Friday, March 10, 2017

So whose paying taxes?

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy recently released a study of the tax burdens of 258 of the Fortune 500 from 2008 to 2015. They found that these 258 companies earned more than $3.8 trillion in profits and paid an average rate of 21.2 percent. Companies with the biggest tax subsidies over the eight years, the institute’s report included:
 ■ AT&T ($38.1 billion) 
 ■ Wells Fargo ($31.4 billion) 
 ■ JPMorgan Chase ($22.2 billion) 
 ■ Verizon ($21.1 billion) 
 ■ IBM ($17.8 billion) 
 ■ General Electric ($15.4 billion) 
 ■ Exxon Mobil ($12.9 billion)
 ■ Boeing ($11.9 billion) 
 ■ Procter & Gamble ($8.5 billion)
 ■ Twenty-First Century Fox ($7.6 billion)
 ■ Time Warner ($6.7 billion) 
 ■ Goldman Sachs ($5.5 billion)

GE protested that the report was “deeply flawed and misleading.”

Other tidbits from the report:
• 100  companies enjoyed at least one year in which their federal income tax was zero or less 
• 24 companies paid zero taxes in four out of eight years 
• 18 companies (including General Electric, International Paper, Priceline.com and PG&E) paid no federal income tax over the eight-year period.
• Collectively, the 258 corporations enjoyed $513 billion in tax breaks over the last eight years. More than half of those tax breaks, $277 billion, went to just 25 of the most profitable corporations. 

No comments: