In 2005, one out of four large corporations paid no income taxes at all even though they collected $1.1 trillion in revenue over that one-year period.
In 2009, Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits. Not only did Exxon not pay any federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to SEC filings.
Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, even though it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.
Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year.
Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year, received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.
In 2008, Goldman Sachs only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.
Last year, Citigroup made over $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes, even though it received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department. Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS. According to a New York Times article, “G.E. is so good at avoiding taxes that some people consider its tax department to be the best in the world, even better than any law firm’s.”
Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year, even though it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.
ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, which made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.
Ford’s federal income tax rate was just 2.3 percent in 2009 even though it made $3 billion in profits.
Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made over $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.
Over the last five years, Southwest Airlines paid a federal income tax rate of 6.3 percent, Yahoo paid 7 percent, and Prudential Financial paid 7.6 percent.
Source: pantslessprogressive
