Goldman Sachs has reported its first ever quarterly loss of $2.1 billion since it went public in 1999. This is the firm that raised an extra $20.7 billion by selling $10 billion of equity to the US Government as part of its $700 billion banks bailout and the rest from investors including Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. That's more than $20 billion raised from US taxpayers.
But read the press release for the accounts and see how much less tax they paid. According to the statement, Goldman Sachs paid a tax rate for just 1% for 2008, down from 25.1% for the first nine months of 2008 and 34.1% for fiscal year 2007.
That means Goldman Sachs had a provision for taxes of just $14 million, compared with one of $6 billion for 2007.
According to Goldman Sachs, the lower tax rate was "due to an increase in permanent benefits as a percentage of lower earnings and changes in geographic earnings mix".
Translated, that means the bank paid less tax because it made a loss and because of tax havens.
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