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FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

about.van.fedex.com

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Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#251

Post by bazooka_penguin »

crazygringo wrote: post #235
bazooka_penguin wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a ridiculous statement that completely ignores the social expectations of each company. People generally expect reporting media to report the truth unless they have some strong bias (like political), people expect fedex to deliver packages. Deviations from that result in demands that they "stay in [their] lane". A news story by NYT is going to have more impact than some company with a reputation for destroyin…

Then FedEx has their PR team work with journalists at other major news sources to get their side out, which the journalists will be happy to do since it's genuinely newsworthy. (Which companies do every day , it's what PR teams are for .) Same thing in the end. I will say it one more time: the idea that FedEx, a $40B company, is somehow, in any way, disadvantaged in being able to respond, simply defies credulity.

And NYT can say it is big corporate paid advocacy and the FedEx brand will taint it. My point is one brand is seen as more trustworthy in this space, and perhaps in general. You're also assuming that media companies are strictly competitive and dont align on perceived truths

Edit for typos

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#252

Post by [deleted] »

morsch wrote: post #217
drak0n1c wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That framing is incredibly negative and obviously communicates it as "near zero" to the passing reader. Vague terminology of "less than projected" is the way they choose to frame it in the first sentence, and "spent even less in the next year" is the next sentence. NYT then chooses to completely omit the actual numerical figures of FedEx's investments, and instead highlights figures in the unrelated category of divid…

I get _capital investments are going down_ from that. I don't know how you are reading _near zero_ from it. It doesn't get more "passing reader" than me in this case, I know nothing about what happened here and I have zero interest in finding out.

[deleted]

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#253

Post by tathougies »

callmeal wrote: post #41
sarcasmatwork wrote: post #2

Expected behavior coming from New York Times. Good on Fedex for pushing back.

Lets look at the facts as reported by the NYT: 1. Fedex owed 1.5 Billion in taxes in 2017. 2. They owe 0 in taxes after the bill. 3. As for capital investments, the company spent less in the 2018 fiscal year than it had projected in December 2017, before the tax law passed. It spent even less in 2019. Much of its savings have gone to reward shareholders: FedEx spent more than $2 billion on stock buybacks and dividend…

It is indeed odd to single out a particular company for paying zero in tax (fedex in this case) as the result of a temporary tax reform bill which it seems the newspaper also took part in.

While perhaps the NYT's story was 'correct', it neglected to point out that other companies also took advantage of this fact and that indeed this was the purpose of the tax reform. Instead, it sounds like the NYT made Fedex into some kind of bogeyman attempting to avoid taxes, instead of telling the full story, which is that, by American government policy, the government of the United States of America decided to offer businesses a way to significantly reduce their federal tax bill by investing their money into capital assets.

This is a much less sinister sounding headline, which is likely why the NYT neglected to publish it.

It's like if the government passed a bill to reward families that have children in the next five years with 10k USD each, and, instead of reporting on this bill in general, the new york times decided to only report on why bob and sally had four kids in those five years to milk the government of money. It's dishonest reporting, which is unsurprising coming from the new york times.

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#254

Post by newfriend »

stock_toaster wrote: post #233
pcroh wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's practically blackmail: we'll run this smear campaign on you and you better buy full-page ads to prove us wrong.

If it's _actually_ false, they can be sued for libel.

And if it's not _actually_ false, but is incredibly misleading, there is nothing to be done.

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#255

Post by [deleted] »

mthoms wrote: post #215
appleiigs wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western societies have been more democratic... and more capitalist. If you take high taxes to the extreme (eg. eliminate all billionaires like Bernie Sanders recommends), you get closer to communism which hasn't done as well.

I'm not even sure what you're arguing anymore. Communism is bad? I agree. It does nothing to support your assertion that any and all governments are inherently bad.

[deleted]

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#256

Post by annoyingnoob »

frockington1 wrote: post #175
annoyingnoob wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My tax bill tells me otherwise. The interest on my home loan does not and cannot erase my taxes. That deduction is not what you think it is: https://www.fool.com/millionacres/taxes/real-estate-tax-dedu... My home happens to include Mello-Roos taxes for local improvements, like schools and a fire station. This more than doubles the property tax that I pay. Sorry to tell you, I don't have it anything like FedEx. I paid…

Taxes suck, no denying it. Thankfully where I live its relatively easy to find nice properties with long tax abatement for investment. Beyond that max your 401k, IRA, HSA and live or "live" somewhere with low taxes

Taxes suck, even big corporations that produce a lot of jobs need to pay them.

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#257

Post by Consultant32452 »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #242
Consultant32452 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took advantage of the homestead exemption the last time I filed income tax. Is that news?

Did you spend time brib..lobbying local councilmen to give you that exemption? Edit: more to the point, what makes you identify as Fedex?

I don't identify as FedEx. I identify as a taxpayer who follows the law. You already admitted the law is intentionally written this way, so that they can pay less taxes. This isn't different from how the law was intentionally written so I can pay less taxes via the homestead exemption. There's no scandal here.

If NYT wants a law changed, they should acknowledge they are a tax advocacy group and not a news organization, and put forth arguments for changing the law. But what they're doing here is pushing a particular agenda under the guise of journalism. Real journalism doesn't have an agenda. Good journalism aims to minimize bias.

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#258

Post by justin66 »

philwelch wrote: post #171
networkimprov wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the NYT is a business primarily focused on seeking profit, no different from FedEx That is incorrect, albeit precisely what FedEx (and many other subjects of investigative journalism) would like us to believe. When "all news is fake news" becomes widespread public perception, that public is doomed to authoritarian rule, most likely by leaders backed by the business elite.

The NYT is a public corporation. About 1/6 of it is owned by Carlos Slim, a billionaire member of the “business elite”. Does the NYT deliver higher quality reporting than Alex Jones? Yes, of course they do, but they are neither perfect nor omniscient nor unbiased nor purely virtuous in their motivations. Let’s turn this around, shall we? When the public implicitly trusts media corporations that are operated for profi…

> When the public implicitly trusts media corporations that are operated for profit and owned by billionaires

That's something that has literally never been the case. Skepticism exists on a sliding scale, and children are taught in high school how to spot a biased headline, a poor use of a statistic, and so on.

When it comes to the public's attitude toward the press, it's not credulousness versus skepticism that exists, it's healthy skepticism versus cynicism.

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#259

Post by 1986 »

It's a bit strange that this statement says "FedEx has paid federal income tax every year, including fiscal year 2018.", while the fact sheet they link to within the statement ( https://about.van.fedex.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/FedEx... ) specifically calls out that their effective income tax rate was negative in 2018 due to TCJA, the year and legislation in dispute:

> The FedEx effective income tax rates for the last five fiscal years (June - May) were 17.6% in 2019, (5.0%) in 2018 (this rate is an anomaly due to the impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act)

Maybe this is due to state income taxes?

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#260

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #257
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you spend time brib..lobbying local councilmen to give you that exemption? Edit: more to the point, what makes you identify as Fedex?

I don't identify as FedEx. I identify as a taxpayer who follows the law. You already admitted the law is intentionally written this way, so that they can pay less taxes. This isn't different from how the law was intentionally written so I can pay less taxes via the homestead exemption. There's no scandal here. If NYT wants a law changed, they should acknowledge they are a tax advocacy group and not a news organizatio…

I may be reading it wrong, but you seem to misrepresent my argument.

Here is what I am saying. You are not Fedex. You are not even in the same category. It is not apples and oranges. It is apples and dwarf planets. Ergo, any attempt to compare your treatment is.. just not comparable. They are literally big enough to write laws that benefit them. That is news.

Here is what you appear to be saying. We are both tax payers so it is apples and apples comparison. I mean, I use my standard deduction and NYT does not write about me...

Please tell me if I read it wrong.

edit. spelling correction

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