Saturday, August 18, 2012
The largest corporations in the U.S., consisting of oil, retail, banking and technology giants, paid an average of only 9% of their earnings in income taxes to the Internal Revenue Service last year.
According to the tax code, companies are supposed to pay 35% income tax. But NerdWallet determined that the top 10 came nowhere near that.
Exxon Mobil, the country’s biggest business, made more than $73 billion in 2011, but paid only $1.5 billion to the IRS.
The second largest company, Chevron, paid $1.9 billion in taxes after collecting $47.6 billion in revenue.
No. 3 on the list, Apple, made $34.2 billion. It paid $3.9 billion to the IRS.
These were followed by:
Microsoft (made $28 billion, paid $3.1 billion)
JPMorgan Chase (made $26.7 billion, paid $3.7 billion)
Walmart (made $24.4 billion, paid $4.6 billion)
Wells Fargo (made $23.7 billion, paid $3.4 billion)
ConocoPhillips (made $23 billion, paid $1.9 billion)
IBM (made $21 billion, paid $268 million)
General Electric (made $20.1 billion, paid $1 billion)
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
NerdWallet Study: Top Companies Paid 9% U.S. Tax Rate (by Joanna Pratt, NerdWallet)
Corporate Tax Rate Too High? Not for GE…2.3% over 10 Years (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)
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