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Location: Nashville, Tennessee, United States

12/26/2002

Don't Believe Everything You Read
Especially if it's in the New York Times, which reported - falsely - that CSX paid no federal income tax during the years 1998-2001, based on calculations by the labor-backed Citizens for Tax Justice. The claim has been thoroughly debunked, says Donald Luskin, author of the book The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid.

Luskin says CTJ's figures "arbitrarily focus on the amount of taxes physically paid during arbitrary regulatory reporting periods, rather than the much larger amount of taxes accrued on the company's books to be paid in the future when they become legally due." He continues:

The full reality is that CSX's profits are taxed as fully as anyone else's -- indeed, in that one year of the last four when taxes were physically paid, they exceeded 100% of profits for that regulatory reporting period. Did the New York Times do any original research into CSX's financial reports to verify or qualify the claims of Citizens for Tax Justice, whom the reporters themselves admit are biased? No, they just reported those claims as facts, and absolved themselves of responsibility as they absolved themselves of hard work -- by noting the source and (sort of) disclosing potential bias. Job done. Time to go home for Christmas, or "remember the neediest," or whatever New York Times business reporters do with all the spare time that is freed up by not having to report facts.

Luskin explains how the "inaptly named" Citizens for Tax Justice arrived at its misleading contention - designed to undermine President Bush's choice as his new Treasury secretary, CSX CEO John Snow - here.

The Citizens for Tax Justice press release has deliberately ignored CSX's deferred taxes as though they don't exist, in order to create the misleading impression that the company has found a way to never pay any taxes. Very simply, this is a lie of omission. But nonetheless, a lie.

Luskin's site has been added to my list of good websites.

Incidentally, Nashville's daily paper, The Tennessean, is on the warpath against Snow, though I doubt he knows or cares. And their beef has nothing to do with the false allegation that CSX paid no corporate income taxes (though you can easily imagine them tossing that into a future anti-Snow editorial). You can read the paper's anti-Snow editorial for yourself, or save some time by reading the short version below, courtesy of the handy HobbsOnline Tennessean Editorial Translatoramatic:

"You can't trust John Snow. Because he's rich."