New York Times' David Kocieniewski Wins March Sidney for Exposé on G.E.'s Aggressive Tax Avoidance Strategies
April 15, 2011
NEW YORK: The Sidney Hillman Foundation announced today that New York Times reporter David Kocieniewski has won the March Sidney Award for his exposé of the General Electric Company. The Times reported that G.E. earned $14.2 billion in worldwide profits in 2010, and paid nothing in United States taxes.
Kocieniewski wrote that G.E.’s extraordinary success in avoiding American taxes “is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.”
Sidney Award judge Charles Kaiser called Kocieniewski’s article “a classic piece of investigative reporting. Kocieniewski demonstrates that G.E.’s experience is emblematic of the way more and more giant American corporations have figured out how to reduce their annual tax bills to something close to zero.”
The piece comes at a crucial moment in the debate over corporate tax policy.
Among the story’s findings:
* Over the last decade, G.E. has spent tens of millions of dollars to push for changes in tax law, from more generous depreciation schedules on jet engines to “green energy” credits for its wind turbines.
*The most lucrative of these measures allows G.E. to operate a vast leasing and lending business abroad with profits that face little foreign taxes and no American taxes as long as the money remains overseas.
* The use of so many shelters amounts to corporate welfare, allowing G.E. not just to avoid taxes on profitable overseas lending but also to amass tax credits and write-offs that can be used to reduce taxes on billions of dollars of profit from domestic manufacturing.
* In 2008, Charles Rangel, then the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, reversed his opposition to a crucial tax break for G.E.
* The following month, Mr. Rangel and G.E.’s chief executive, Jeffrey R. Immelt. stood together at St. Nicholas Park in Harlem as G.E. announced that its foundation had awarded $30 million to New York City schools, including $11 million to benefit various schools in Mr. Rangel’s district. This was the largest gift ever to New York City schools. Both G.E. and Mr. Rangel have denied that there was any connection between the Congressman’s reversal of position and the exceptionally generous grant to the New York City school system.
David Kocieniewski has a B.A. from SUNY Binghamton and a Master’s from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He is an investigative reporter who covers tax policy for the business section of The New York Times.
Since joining the Times in 1995, he has authored many investigations, including a series of stories about Congressman Rangel’s ethical violations which led to Rangel’s resignation as chairman of the Ways and Means committee, and his censure by Congress.
Kocieniewski was also part of the team that won a Pulitzer prize for coverage of Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s downfall. Kocieniewski is co-author of Two Seconds Under the World (Crown 1994), which that revealed how the F.B.I. botched repeated opportunities to prevent the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He also wrote The Brass Wall (Henry Holt, 2003), a non-fiction thriller about an undercover N.Y.P.D. detective whose identity was leaked to the Mafia by a fellow officer.
A native of Buffalo, N.Y., he lives in Yardley, Pa., with his two daughters.
For an interview with Kocieniewski about his investigation click here.
The Sidney Award is given once a month to an outstanding piece of socially-conscious journalism, or a leading journalistic association, by the Sidney Hillman Foundation, which also awards the annual Hillman Prizes every spring. For more information please click here.