Skip to main content

Our Largest Corporations Made $170B During Great Recession; Paid NO Taxes

.

.

Keep these charts in mind while reading the story. Link to the 1st chart on the top left. Link to 2nd on the top right, and 3rd on the bottom left. And the link to the 4th, on the bottom right.


How Our Largest Corporations Made $170 Billion During Great Recession And Paid No Taxes

    Yesterday, I wrote about how the GOP is falsely pushing the argument that America’s corporations are overtaxed. I included some great data courtesy of conservative commentator Bruce Bartlett whose New York Times piece did an extraordinary job of putting the lie to the Republican assertions.

    Today, and not a moment too soon, the non-profit Citizens For Tax Justice (CTJ) has put out their findings revealing that twelve of the nations largest Fortune 500 companies, while making $170 billion in profits during the period of The Great Recession, paid an effective tax rate of negative 1.5%.

    Yes, you read that correctly.

    Not only have these twelve companies paid zero in taxes for the years 2008-2010, they actually received tax subsidies that added $62.4 billion to their bottom lines.

    The companies were chosen by the CTJ to represent a range of industries, including manufacturing, energy, services, transportation and high tech and include – in alphabetical order – American Electric Power, Boeing, Dupont, Exxon Mobil, FedEx, General Electric, Honeywell International, IBM, United Technologies, Verizon Communications, Wells Fargo and Yahoo.

    Here are the bullet points presented by the report:

    • From 2008 through 2010, these 12 companies reported $171 billion in pretax U.S. profits. But as a group, their federal income taxes were negative: –$2.5 billion.
    • All but two of the dozen companies enjoyed at least one no-tax year over the 2008-10 period, despite reporting substantial pretax U.S. profits in those no-tax years.
    • Eight of the twelve companies reported net tax benefits over the full three-year period.

    According to the study, not a single one of these companies paid an amount even close to the 35% statutory tax rate.

    [...]

http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/06/01/how-our-largest-corporations-made-170-billion-during-great-recession-and-paid-no-taxes/