The Patriot Post® · FedEx Exposes Leftmedia Tax Hypocrisy

FedEx paid no corporate federal income tax in 2018, The New York Times reported over the weekend, howling that this was due to the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act, passed by congressional Republicans without a single Democrat vote and signed by President Donald Trump. Recall that the tax cut reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to a more globally competitive 21%. And this tax cut has been one of the primary factors for spurring America’s current economic growth.

Like so many leftists, however, the Times disparages the tax law by insisting that it unfairly benefits only the wealthy. “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,” the Times claims, adding, “But it did not increase investment in new equipment and other assets in the fiscal year that followed, as [FedEx CEO Frederic] Smith said businesses like his would.”

Smith called out the Times for its hypocrisy. He noted the rich irony of the Times blasting FedEx when the Times itself “paid zero federal income tax in 2017 on earnings of $111 million, and only $30 million in 2018 — 18% of their pretax book income.” The Times did not dispute it. Kettle meet pot.

Furthermore, Smith challenged the Times to a debate over taxes, writing, “I hereby challenge A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times and the business section editor to a public debate in Washington, DC with me and the FedEx corporate vice president of tax. 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.”

Once again, leftists like the hacks at the Times display their fundamentally anti-American view that the government has more right to an individual’s or company’s hard-earned money than the earners do. As J. Frank Bullitt observes, “The greediest people on Earth are not those who earn wages, salaries, and profits and wish to keep what they made — it’s the lawmakers who want to forcibly take what belongs to others and use it for their own purposes.”