This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, November 18, 2019:
After reviewing various publicly available sources, three New York Times staff writers discovered that FedEx Corporation paid no income taxes in 2018. They also discovered that FedEx didn’t use the estimated $1.6 billion it saved in taxes to increase its investment in new equipment, reneging on an implied promise FedEx’s founder, Fred Smith, made when lobbying for Trump’s Tax Cut and Jobs Act.
This was perfect fodder to promote the Times’ anti-capitalist ideology that FedEx, and by extension all capitalists, are greedy selfish liars. The paper made its case in a front-page article published on Sunday.
The three Times staffers made clear their ideology, noting in the article’s opening that “the company, like much of corporate America, has not made good on its promised investment surge from President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.” They noted:
In the 2017 fiscal year, FedEx owed more than $1.5 billion in taxes. The next year, it owed nothing….
FedEx reaped big savings … but it did not increase investment in new equipment and other assets in [2018] as Mr. Smith said businesses like his would.
Instead, the company used “much of its [tax] savings … to reward shareholders: FedEx spent more than $2 billion on stock buybacks and dividend increases in the 2019 fiscal year, up from $1.6 billion in 2018, and more than double the amount the company spent on buybacks and dividends in fiscal year 2017.”
The staffers extended their accusations from FedEx to capitalists in general: “From the first quarter of 2018, when the [tax] law took effect, companies have spent nearly three times as much on additional dividends and stock buybacks, which boost a company’s stock price and market value, than on increased investment.”
This aroused the ire of Smith, who issued a statement later that day calling the article a calumny and challenging the Times’ editor, A.G. Sulzberger, to a public debate. Said Smith:
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