At least 55 large corporations paid no federal corporate income taxes in 2020, according to a new analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
The companies in the analysis had more than $40 billion in pre-tax income and would have paid about $8.5 billion in taxes at the 21% corporate tax rate. But none of those taxes were collected, and the companies instead received roughly $3.5 billion in rebates, bringing the total for tax breaks for the group to $12 billion.
“This continues a decades-long trend of corporate tax avoidance by the biggest U.S. corporations,” ITEP said, adding that “it appears to be the product of long-standing tax breaks preserved or expanded by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) as well as the CARES Act tax breaks enacted in the spring of 2020.”
Some examples from the report:
* FedEx had $1.2 billion of U.S. pretax income in 2020 but paid no tax while receiving a rebate of $230 million.
* Nike paid no taxes on roughly $2.9 billion of U.S. pretax income last year while receiving a $109 million tax rebate.
* Salesforce paid no federal income taxes on $2.6 billion of U.S. income.
