San Jose Mercury News: Which Bay Area Companies Didn’t Pay Federal Income Tax in 2018?
media mentionCorporations — they’re just like us. They, too, have to file income taxes every year. But unlike most of us, they have teams of accountants who can minimize their tax burden as much as possible.
Three of the Bay Area’s Fortune 500 companies — Chevron, Netflix and Salesforce — paid no federal taxes in 2018, according to a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank. Chevron and Netflix together got more than $200 million in tax rebates.
Nationally, 60 profitable Fortune 500 companies paid nothing in federal taxes in 2018 or received a rebate, according to the report. Companies can either cash out their rebates or apply them to future taxes.
“There’s no indication that any of these companies are doing anything illegal,” said Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “By all accounts, they’re simply using tax breaks that Congress and various presidents have chosen to make available.”