Some of the most profitable U.S. companies have skipped paying taxes

A comprehensive new study profiling 280 of America’s most profitable companies finds 78 of them paid no federal income taxes in at least one of the past three years. Over the same period, 30 companies enjoyed a negative income tax rate despite combined pretax profits of $160 billion. These are among the findings in “Corporate Taxpayers and Corporate Tax Dodgers, 2008-2010,” a study by Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “These 280 corporations received a total of nearly $223 billion in tax subsidies,” says Robert McIntyre, the director at Citizens for Tax Justice and the report’s lead author. “This is wasted money that could have gone to protect Medicare, create jobs and cut the deficit.” The study examines 280 corporations, all from the Fortune 500 list. All of the companies were profitable in each of the last three years and provided sufficient and reliable information in their financial reports about their pretax U.S. profits and their U.S. federal income taxes. “Corporate tax loopholes are so out of control that most Americans can rightfully complain, ‘I pay more federal income taxes than General Electric, Boeing, DuPont, Wells Fargo, Verizon, etc., etc., all put together,’ ” reads the report, which you can access in its entirety or as an abbreviated version here.