New York Times: Profitable Companies, No Taxes: Here’s How They Did It
media mentionAlthough the top corporate rate is 35 percent, hardly any company actually pays that. The report, by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning research group in Washington, found that 100 of them — nearly 40 percent — paid no taxes in at least one year between 2008 and 2015. Eighteen, including General Electric, International Paper, Priceline.com and PG&E, incurred a total federal income tax bill of less than zero over the entire eight-year period — meaning they received rebates. The institute used the companies’ own regulatory filings to compute their tax rates.
“One of the things that jumps out pretty starkly is there’s a real gap between the tax rates paid by different industries,” said Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the institute and a co-author of the study. “When the biggest companies aren’t paying their fair share, that means the rest of us are left to pick up the slack. It means small business and middle-income families are paying more.”