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Brilliant! Simply brilliant:

US Uncut, a group protesting corporate tax issues and government service cutbacks, claimed responsibility for a fake press release that said General Electric Co. (GE) would return a "$3.2 billion tax refund."

The release, which was picked up by the Associated Press, was part of the group's effort to pressure companies to pay their taxes, Andrew Boyd, a spokesman for the group, said in an interview. US Uncut had the idea for the GE tax effort and then cooperated on execution of it with a group known as the Yes Men, which has been involved in similar hoaxes.

This story comes from late last month:

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.

Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

G.E.'s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world's best tax law firm. Company officials acknowledged that the tax department had expanded since he joined the company in 1988, and said it now had 975 employees.

At a tax symposium in 2007, a G.E. tax official said the department's "mission statement" consisted of 19 rules and urged employees to divide their time evenly between ensuring compliance with the law and "looking to exploit opportunities to reduce tax."

That's right: G.E. has been paying nothing in taxes the past few years.

"GE's tax avoidance is unpatriotic, it's undemocratic, it's unfair," said Andrew Boyd, a US Uncut spokesperson. "It might be legal, but that's only because GE has used its money and lobbying influence to buy the loopholes they're now taking advantage of."

This activist prank is part of a long history of raising awareness of such inequities:

Yes Men co-founder Mike Bonanno confirmed US Uncut's responsibility for the idea and his group's help. He said that, although GE has the right to take legal action, he thinks misrepresenting the company's actions in a comic way is part of free speech and protected by the First Amendment.

"If you speak as GE, people listen," said Bonanno. "If we spoke as ourselves, no one would listen. We come clean with our lies right away."

The Yes Men have claimed responsibility for several other political hoaxes, including issuing a fake press release by U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue in October 2009 that said the business group was reversing its position on climate change. The Chamber of Commerce sued the Yes Men and the case is still ongoing, according to Bonanno.

Let's hope we see more of these activities:

"At a time when working families are being asked to accept massive cuts nationwide, this action showed another way the world could work," said US Uncut spokesperson Carl Gibson. "For a brief moment people believed that the biggest corporate tax dodger had a change of heart and actually did the right thing. But the only way anything like this is really going to happen is if we change the laws that allow corporate tax avoidance in the first place."

In the period the hoax was believed, GE's stock plunged by .6% (far more than the value of the supposed return), then quickly recovered as soon as it became apparent the press had been duped. "Obviously, GE can't possibly be expected to do the right thing voluntarily; their stock would keep plunging," noted Gibson. "That's why we must change the law."

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