Blog - Corporate Taxes
169 posts
Trump Says Exxon and Chevron Are Ripping Off Americans, But His Own Policies Are to Blame
August 4, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
President Trump lashed out at ExxonMobil and Chevron for “making too much money." These companies are reporting enormous profits right now, partly the result of Trump’s war in Iran but also due to the corporate tax policies he's passed during his time in office.
Microsoft Reports a 2.44 Percent Federal Tax Rate on a Record $101 Billion in Profits
July 29, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
Microsoft avoided federal income tax on almost all of its U.S. income for fiscal year 2026. The company’s 2.44 percent federal tax rate on over $100 billion of U.S. income is largely attributable to tax breaks that were either created or expanded by Republican tax cuts enacted at the behest of President Donald Trump in 2017 and 2025.
Flying Under the Tax Radar: How Profitable Airlines Avoided Federal Income Taxes in 2025
July 27, 2026 • By Sarah Buttikofer, Spandan Marasini
Corporate tax disclosures reveal that five profitable airlines paid almost nothing in federal income tax last year. In 2025, the effective federal income tax rates of these airlines ranged from 1.07 percent to below zero.
Trump Administration Says Shining Light on Corporate Tax Avoidance is ‘Very Dangerous’
July 14, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
Administration officials appear far more concerned about the public knowing too much about how U.S. corporations shift their income into offshore tax havens.
New EU Disclosure Requirements Are Helping Identify Corporate Tax Avoiders
June 30, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
Microsoft reports a huge share of its worldwide profit in low-tax Ireland and is achieving this despite having a very small share of its employees there. As other companies make similar disclosures between now and the end of calendar year 2026, investors and the public will likely get a much clearer sense of how much profit corporations are hiding offshore—and how much tax they’re avoiding by doing so.
Corporate tax reforms could be more resilient than proposals to tax wealth or unrealized capital gains while achieving the same goal of more adequately taxing the income of billionaires.
The Final Frontier of Tax Avoidance: Elon Musk’s SpaceX Has $1.9 Billion to Gain from Defunding the IRS
June 12, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
A year after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cut a swath of destruction through vital federal agencies including the Internal Revenue Service, Musk’s apparent antipathy toward the IRS suddenly makes more sense.
The oil and gas industry has long been known for widespread tax avoidance. Now, thanks to new disclosure rules, we have a better picture of how this occurs.
Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Received Almost 10 Percent of Corporate Tax Subsidies Last Year
May 21, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner, Steve Wamhoff
Amazon received $17.5 billion in tax subsidies in 2025. That’s about 10% of all federal income tax subsidies for publicly traded corporations in 2025.
Corporate tax reforms should be the backbone of any progressive tax agenda and should be counted on to remain if other changes to our tax code are later thwarted by any of the three branches of government.
Amidst Soaring Tech Earnings, Meta and Qualcomm Disclose a $13.7 Billion Tax Gift from Trump Administration
April 30, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
Both companies acknowledge that they will save billions because of the Trump administration's weakening of the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (CAMT). Meta and Qualcomm are just two of the corporations that will benefit from this corporate tax cut provided unilaterally by the Trump's Treasury Department.
The Washington Post Is Wrong: Many Rich Americans Are Not Paying Their Fair Share
April 30, 2026 • By Jessica Vela
Bezos' hand-picked editorial board argues that our tax code does not need to be more progressive because the share of federal income tax paid by the rich already exceeds their share of income. This is grossly misleading for at least two reasons.
The Big Corporations That Avoided All Federal Income Taxes on Their 2025 U.S. Profits Would Like Us All to Please Just Look at That Squirrel Over There
April 24, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
When confronted with the completely accurate observation that their own annual reports disclose an estimated current federal income tax expense of zero on current-year income, the companies will desperately point to something else entirely.
New Income Tax Disclosure Rules Mean Halliburton Can No Longer Conceal Its Offshore Tax Avoidance
March 2, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
The company’s latest annual report throws the doors wide open once again on Halliburton’s penchant for offshoring its profits to tax havens, thanks to terrific new disclosure rules introduced by an obscure but vital agency, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).
Cheniere Energy Gets $380 Million Gift from Trump’s Treasury Department
February 26, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
Cheniere Energy's latest annual financial report shows the company reaped a cool $380 million in tax cuts from a single regulatory change made by the Trump administration last fall.
Nvidia’s Tax Bill Shows It’s Not Just Zero-Tax Corporations That Hurt Our Budget Deficit the Most
February 26, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
Semiconductor giant Nvidia reported avoiding $6.8 billion in federal income taxes last year. The company did this in a year when it reported greater earnings growth than almost any corporation in history, with U.S. pretax income coming in at an astonishing $123 billion.
Yum! Brands’ Recipe for Tax Avoidance: Trump Tax Cuts with a Dash of Malta
February 24, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
the fast-food multinational that owns KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut reported this week that it made $1 billion of pretax profits in the U.S. last year—and didn’t pay a dime of federal income taxes on those profits.
Live Nation Entertainment Says Trump Tax Law Drove its 2025 Federal Income Tax Bill to Zero
February 20, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
The company paid zero federal income tax in 2025 despite reporting $145 million of U.S. profits.
Trump Administration Provides Biggest Illegal Tax Cuts Yet for Billion-Dollar Corporations
February 20, 2026 • By Amy Hanauer
The Treasury Department is unilaterally cutting corporate taxes with regulations that ignore the statute they claim to implement, disregarding the separation of powers between the branches of government that has defined how America works for more than two centuries.
Palantir Pays Zero Federal Income Tax Despite Explosive Growth, Largely Due to Trump Tax Law
February 17, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
Palantir reported $1.5 billion of U.S. income but paid exactly zero federal income tax in 2025. Despite explosive growth, tax breaks from the Trump tax law helped Palantir avoid paying even a dime of federal income tax on its earnings.
Trump Undermined the Constitution to Give Corporations a $10 Billion Tax Cut
February 10, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
This unilateral corporate tax cut from the Trump administration will cost $10 billion over a decade unless it is reversed.
Four Big Tech Companies Avoid $51 Billion in Taxes in Wake of One Big Beautiful Bill Act
February 6, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
Four of the corporations whose CEOs flanked President Trump at his 2025 inauguration ceremony have now disclosed that they collectively received $51 billion in federal tax breaks in 2025, much of that likely from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA).
Tesla Reported Zero Federal Income Tax on $5.7 Billion of U.S. Income in 2025
January 29, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
Tesla enjoyed almost $5.7 billion of U.S. income in 2025 but paid $0 in federal income tax. Over the past three years, the Elon Musk-led company reported $12.5 billion of U.S. income on which its current federal tax was just $48 million.
From Congressional discussions over the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" to debates on property taxes, ITEP kept busy this year analyzing tax proposals and showing Americans across the country how tax decisions affect them.
Coca-Cola To Shareholders: $18 Billion Tax Bill? What $18 Billion Tax Bill?
October 1, 2025 • By Matthew Gardner
If Coca-Cola only pays 3% of the $18 billion tax bill it's facing, then the rest of us will have to pick up the remaining 97%.
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