Even though the United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the world, many American companies pay little or nothing in taxes - and some even get refunds.
That doesn't mean that U.S. companies necessarily cheat Uncle Sam, but the steadily falling amount of corporate taxes paid has clearly helped boost profitability.
A recent analysis by The Washington Post showed that it was typical for companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the 1960s and 1970s to pay federal taxes that were between 25% and 50% of their global profits.
Today, most big U.S. companies pay half that.
A study by NerdWallet of the 500 biggest U.S. companies last fall showed that while the statutory corporate tax in the U.S. is 35%, the actual rate paid - not the amount companies set aside for taxes - is down to an average of 13%.
According to the NerdWallet data, 20% of the top 500 U.S. companies paid nothing in corporate taxes in 2011, and 42% paid between 0% and 15%.
The discrepancy has led some in Washington to call for corporate tax reform, which many U.S companies actually support - but mainly because they'd rather pay even less.
"We need to take steps to make our tax system more competitive and better aligned with the rest of the world by undertaking comprehensive tax reform that will reduce the corporate tax rate," Bob McDonald, CEO of The Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG), said in a statement released before a meeting of top U.S. CEOs with President Barack Obama in November.
The main reason corporate taxes have fallen off so much is that multinational companies have avoided bringing foreign profits home. As long as the profits stay overseas, a company can defer paying federal taxes on them.
But this often is not just money earned overseas; many companies have figured out schemes to transfer profits earned in the U.S. to overseas tax shelters.
For example, by using a Puerto Rico-based subsidiary, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) was able to shift $21 billion in revenue from 2009-2011 - about half its U.S. retail sales - offshore. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations estimated the scheme saved Microsoft up to $4.5 billion in U.S. taxes.
With so much of its profits sheltered from U.S. corporate taxes, Microsoft's reported tax expense as a percentage of income has plunged from 33% in 1987 to 10% in 2012.
Other companies are able to take advantage of various loopholes or unusual losses to reduce their corporate taxes, and in some cases qualify for a huge refund.
Company executives routinely deflect criticism about ridiculously low corporate tax rates, invariably saying that they are in compliance with all tax laws.
And as bad as it looks, corporations are not to blame. They'd be remiss in their fiduciary duty to shareholders if they did not exploit every legal tax advantage they can, and every year their accountants get better at it.
That means the situation can only keep getting worse unless Washington takes serious and smart action on corporate tax reform - something few expect.
"I think tax reform on this front is going to be really, really tough," Jia Lynn Yang, the Washington Post reporter who wrote the story on declining corporate tax rates, said in a Huffington Post interview. "This is the most heavily lobbied topic in Washington."
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About the Author
David Zeiler, Associate Editor for Money Morning at Money Map Press, has been a journalist for more than 35 years, including 18 spent at The Baltimore Sun. He has worked as a writer, editor, and page designer at different times in his career. He's interviewed a number of well-known personalities - ranging from punk rock icon Joey Ramone to Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Over the course of his journalistic career, Dave has covered many diverse subjects. Since arriving at Money Morning in 2011, he has focused primarily on technology. He's an expert on both Apple and cryptocurrencies. He started writing about Apple for The Sun in the mid-1990s, and had an Apple blog on The Sun's web site from 2007-2009. Dave's been writing about Bitcoin since 2011 - long before most people had even heard of it. He even mined it for a short time.
Dave has a BA in English and Mass Communications from Loyola University Maryland.