Free Republic

Coca-Cola was notified by the IRS that it owes $3.3 billion more in federal taxes, as well as interest, for 2007 to 2009, the company said Friday. The Atlanta-based company said in a regulatory filing that it believes the assessments from the Internal Revenue Service are without merit and plans to pursue "all administrative and judicial remedies necessary to resolve the matter." The maker of Sprite, Dasani, Powerade and other drinks says the disagreement is over how much it should report as taxable income in the U.S., in relation with licensing that allows its foreign affiliates to sell products like...

Representatives from Coca-Cola, Ford Motor Co. and Xerox say they’ve asked Planned Parenthood to remove their names as corporate donors to the embattled organization. The move follows a Daily Signal report revealing the names of 41 companies that Planned Parenthood listed as donors. That list, which was featured on Planned Parenthood’s website, has since been removed. This latest development comes in the wake of two undercover videos that showed Planned Parenthood executives talking about the sale of fetal body parts. Planned Parenthood is facing both federal and state investigations—and the possibility of losing taxpayer funding. Earlier this week, The Daily...

Planned Parenthood removes corporate sponsor page from website. Article link contains a one-day old screenshot of the sponsor page.

In the wake of two videos allegedly showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of aborted fetal body parts, Republicans in Congress are working to ensure that Planned Parenthood is stripped of its federal funding. However, it’s not only the government that fills Planned Parenthood’s coffers. According to 2nd Vote, a website and app that tracks the flow of money from consumers to political causes, more than 25 percent of Planned Parenthood’s $1.3-billion annual revenue comes from private donations, which includes corporate contributions. 2nd Vote researched the corporations and organizations to find which supported Planned Parenthood and found that more...

(CNN)—Coca-Cola wants everyone to imagine a world without labels. And as an example, the beverage company is dropping its own. Coke has introduced a new version of its iconic red-and-white can in Middle Eastern countries for Ramadan, the Muslim holiday that ends July 17. The new red cans feature Coke's signature dynamic ribbon but not the words "Coca-Cola" and are intended to promote open-mindedness and tolerance. The backs of the cans bear the message "Labels are for cans, not people."

This is Coca-Cola's response when emailed about their support for the Supreme Courts decision on gay marriage: As a believer in an inclusive world, The Coca-Cola Company is pleased with the decision on marriage equality. We have long been a strong supporter of the LGBT community and have advocated for inclusion, equality and diversity through both our policies and practices.KarlaIndustry and Consumer AffairsThe Coca-Cola Company

As we learned from Mad Men, the advertising industry is ever intent on harnessing trends that are bubbling up organically. Countercultural ideals (say, hippie-era peace and love) are wedded to a mainstream product (say, Coke) and blasted to the mainstream before anyone knows what’s hit them. Which is why hip-hop and advertising go together so well. Firmly rooted in youth culture, hip-hop is edgy but accessible, a combination that companies adore. It can be exciting to see your favorite rapper validated in big-name plugs, whether it’s Jay Z for Hewlett Packard or Eminem for Chrysler. But for every carefully considered,...

The IT chief at Bangladesh Coca-Cola is one of two men who has been arrested as an Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist suspect. Maybe the CEO of Coca Cola America, Muhtar Kent, should be investigated, as well. He is a Muslim, after all, who supports amnesty for Muslim and other illegal aliens. An IT manager at a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Co was one of two men arrested in Bangladesh on suspicion of planning to fight for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), police and company sources said on Monday. The pair were detained during a raid in the capital...

An IT manager at a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Co was one of two men arrested in Bangladesh on suspicion of planning to fight for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), police and company sources said on Monday. The pair were detained during a raid in the capital Dhaka on Sunday night, said Sheikh Nazmul Alam, a senior official of the police detective branch. One man, Aminul Islam, was the information technology head of a multinational company, and worked as a regional coordinator for ISIS, while the other, Sakib Bin Kamal, was a teacher at a school in Dhaka,...

Coca Cola is running ads that will appear on buses and signs featuring a gay couple and their adopted child. The ad shows a picture of two men holding a baby, playing with crayons. A bottle of Coca Cola is next to them. Over their heads reads, "We choose happiness ~over~ tradition. -the Van Bergen family." In the bottom right corner it reads, "#choosehappiness:" The ad implies that, though their family is not "traditional," the Van Bergens are happy. They also drink Coke:

Joe McGinnis, a young writer who got access to the advertising agency with the Nixon account in 1968, changed the way we thought about electing presidents with his best-seller, "The Selling of the President." The very idea that a presidential candidate could be packaged like a tube of toothpaste, a can of shaving cream or a pack of cigarettes was shocking. Americans held elections as something close to a sacred trust, and the cover of the McGinnis book featured Richard Nixon's face on that pack of cigarettes, suggesting (this was before "Mad Men") that Madison Avenue would stoop even so...

There has been speculation Wendy Clark might not return to Coca-Cola Co. but instead continue working on Hillary Clinton’s expected presidential campaign, after the senior marketing executive took a leave of absence from the beverage giant in January. But Coke and Ms. Clark confirmed on Tuesday that she will return to her post as North American marketing chief on April 6.

Big business has come out in favor of same-sex marriage. Exactly 379 corporations and employer organizations urged the Supreme Court to strike down state bans on gay marriage, according to a friend-of-the-court brief obtained by The Huffington Post. The document was expected to be filed late Thursday morning. “Employers are better served by a uniform marriage rule that gives equal dignity to employee relationships,” reads the brief, filed by global law firm Morgan Lewis. “Allowing same-sex couples to marry improves employee morale and productivity, reduces uncertainty, and removes the wasteful administrative burdens imposed by the current disparity of state law...

It's every parent's nightmare, but true: Major U.S. corporations are funding a campaign of sophisticated, psychologically intrusive "gay" indoctrination programs targeting very young children in elementary schools across America. It’s part of a very well-planned and well-funded effort to reach children as young as possible without their parents’ intervention. The national program, called “Welcoming Schools”, skillfully works on the minds of young children in three ways: (1) Introducing the concept of homosexuality to children. (2) Telling them that homosexuality is normal and natural. (3) Telling them that their parents or friends who portray homosexuality in a less than positive way...

After wasting millions of dollars on losing Democratic candidates in this month’s midterm elections, the American Federation of Teachers has completely gone off the deep end and banned Coca-Cola and Coke products from its events and facilities. The teachers union — America’s second largest — based its prohibition on America’s best product and, certainly, its best export, on allegations of human rights violations that were described in a trio of books published several years ago... Larry Sand, president of the California Teachers Empowerment Network, a group that frequently stands athwart teachers unions, spells out the motivation more clearly: ”Obviously, they...

Construction of a Coca-Cola factory in Gaza is set to begin this week after being green-lighted by Israel’s defense establishment. A major advantage of the new factory is that it will create jobs for thousands of Palestinians—first for construction builders, and then some 3,000 factory workers.The factory is to be built in the Karni industrial area. The construction period will take six months. …

Calling all ’90s kids: Surge is back. Coca-Cola unveiled the citrus-flavored soda in 1996 as an answer to Pepsi’s Mountain Dew. But SURGE couldn’t compete and was taken off shelves in 2001, to the dismay of what had become a cult-like following. Thousands of passionate fans have been fighting for its return for years, and today they tasted victory. This is just a test, said Coca Cola spokeswoman Sheree Robinson. “It has a big fan base, however, we’re not sure how that will translate into sales,” she said.

Coca-Cola will have to reemploy and reimburse the 821 workers it sacked in April when it closed four of its bottling plants in Spain now that a judge has ruled the drinks multinational carried out the lay-offs unlawfully. The sudden lay-off of 1,190 (finally 821) Coca-Cola employees from its bottling plants in Madrid, Mallorca, Alicante and Asturias were, according to holding company Iberian Partners, needed to improve efficiency. But Spain’s High Court ruled on Friday that the fizzy drinks giants had not carried out the merging of all of their eight bottling plants in Spain appropriately. They also blamed them...

NEW YORK (AP) — Coca-Cola is taking on obesity, this time with an online video showing how fun it could be to burn off the 140 calories in a can of its soda. In the ad, the world's biggest beverage maker asks what would happen if people paid for a can of Coke by first working off the calories it contained. The ad, which notes that it typically takes 23 minutes of cycling to achieve that, shows a montage of people on a giant stationary bicycle happily trying to earn a can of its cola, with carnival music playing in...

The world's largest beverage-maker, Coca-Cola, plans to remove a controversial ingredient from some of its US drinks brands by the end of this year, following an online petition.Brominated vegetable oil, or BVO, is found in Coca-Cola fruit and sports drinks such as Fanta and Powerade.Rival Pepsi removed the chemical from its Gatorade sports drink last year.In Japan and the European Union, the use of BVO as a food additive is not allowed.Pepsi has a plan to remove the ingredient from its entire product portfolio.It uses BVO in its Mountain Dew and Amp Energy drinks sold in the US.BVO has been...