The Associated Press has withdrawn its story about General Electric repaying its entire $3.2 billion tax refund to the U.S. Treasury on April 18.
The story was based on a press release that GE says was a hoax.
Reuters news service reported that a GE spokeswoman denied
the company sent the press release.
Andrew Boyd, who described himself in a phone interview as a member of
the "Yes Men" group, said it was the source of the press release sent to news
media outlets on Wednesday, Reuters reported. CNN described the group as
critical of U.S. corporations and linked it to U.S. Uncut and the Yes Lab.
The AP report was widely circulated on Forbes, Yahoo! News
and an AP employee's Twitter account.
GE's ability to avoid paying taxes has been the subject of somewhat
conflicting reports by The New York Times, ProPublica and Forbes.
"The AP did not follow its own standards in this case for verifying the
authenticity of a news release," AP Business Editor Hal Ritter was quoted this
morning as saying.
Boyd told CNN the purpose of the prank was "to show that corporate
American can do the right thing" and "to force GE to deny that they're doing
the right thing."
