The average American pays about 12% of his or her income to federal income tax. Thanks to statistics compiled by US Uncut Chicago, a group that advocates boycotting U.S. corporations that avoid paying taxes in the United States, we now know the effective tax rate paid by 100 top companies for the years 2008-2010.

 

Of the top 100, 39 paid a lower tax rate than the average American. Of these, 11 actually ended up with refunds or credits. The lucky companies were Tesoro, Sears, Prudential, Sunoco, Dow Chemical, General Electric, Verizon, Wells Fargo, DuPont, Boeing and Honeywell.

 

Among the ten corporations and banks that made the biggest profits over the last three years, there were several successful tax avoiders. ExxonMobil paid 2.0% on $171 billion in profits; Chevron paid 4.8% on almost $94 billion profit, IBM paid 1.8% on $54.6 billion; and Procter & Gamble paid 10% on 44.3 billion in profits.

 

Wells Fargo, despite raking up more than $40 billion in profits, had a negative tax rate of 1.2%; while General Electric did even better, with a negative tax rate of 10.8% on profits of $44 billion.

 

Thirty-eight companies paid a higher foreign tax rate than they did in the United States including Sears, Dow Chemical, General Electric and DuPont and Honeywell.

 

There were some corporations and companies that paid a higher rate than the average American. Wal-Mart paid 22.8% on profits of $66.5 billion and JPMorgan Chase paid 20.8% on profits of $43.7 billion. Because of low profits, Tyson Foods paid 50.9%; Progressive Insurance paid 40.7%; Northrop Grumman 40.4%; and Time Warner 40.1%.

-David Wallechinsky

 

Corporate Tax Avoidance Rankings (Pay Up Now)

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