Washington Post: Biden proposals may not guarantee all Fortune 500 corporations pay federal income taxes, experts say

Of the 55 corporations that did not pay federal income taxes in 2020, only five had more than $2 billion in net income, according to the report by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank. That means the overwhelming majority of them would not be subject to the book tax.

Matt Gardner, author of the ITEP report, praised the Biden plan for substantially increasing the amount of taxes paid by major corporations. However, he said it was unclear how many Fortune 500 firms would be paying $0 under the plan. If the Biden administration wanted to eliminate that problem, he said, it could drop the threshold for the book tax to ensure it hits more firms.

“We just can’t tell if this would meaningfully reduce the number of corporations paying $0,” Gardner said. “The 15 percent minimum tax on book income would surely play a role in reducing tax avoidance as well. This doesn’t mean that the minimum tax, or the plan as a whole, would guarantee the end of the zero-tax corporation. But it would make zero-tax corporations less likely.” Read more

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