Protesters target GE’S tax rate

Nearly 100 protesters affiliated with the 99 Percent populist movement disrupted the start of General Electric Co.’ s annual shareholders’ meeting Wednesday, in an attack on the largest U.S. conglomerate’s low tax rate.

The demonstrators were quickly ushered out of the meeting, held in the Detroit building that houses Generalmotors’ headquarters, but could still be heard chanting protests as the meeting got underway.

After their exit, chief financial officer Keith Sherin stepped up to defend GE’S tax practices.

“We absolutely are compliant with every law around the world in how we pay our taxes,” Sherin said. “Our U.S. tax expense last year was $2.6 billion. We are a large taxpayer, we pay our taxes and we very much support tax reform.”

The protesters’ complaints were linked to GE’S low 2010 and 2009 tax rates, which the company says were a result of heavy losses at its GE Capital arm during the financial crisis.

A 2011 report by left-leaning think-tank Citizens for Tax Justice claimed General Electric had an effective negative tax rate from 2008 through 2010, which the company has repeatedly denied.

The 99 Percent movement is an offshoot of last year’s Occupy Wall Street protests, and both are loosely organized around the idea that the U.S. economy no longer serves the needs of most U.S. residents. The 99 Percent moniker contrasts the average citizen to the country’s wealthiest.

A few hundred people affiliated with the movement carried signs outside the meeting that read Tax Dodgers at Work and This Is What Democracy Looks Like.

Jeff Immelt, the company’s chief executive, told reporters before the meeting that GE supports the idea of reforming the U.S. tax code and that its low tax rate in 2010 and 2009 reflected heavy writeoffs at its GE Capital arm during the financial crisis.

“We are in favour of tax reform, we have said that,” Immelt said. “Our tax rate in 2011 was 29 per cent, just as we said it was going to be.”