President Joe Biden advanced on Monday warning oil companies have to pay a special tax on their unexpected profits from an increase in prices that is attributed to the war between Russia and Ukraine.
“Today’s record earnings are not because they are doing something new or innovative. The profits are a windfall of the war”, said the president from the Roosevelt Room together with the Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, and the Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm.
“Since they don’t want to do it, they have the opportunity to do it, to lower prices for consumers at the gas station, but if they don’t they will have to pay a higher tax on their excess profits and face other restrictions, “Biden said.
The president also said that he is already working with legislators in Congress to assess these options.
The US executive framed his proposal in a context of record profits for the country’s main oil companies as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has turned the international energy market upside down.
Biden, who has already been highly critical of the decision of the main companies not to increase their pet refining capacity róleo, defended that the benefits of these companies are not due to any innovation, but to the tragic situation of the war.
“I am a capitalist, I have no problem with companies having a fair profit for their investment and innovation, but that is not even remotely what is happening,” he assured.
Biden quoted the profit figures of the 6 main American oil companies, which in the last 6 months have achieved a profit of 100, million dollars.
According to this source, the oil companies, instead of increasing their domestic production capacity to lower fuel prices at gas stations , are taking advantage of the benefits to repurchase shares and thus pay higher dividends to their shareholders.
Windfall taxes are an idea proposed by some economists, such as Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, to address the inequality aggravated by events such as the pandemic or the war in Ukraine.
In Colombia, Gustavo Petro’s tax reform includes in fact a tax on windfall profits from oil companies and the coal, which are the country’s main exports.
With information from EFE
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