5 billion in taxes. The next year, it owed nothing. "

>FedEx rebuttal: "FedEx has paid federal income tax every year, including fiscal year 2018."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21565736

> Page 60 of their 2019 annual report will show you (link below). The TCJA (Tax Cut/Job Act) removed $1.354 billion from what they were expected to pay. They had several other benefits against their overall tax rate, but that was by far the highest in 2018. It lead to them owing -5% in taxes or $219 million. http://s1.q4cdn.com/714383399/files/doc_financials/annual/20...

How do these claims add up, exactly?

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