[Tatze]

I am a little surprised by most of the responses here so far. I will admit that I have not read the details of the tax breaks he is talking about. If he is talking about taking tax breaks available to all companies and denying them to the oil companies, then no way. Equal protection would seem to apply there.

And likewise, if he is instead talking about subsidies to the oil companies while still using federal money as a slush fund to line the pocket of his greenie buddies, then no thanks to that too.

But as a free market capitalist, the oil companies (and the car companies, and the “green” companies, etc) should live or die on their own merits, period! No special subsidies. No special tax breaks. So yes, end the tax breaks, but not just for the oil companies, but for all. Or better yet, set a corporate tax rate for all that will encourage job growth, and encourage foreign companies to consider relocating here, instead of the soon-to-be highest corporate tax rate in the world.

[justlurking]

I am a little surprised by most of the responses here so far. I will admit that I have not read the details of the tax breaks he is talking about. If he is talking about taking tax breaks available to all companies and denying them to the oil companies, then no way. Equal protection would seem to apply there.

I just posted something to this effect, but I'm not aware of any special tax breaks just for the oil industry -- at least not any significant ones.

There is a domestic manufacturing credit, which is available to everyone that is manufacturing anything in the US. Excluding Oil/Gas from that tax credit would be penalizing them in particular.

There is also a depletion allowance that effectively writes down the value of the asset (the oil/gas well) as it is depleted. Think of it as a form of depreciation. But, that's also available to all resource extraction industries (mining for coal, precious metals, minerals, rare earths, etc). All businesses do the same thing with their capital assets, so it's not anything unusual.

This is a talking point, and nothing more. On average, the large integrated oil companies (Shell, ExxonMobil, etc.) have a net profit margin of only 8%. See for yourself:

http://biz.yahoo.com/p/1conameu.html

Compare it to all industries:

http://biz.yahoo.com/p/sum_qpmu.html

In comparison, Apple has a net profit margin of about 28%. I'm not begrudging Apple, but just pointing out the hypocrisy of people who gripe about "big oil", but can't wait to give their money to Apple.