The Yes Men

General Electric likes their tax rate low, according to CEO Jeffrey Immelt. Very low. Despite $5 billion in profit last year the company paid no income tax and received a $3.2 billion tax benefit, according to The New York Times. Which is less than low: It's taxpayer funded, again.

Then Immelt was tapped to be an outside economic adviser to the Obama administration, which has been decrying low tax rates for companies and the rich.

Very embarrassing.

So last week, when USA Today reported the company will give back the tax benefit due to public outcry, it seemed credible. The paper wrote: "Facing criticism over the amount of taxes it pays, General Electric announced it will repay its entire $3.2 billion tax refund to the U.S. Treasury on April 18.... The company earned $11 billion in 2010 on revenue of $150 billion. The company, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, plans to phase out the tax havens over five years and said it will create one job in the US for each new job it creates overseas."

Only it wasn't GE that said it was giving the money back, phasing out tax havens and recommitting to creating jobs in the U.S. No, a real GE spokesperson came out and announced that that was ridiculous nonsense -- a hoax. Nor was GE going to "adopt a host of new policies that secure its position as a leader in corporate social responsibility" or give its $3.2 billion tax benefit back to the Treasury. "GE did not receive a refund," said spokeswoman Deirdre Latour.

GE, whose tagline is "Imagination at Work," had been spoofed by activists from the Yes Men. The group forced the multinational corporation to come out and quell investors' fears it was giving back money received via tax loopholes from the U.S. government.

The villain gets tricked into a public confession by his enemy?! This would be written off as a stock schmaltzy ending for a movie. The flippant feel good conclusion before the credits roll. This is a well-worn device for lazy screenwriters -- but the Yes Men have been doing it in real life for nearly two decades.

"It's comedy with a goal to get people to do something. To act," Yes Men co-founder "Andy Bichlbaum," who says his real name is the fake-sounding Jacques Servin.

The two men, whose day jobs are as college professors, say they feel they're activists at heart. That what they do is about having a voice. They see themselves first and foremost as citizens of a failing democracy -- and GE was a perfect example of why. The company, Servin points out, hides its profits, took bailout money and then didn't pay taxes. "Americans don't want that," he said. The Yes Men hoax illuminated the matter.

The Yes Men, who were founded roughly around 1996, are the old salts of the spoof. Most of their stunts involve months of planning -- then last maybe 30 minutes before they're found out to be a spoof. In 2008, the group printed 80,000 copies of a fake New York Times with the headline, "The Iraq War Ends." It cost them around $13,000 for the stunt. It was quickly exposed as a mockup, but still allowed reporters to write about the subject.

They have an extraordinary record of successful hoaxes, a few cease and desist orders and only one lawsuit to speak of. In 2009, the Chamber of Commerce filed a civil complaint "to protect its trademarks and other intellectual property from unlawful use by the 'Yes Men' and others in furtherance of their various commercial enterprises." "The 'Yes Men' and their associates misappropriated the Chamber's logo and other protected marks; created a fraudulent Web site that was an exact replica of and linked to the Chamber's actual site; and falsely claimed to be speaking as the Chamber under the Chamber's copyright," the pro-business group alleged.

Their so-called crime? The Yes Men had held a fake press conference and said the Chamber was changing its environmental policy. A judge has yet to throw the case out. 

Until then, the Yes Men say they are committed and will continue to do their job.  A little humor for them, goes a long way.