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Which Companies Paid The Most Income Tax In 2014
Apple's market capitalization of $730 billion may now be more than double that of Exxon Mobil, but when it comes to taxes paid to the US government, it's no contest: the company with record profitability that so many progressive hipsters adore and for whose products they line up with annual regularity is billions of dollars below its "fair" contribution to the US Treasury. Ironically, it is eclipsed by that other company that so many progressives love to hate: Exxon Mobil, which paid $4 billion more in tax than Apple, yet whose valuation has been cut by 15% over the past year as a result of the collapse in oil prices.
What is also notable, is that using FactSet data, even as companies remitted a record amount of taxes, some $775 billion in 2014, this was equivalent to a 28.1% tax rate: the lowest tax in the past 5 years, as well as in recent history.
Here are some more observations on which S&P company paid what in taxes in the past year.
What Was the Average Tax Bill for An S&P 500 Company This Past Year?
This past Wednesday (April 15) marked the deadline for Americans to file their federal income taxes with the IRS. In terms of the S&P 500, what did the average company in the index pay in income taxes over the past year? How did this amount compare to recent years?
Looking at income taxes paid by S&P 500 companies with a fiscal year ending in the past 12 months (Mach 2014 through February 2015), the average amount of annual income taxes paid was $866.1 million. This amount is above the average from one-year ago ($706.1 million) and above the average of the past five years ($654 million). Companies that reported negative values for income taxes paid were excluded from these averages.
At the company level, Exxon Mobil paid the highest amount of income taxes of all S&P 500 companies over the past year (fiscal year ending in December 2014) at just over $18 billion. Over the past five years, Exxon Mobil has paid the largest amount of income taxes on average at $25.2 billion.
Looking at the tax rate (which is defined for this analysis as taxes paid divided by pretax income) for S&P 500 companies with a fiscal year ending in the past 12 months (March 2014 through February 2015), the average tax rate was 28.1%. This amount is slightly below the percentage from one-year ago (28.7%) and slightly below the average of the past five years (also 28.7%). Companies with tax rates that were either below 0% or above 100% were excluded from these averages.
Thus, it appears that while the average amount of money S&P 500 companies have paid in income taxes has increased over the past five years (as the average amount of earnings have also increased over this period), the average tax rate for S&P 500 companies has remained relatively consistent over this period.
Actually, it has declined.
Which means that in a world in which the marginal capacity of central banks to monetize debt and thus fund various government through outright monetization of deficits, slows down as they run out of bonds to purchase, it will be up to these said government to politely approach the above companies, and all others, and remind them that while everyone enjoyed the past 7 years of record surging stock prices, the time of soaring corporate income tax is coming.
Which is also why corporate insiders and shareholders are withdrawing funds at a record pace today in the form of buybacks and dividends: because they all see the writing on the wall - it is now only a matter of time the government comes knocking and demanding its deferred pound of flesh.
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I don't see GE on that list, I guess it pays to get "serviced" by the POTUS.
I know corporate receipts have gone up some since I wrote the article below but thought it was very interesting that Obama, that "liberal tax and spender", had seen the effective tax rates corporations pay collapse while corporate earnings went to new records...
http://econimica.blogspot.com/2015/02/fundamentally-flawed-chapter-35-taxes.html
Silly ole me. I thought corporations did not pay tax. I thought I was paying their tax when I bought their product.
You just don't understand the theme here. It is always someone else who pays all of the taxes. Its just our job to consume. No taxes in that. Nope...not at all.
Its government's bottomless well of plenty. Sell the idea that big bad corporations and businesses we all work for and buy from are paying the taxes and our wages, our consumption costs are completely separate and immune to any of it.
And they think we are stupid sheep!!
Funny, I don't see Goldman Sachs on that list...
Well Exxon Mobil and the other oil companies get a pretty nice military in the deal!
Lets tax foreign companies. Oh, we can't. That's who we buy most of our shit from anyway. Sorry folks but the West is a pathetic failure looking to maintain it's lost lifestyle.
Indeed. Customers, employees, and shareholders pay the taxes. Corporations pay nothing.
I really wish we would learn to use language more accurately.
Meanwhile, in libtardia...
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/W019RC1A027NBEA
POTUS=Piece Of Totally Useless Shit
LOL - love it.
you said "shit"
I guess that's why it got a down arrow.
There certainly hasn't been anybody try to argue with the overall content of the statement.
.
GE is on the other end of the list, paying the highest negative amount in taxes.
I guess it's their reward for taking on the burden of writing the tax laws.
U got that right, they are still BK from '08 when ol' Snowflake bailed them out. Immelt's balls are in Our Dear Leader's testicle lock box to this day.
- Ned
Is that the right cheek lock box or the left cheek lock box?
Like it or not, any business that is going to survive against foreign competition is going to need protection, either from tariffs or reduced taxes and regulations. Typically though it is only the largest and most powerful who can "purchase" this protection, leaving all of their smaller competitors swinging in the wind. Its the same old corruption excused by its necessity. Stupid policies put in place that, like with our immigration, are made even worse by the corruption it fosters. If we are going to compete with foreign businesses, then we are going to have to play by the same rules. It is just stupid to tax American businesses, the ones WE depend upon for our jobs and economy, while allowing foreign goods and LABOR to stream in untaxed. If there was ever an example of insanity through exceptionalism it is our mad utopian vision that pretends that this is not a competition, that people will not seek to overtake us, to defeat us and to oppress us if possible. If we can believe this of our own government, why is it so hard to imagine those who do not share our land, our borders, our history, language or traditions will not do the same?
Or is it simply our future to just bend over and take it?
Ahh the inane rantings of that delightful fascist and veteran 'butthurts' member oldwood. You were never exceptional, whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean in this context, that is a lie your government force-fed you, and you seem to have eaten it all up and asked for seconds. There is no one looking to overtake you, the rest of the world overtook you 30 years ago, bar a few US vassals. You are a xenophobic retard who has been bending over to authority ever since daddy told you the authority is always right, do get over it.
Also get over the fact that the youngins aren't as malleable as your docile gen and therefore don't fear the other as you clearly do, most actually enjoy experiencing new cultures and recognise the idiocy in fearing something 99.99% the same as you and 0.01% different.
p.s. tradition is a subjective concept for sad old fucks who fear change.
p.p.s. muslims
That's their reward for bringing good things to life/light -- like Fuckushima and the 120 or so similarly designed reactors positioned throughout these United States.
it is deferred
Did anyone else notice that this statement doesn't seem to make sense:
"Which means that in a world in which the marginal capacity of central banks to monetize debt and thus fund various government through outright monetization of deficits, slows down as they run out of bonds to purchase..."
If a government is borrowing to spend, each marginal dollar of spending is financed by a dollar of bond issuance which can be purchased by a central bank using newly minted reserves (i.e. "monetized").
Am I missing something?
I think, I can never earn over which I paid by my precedent employer, but I was wrong, world is so large to try their fate.but now I am making $92/hr even more, can easily minimum $1700/week, on the experience everyone must try to do work online, easy way to earn, here's an example what I do... www.globe-report.com
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CIA admits role in plan to oust Roth:
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the rest were sneaky and weaseled their way out through tax inversions
this country is slowly shifting towards the idiology that taxes can just be printed.
Where is Gold-Mensch Sacks?
Exxon pays $18 billion; how much are we paying besides at the pump?
We get to pay that $18B at the pump. Wonder what a gallon of gas should really cost...
We pay Exxon's corporate income tax, gasoline taxes, and sales taxes at the pump. LOL.
Don't know, but I work offshore, and I see what it takes to get oil to a refinery.
It really makes me laugh, to see people at the pump bitchin about $4 gas, then see them walk in and pay $1.25 for a pint of water, the Equiv of $8 per Gal of water.
Hey, we just like to bitch!
Don't bring rationality to the table at this late date!
In LA, @3.50/gallon, I imagine this is pretty close
.184 fed Tax
.395 state tax
.014 UST tax
.083 gas sales tax
.314 LA Sales tax.
_________________
2.51 per gallon before sales taxes
.078 Corp taxes @ 8.25% profit margin on 2.51/gallon
That's 2.432/Gallon...not counting Federal oil lease fees, taxes paid by it's vendors, overpriced healthcare costs, and any other costs/bribes which result from the monoply criminal gangs in the National and State and Local institutions.
Gummint makes more money off each gallon of gas, than those who actually produce the gas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHS6sthF7M
XOM doesn't pay jack shit. Employees, shareholders, and custumers pay every cent of the legalized theft.
The ignorance demonstrated by this piece is abominable.
CORPORATIONS pay NO INCOME TAX, ANY taxes at all, just like they don't pay for their phone bill, advertising, salaries, and other items that go under the heading of EXPENSES in the income statement.
The customer buying their products pays the taxes. So if you raise the Corporate Tax rates to 50% or 90% what do you think the Corporations are going to do? Jusy sit there and lose money???
Get it thru your thick heads that if you can't control the corporation by freezing it's ability to deduct an expense, or raise its prices, you are whistling dixie, wasting your time and putting an additional cost of living burden on the potentially 7 billion customers of the corporation.
Jessssus......for a financial 'ept' site, this piece is pure junk.
The theory being that a corporation would simply stop doing business if they were expected to pay taxes on the expenditures it takes to produce work product. The IRS sees individuals differently. The calories you eat, the clothing, the coffee you buy to be alert enough to commute. The gasoline/transit costs incurred to get to your job. The vehicle itself. The insurance you pay. Your education/training costs. The shelter you sleep in to be able to wake up and do it again. For most workers, these things are not tax deductible. Infact, you can not even deduct the interest on loans for these things required to do business. And on top of it, most of these items have consumption taxes, such as gasoline.
sarc: but I guess it balances out, because unlike corporations, living breathing mortal humans have immunity for personal prosecution. The ability to bankrupt, and reorganize with no penalty ever. The get fiscal bailouts from congress, but also direct access to the printing press.
The point is...it doesn't matter. You are buying your gas and your buying the gas for the truck that delivered it to your gas station. If tat truck driver has to pay more for gas or taxes or anything else, so do you. So do what you will with the laws. The battle you have is two fold. One is that no matter where the money comes from, it goes to the government...not you, and not Exxon. The second part of the battle is transparency, the ability to see where, when and how much taxes you are actually paying. The delusion that corporations are paying the taxes and not us is what enables the government to maintain their gross level of theft.
The solution is a sales tax. Not a VAT that is rolled in and hidden, but a line item tax that you can see on every dollar you spend. Even though the income tax for many is deducted from each paycheck, it is after the fact and it is integrated to be as painless and invisible as possible. When you go to the store and see your purchase is $12.95 and when you get to the register and the total is $26.40, you might just decide you don't want it all that bad. when you get your paycheck, you are not going to hand it back because the taxes are too high.
Transparency is our only chance as it is the only means to hold anyone or agency accountable, especially if they delete all their emails.
@wisefool
You're an idiot. That is all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDbgDRNmhYs
Does not matter. we are headed to idiocracy anyway. nobody pays taxes.
Comte: Your comments are pure junk. If corporate taxes can always be passed on to customers then you have to have a completely inelastic demand curve, completely inert to rising prices. So stop slopping about in political statements and try to use the lense of economics for a change.
Corporate taxes cannot always be partially or fully passed on to the consumer.
Unfortunately, ceteris paribus exists only in textbooks.
K
If any business cannot pass their costs, all of their costs, on to their customer, I would suggest whatever law of economics that exists would tell us they will not be in business for long....unless of course they are getting a life line from our crony government.
U know nothing!! Nothing!!
To think for a minute profits are going to be negatively affected but momentarily till the new pricing can include the cost of taxes raised, is pure ideological idiocy.
U are stupid patootie head to think otherwise.
REPITE USTED: ALL COSTS ARE PASSED ON and PAID FOR BUY BUYER OF LAST RESORT. That's you, jerk!
Write that on the inside of your forehead if you ever attempt to own a business so that your kids don't go without food and water, just because you think you can divorce political statements from economics in a political economy YET!!!!
And you know what you can do with ceteris paribus, doncha??
Which government agency do you work for??? Or PAC??
I respectfully disagree. Yes, undoubtedly the corp would raise prices but there would be pushback on that by the consumer. So the corp would have to eat some profits. This is really what this issue is about. More profits for shareholders and the CEO.
Business expenses set costs, market sets price. If the market price is below cost, the business fails. If market price is well above business costs then profit prevails. Profit is what most of us seek. That financial differential above our basic needs and expenses...discretionary income. If we had a free market, one where competitors were not disadvantaged by monopolies and crony government involvement, excessive profits could not exist for long. I'm young enough to remember gas wars and watching as stations dropped their prices hourly sometimes. I would suggest that no "excess" profits were enjoyed. Excess profits can only exist where the supply is controlled and deliberately limited to create excess demand.
If we watch this latest oil depression, we will again find ourselves with a few super-sized survivors with little or no competition, and they WILL be able to successfully set prices to a higher profit margin.
Supply and demand.
When all your compeitors, say, in autos get hit with an increase in costs, at the same time, they ALL raise their prices accordingly. You are very naw eeve to think for a second the POTUS of GM doesn't get on the horn to the head of Ford and tell him that he is raising his prices on vehicles to pay the increase in taxes, and an idiot to think that Ford is going eat the costs in some magnanimous gesture.
It's appalling howl little some people on this savvy site know about running a business.
Considering the decline in oil prices, don't count on that "tax revenue" now...
"winning"...
but the liberals told me oil companies don't pay taxes? Where is Google? or for that matter...Bershire Hathway?
List of Large Caps in this Slideshow: Large Cap Company Ticker Market Cap ($in billions) Apple Inc AAPL 672.46 Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM 404.86 Microsoft Corporation MSFT 397.47 Google Inc GOOGL 371.20 Google Inc GOOG 364.30 Berkshire Hathaway Inc. BRK.A 349.70 Johnson & Johnson JNJ 304.43 Wells Fargo & Co. WFC 276.81 Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. WMT 273.88 General Electric Co GE 270.34 Procter & Gamble Co. PG 239.76 JPMorgan Chase & Co JPM 226.53 Chevron Corporation CVX 220.18 Verizon Communications Inc VZ 209.52 Facebook, Inc. FB 204.40 Coca-Cola Co (The) KO 193.69 Pfizer Inc PFE 191.79 AT&T Inc T 183.46 Oracle Corp. ORCL 181.33 Bank of America Corp. BAC 179.41Some Large Caps are more equal than others.
The company’s only obligation is to shareholders.
Management’s job is to become extremely large shareholders at zero, or very little expense.
Avoiding taxes is an obligation management takes very seriously for the above reasons.
The other obligation is to manipulate stock prices and cash out before what they have wrought is known.
Taxes are not part of that plan.
you forgot about getting those custome tax credits....purchased with those lobbyists dollars and a good honest accountant?
Which shareholder, the average investor or the "shadow" investor...think we know that shareholder interests are an illusion ay best and likely just a delusion.
Which shareholder?
The CEOs obviously. Anyone else is just along for the ride.
Maybe I should have said,
Management’s job is to become extremely large shareholders at zero, or very little expense to the detriment of all other shareholders.
Except activist shareholders that is, who work with management to fleece the retail shareholder.
GE has an entire department dedicated to tax manipulation. Immelt is dedicated to blowing Obama
Um, the price of their goods includes the taxes. Thus it is the consumer that pays the tax. That is why you have $600 apple phones. Try again Durden
sessinpo
I believe your implication is that a $600 iphone includes Apple's income taxes. But the reality is that Apple is pricing what the market will bear; oblivious to their corporate income taxes. If corporate income taxes went to zero, is Apple going to drop their prices ? Hell no.
Corporate income taxes cannot be passed along beyond what the market price is. Period.
Durden is right.
K
Technically I'm a corporation but I'm not the right kind so I had to lube up, bend over and the IRS a check last week. I need to come up with some hipster bait and open an Irish bank account.....
Keep getting "Access Denied" while trying to edit; so here it is from below.
Exxon pays $18 billion; how much are we paying besides at the pump?
----------------
I know of no loophole in the tax laws so inequitable as the excessive depletion exemptions now enjoyed by oil and mining interests. .
Under these exemptions, large percentages of the income from oil and mining properties escape taxation, year after year. Owners of mines and oil wells are permitted, after deducting all costs of doing business, to exclude from taxation on account of depletion as much as HALF of their net income. .
In the case of ordinary businesses, investment in physical assets is recovered tax-free through depreciation deductions. When the original investment has been recovered, a depreciation deduction is no longer allowed under the tax laws. In the case of oil and mining businesses, however, the depletion exemption goes on and on, year after year, even though the original investment in the property has already been recovered tax free, not once but many times over. - Harry S. Truman, 1950
----------------------
http://trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/viewpapers.php?pid=592
Crocodile
I am no friend of big business, but I fail to understand why depletion isn't a legitimate expense. If you are saying depreciation or amortization of all capitalized costs isn't fair, then no one would invest in an oil well.
If you are saying depletion is an accounting fiction masquerading as a legal expense, then tell me how it works and I will start drilling tomorrow.
K
"What is Percentage Depletion?
The percentage depletion deduction has been a part of the U.S. tax code since 1926. Depletion is a form of depreciation for mineral resources that allows for a deduction from taxable income to reflect the declining production of reserves over time.
For oil and natural gas producers, percentage depletion is a small producer issue. Percentage depletion is only allowed for independent producers and royalty owners. It is calculated by applying a 15 percent reduction to the taxable gross income of a productive well’s property. The reduction is determined on a property-by property basis and is limited to the taxpayer’s first 1,000 barrels of oil (or 6,000 mcf of natural gas) of production per day. It is also capped at the net income of a well and limited to 65 percent of the taxpayer’s net income. Because of these restrictions, only small independent producers and royalty owners are users of the percentage depletion deduction."
Harry Truman was a lousy president, and seemingly a lousy tax accountant too.
Berkshire Hathaway paid $7.9 billion? Just how many secretaries does Warren Buffet have?
no corporate tax, no Citizens disUnited. deal?
I'm guessing these numbers are way overstated. Income tax expense on GAAP financial statements is normally much higher that the actual cash taxes paid to the Federal, state and local authorities. Maximum income on the GAAP financials and minimize income on the filed tax returns.
Companies, businesses, don't pay taxes, they collect taxes from their customers.
The banksters need to repay us.
"Companies, businesses, don't pay taxes, they collect taxes from their customers."+++++
Man, I wish more people would wake up to that fact!
Instead, we seem to get anger that companies avoid taxes, which is a requirement of their fiduciary obligations, when Tylers and ZH readers would gladly avoid the Federal Pickpocket if they could.
Yeah, it's so foundational and fundamental to understanding things, that it just shocks me how many take the bait of, "Not paying their fair share."
I have friends that have a broad awareness of what is going on, but still take the bait. Such an ingrained propaganda meme it is.
Really fun though is explaining to people that individuals that, "Don't pay their fair share," actually benefit the economy and their fellow citizens by NOT paying--A dollar not used to kill people overseas is another dollar for the local pizza guy.
The banksters need to repay us.
One day Alice, right in the thinker."
Can I just declare myself a corporation and pay taxes on my NET income rather than my gross? You know, deduct things like rent, electric bill, car payments, insurance, food etc as expenses.
Because if I could I could easily get my net income to about 0 and I imagine so could many readers here.
No. I can't.
But corporations are people.../s
You're stupid.
In a way this is how the elites do it.
Everything is owned and controlled by interlocking corps., trusts, charities, organizations, NGOs, etc. Their planes, homes, etc. are usually on the books of someone or something else.
That way their lifestyles are boosted while their expenses actually boost their incomes.
Imagine owning a private jet and paying the costs of operating it out of your income. Now imagine using a private jet that is owned by a company you own 20% of.
And it is not about taxes so much as about opaqueness--a curtain.
The bankster need to repay us.
Of course we peons would probably not get away with it, but then if we also owned a government or two...
I will probably cry for Exxon-Mobil tonight.