Last month, the New York Times featured an article on how G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether. With Tax Day, just around the corner, I wanted to take a closer look at how much corporations were exactly paying in taxes.
The starting point for this exercise begins with the Instructions for Form 1120, where the Internal Revenue Service lists the income tax rates for U.S. corporations.
| Tax Rate Schedule | |||
| If taxable income is: | |||
| Over | But not over | Tax is: | Of the amount over |
| $0 | $50,000 | 15% | $0 |
| 50,000 | 75,000 | $7,500 + 25% | 50,000 |
| 75,000 | 100,000 | 13,750 + 34% | 75,000 |
| 100,000 | 335,000 | 22,250 + 39% | 100,000 |
| 335,000 | 10,000,000 | 113,900 + 34% | 335,000 |
| 10,000,000 | 15,000,000 | 3,400,000 + 35% | 10,000,000 |
| 15,000,000 | 18,333,333 | 5,150,000 + 38% | 15,000,000 |
| 18,333,333 | 35% | 0 | |
$18.3 million in taxable income is a relatively low threshold, at least when referring to major corporations. How many of them pay any where close to the 35% tax rate? Let’s take a look. Unlike the new York Times article, I will show my calculations so that you can comment on my methodology.
