March 2, 2022

CNN: Fact-checking Biden’s 2022 State of the Union address

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Facts First: This needs context. Biden left out a significant word from the prepared text of his speech.
The prepared text, which the White House emailed to journalists just before Biden spoke, said that the 55 Fortune 500 companies paid zero dollars last year in federal income taxes. That was indeed the conclusion of a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank. (The institute looked at federal income tax data from 2020, the last year for which these figures are currently available, not 2021.)
However, in Biden’s actual remarks to Congress, he said the 55 companies had paid zero dollars in “federal taxes,” not zero dollars in federal income taxes in particular. It’s possible that the companies in question paid some kind of federal taxes.
Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the institute, said in a text message to CNN during the State of the Union that he “would have preferred” that Biden had specified that the report was specifically about federal income taxes. Gardner added, though, that the omission of the word “income” is not “egregious.” Gardner said the income tax is the only “substantial federal tax that is explicitly designed to be paid by corporations.” (Companies also submit federal payroll taxes, which are legally split between employers and employees, but Gardner said it’s “pretty non-controversial” that even the employers’ share of those payroll taxes is ultimately borne by workers.)

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