It brings new meaning to the word "gullible."
The Associated Press and other news organizations have had to withdraw stories reporting that General Electric would pay a $3.2 billion tax refund to the U.S. Treasury after it was revealed that the stories was based on a hoax press release.US Uncut is the purveyor of the hoax. The group issued its own press release in response to the phony press release it had sent out. It said,
GE came under fire after a New York Times story that said despite $14.2 billion in worldwide profits - including more than $5 billion from U.S. operations - GE did not owe taxes in 2010...
The hoax press release ... claimed that GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt had informed the Obama administration that his company was returning $3.2 billion to the Treasury and "will furthermore adopt a host of new policies that secure its position as a leader in corporate social responsibility."
The release included what seem to be some pretty obvious fake quotes, including this, attributed to Immelt: "All seven of our foreign tax havens are entirely legal. But Americans have made it clear that they deplore laws that enable tax avoidance. While we owe it to our shareholders to use every legal loophole to maximize returns - we also owe something to the American people. We didn't write the laws that let us legally avoid paying taxes. Congress did. But we benefit from those laws, and now we'd like to share those benefits."
The AP nonetheless ran a four-paragraph story that began, "Facing criticism over the amount of taxes it pays, General Electric announced it will repay its entire $3.2 billion tax refund to the US Treasury on April 18."
"This is a good first step," said, US Uncut spokesman Carl Gibson. "But even if they return their full $3.2 billion 2010 tax benefit as they’re promising, they will still have paid $0 in US taxes since 2006, when they had profits of $26 billion.If only it were true....
