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Wal-Mart Thought for the day

June 27, 2011, 10:53 am

Wal-Mart's profit to shareholders is about 3.6% of sales.   This means that for the majority of the country, on the items you buy at Wal-Mart, they are earning less than half of what the government takes in sales tax on the same item.

Tags:
Category: Taxes
  • http://tjic.com TJIC

    Awesome analysis.

  • http://tjic.com TJIC

    Also, may I mention how greedy the folks at Walmart are?

    If they'd only double their prices, the poor government would finally be making some REAL scratch off of the sales tax - not the piddly hundreds of millions they're earning ^H^H^H taking now!

  • Dan

    Must explain how they pay their employees such lofty wages.

  • GoneWithTheWind

    How much do you think an employee of Walmart is worth?? Most of them are damned lucky to have a job.

  • caseyboy

    A good example of how government's take usually dwarfs the business itself. The same type of thing can be said for a gallon of gas, pack of cig's, six-pack of beer, etc. Our economy is burdened by taxes and a regulatory regimen that chokes off innovation. The thing that surprises me is that we have any economic progress at all. Perhaps we are just witnessing the final throes of our beleaguered economy.

  • http://Samablog.robsama.com Rob Sama

    Try doing the same math on alcohol companies. The government take on that product can be upwards of half what you pay at the store, never mind the profits...

  • RandomReal[]

    Mmmm... Taxes as "government profit" -- I like it.

  • Dan

    I would say 7.2% is pretty fair as an average considering most of California is almost 9% (varies by city but is a minimum of 7.25%) and it is the most populous state.

    This gets worse when you consider that the 3.6% is after corporate taxes paid by Walmart. In 2009, they paid about $6 billion in corporate income tax. In addition, the payroll taxes paid by Walmart and the income taxes paid by their employees have to figure in pretty heavily. This is before you even touch on the property taxes that are paid either directly if they "own" the dirt or indirectly as a part of their lease for each store. We didn't have to get too fancy about other indirect sources that are already cooked into each item they sell either like tarifs, fuel taxes on delivering the stuff to the stores etc.

    Pretty astounding.

  • Roy

    Been thinking about the percentages for a 3 days now. Wonder what presidential candidate would have the courage to take the obvious implications and proclaim them? Not at all esoteric info so recondite that only the few could understand. After all, everyone has been thru the doors at Walmart and, imho, anyway, thought about the "greeters". Even if only briefly, nearly everyone has at some level pondered the ECONOMICS (scare caps for spooky, mysterious concepts they may not have known they were weighing) involved in a Walmart, ranging from who gets what pay to the fate of local stores as Walmart "invades" an area. But the simple math of gov't taking double (or quadruple) the "profit"! What a beautiful, powerful, easily grasped idea. Talk about a "There you go again" moment.

    To answer my question: none of them. Not a single candidate will state the obvious. Not one of them will work at educating people how it's in their best interest to reject the Donks.