According to the U.S. tax code, corporations pay a 35% tax rate on their earnings. But at least 30 of them paid zero federal income over the last three years, while hundreds of other companies paid half the official corporate rate.

 

The findings, produced in a new report from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, included 78 major businesses that paid no federal income tax in at least one of the last three years. Included in this group were five banks that received bailout funds from the government: Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, PNC Financial Services Group, Capital One Financial Inc. and State Street Corp. An even larger group (280) paid federal income taxes equal to 18.5% of their profits.

 

“These 280 corporations received a total of nearly $223 billion in tax subsidies,” said Robert McIntyre, 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 largest recipient of tax subsidies, according to the study, was Wells Fargo, which received nearly $18 billion from 2008 to 2010.

 

Last year, 37 companies paid no income taxes to the U.S. Treasury. This group included General Electric, Honeywell International, DuPont, Yahoo, Verizon, Boeing and Corning.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Report: 280 Most Profitable U.S. Corporations Shelter Half Their Profits from Taxes; Thirty Companies Paid Less Than Zero in Taxes In The Last Three Years (Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy) (pdf)

Biggest Public Firms Paid Little U.S. Tax, Study Says (by David Kocieniewski, New York Times)

Banks that Received TARP Money Managed to Avoid Income Tax (by John Dunbar, iWatch News)

Corporate Taxpayers & Corporate Tax Dodgers 2008-10 (Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy) (pdf)

39 of the Biggest Corporations Paid a Lower Tax Rate than the Average American (by David Wallechinsky, AllGov)

General Electric Doesn’t Pay Taxes; Why Should You? (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)