Tax Day: The Robber Barons

The following is a list of the country’s largest publicly-held profitable corporations that paid no federal income taxes in 2018 on billions in U.S. income, according to ITEP analysis of 560 companies. ITEP reports U.S. income before federal taxes, and takes into consideration paid state and local taxes, which could reduce or increase U.S. income.  The report does not look at total tax provision, a number that could include foreign taxes and deferred taxes. All figures, except for tax rate, are in millions.

Company	U.S. Income	Federal Tax	Effective Tax Rate
Amazon.com	$10,835	–129	–1%
Delta Air Lines	$5,073	–187	–4%
Chevron	$4,547	–181	–4%
General Motors	$4,320	–104	–2%
EOG Resources	$4,067	–304	–7%
Occidental Petroleum	$3,379	–23	–1%
Honeywell International	$2,830	–21	–1%
Deere	$2,152	–268	–12%
American Electric Power	$1,943	–32	–2%
Principal Financial	$1,641	–49	–3%
FirstEnergy	$1,495	–16	–1%
Prudential Financial	$1,440	–346	–24%
Xcel Energy	$1,434	–34	–2%
Devon Energy	$1,297	–14	–1%
DTE Energy	$1,215	–17	–1%
Halliburton	$1,082	–19	–2%
Netflix	$856	–22	–3%
Whirlpool	$717	–70	–10%
Eli Lilly	$598	–54	–9%
IBM	$500	–342	–68%
Goodyear Tire & Rubber	$440	–15	–3%
Penske Automotive Group	$393	–16	–4%
Aramark	$315	–48	–15%
AECOM Technology	$238	–122	–51%
Tech Data	$203	–10	–5%
Performance Food Group	$192	–9	–4%
Arrow Electronics	$167	–12	–7%
Source: Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

The controversial Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed by President Donald Trump in December 2017, lowered the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, among other cuts. That’s partly to blame for giving corporations an easier way out of paying taxes, said Matthew Gardner, an ITEP senior fellow and lead author of the report. The new corporate tax rate “lowers the bar for the amount of tax avoidance it takes to get you down to zero,” he said.

“The specter of big corporations avoiding all income taxes on billions in profits sends a strong and corrosive signal to Americans: that the tax system is stacked against them, in favor of corporations and the wealthiest Americans,” Gardner wrote in the report.