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ITEP & CTJ: Corporate Tax Avoidance In the States Even Worse Than Federal

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) have published State Corporate Income Taxes 2001-2003:

A new analysis of the state corporate income taxes paid by 252 of America’s largest and most profitable corporations finds that by 2003, these companies on average failed to include two-thirds of their actual U.S. pretax profits on their state tax returns. All of the information on state corporate taxes for the companies came from corporate annual reports to shareholders. Here are some of the key facts that the 252 companies’ annual reports reveal:

    • By 2003, these 252 companies had slashed their state income tax payments to an average of only 2.3% of their U.S. profits. Since the average statutory state corporate tax rate is about 6.8% (weighted by gross state product), that means that in 2003, two-thirds of their profits escaped state taxes entirely.
    • A shocking 71 of the 252 companies managed to pay no state income tax at all in at least one year from 2001 through 2003—despite telling their shareholders they made $86 billion in pretax U.S. profits in those no-tax years. Twenty-five of these companies enjoyed multiple no-tax years.
    • Some companies, such as Toys “R” Us, AT&T, Boeing, Eli Lilly, Merrill Lynch, and ITT Industries, paid no net state income tax over the full three-year period.

For the press release, see here.  For detailed data on the 71 no-tax corporations, see here.


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