- Wednesday November 4, 2009
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Corporate Taxes: Who Pays the Least
Special Report: How Much Do Companies Pay?
Slide Show: Slide Show: Avoiding the Tax Man
Table: Who Pays the Most?
Methodology: How We Calculate The Effective Tax Rate
For years, critics have complained that the U.S. has one of the highest corporate tax rates of any industrialized nation. But it turns out that most U.S. companies pay less than 35%, which is the official U.S. corporate tax rate. With the help of data tracker Capital IQ, which, like BusinessWeek, is owned by The McGraw-Hill Companies (MHP), we looked at the companies in the S&P 500 index to get a real-world picture of how much companies actually pay the tax man.
Click column heading once to reorder from highest to lowest. Click twice to reorder from lowest to highest.
Rank | Company | 4-Year Average (in %) | Cash Taxes Paid (latest year, in millions) | Earnings Before Taxes and Unusual Items (latest year, in millions) | Total Revenue (latest year, in millions) | Market Capitalization (latest year, in millions) | Sector |
| Range Resources | Energy | ||||||
| Allegheny Energy | Utilities | ||||||
| FPL Group | Utilities | ||||||
| Broadcom | Information Technology | ||||||
| NVIDIA | Information Technology | ||||||
| Xcel Energy | Utilities | ||||||
| Akamai Technologies | Information Technology | ||||||
| Teco Energy | Utilities | ||||||
| Boeing | Industrials | ||||||
| CMS Energy | Utilities | ||||||
| Salesforce.com | Information Technology | ||||||
| Amazon.com | Consumer Discretionary | ||||||
| Genworth Financial | Financials | ||||||
| McKesson | Health Care | ||||||
| NetApp | Information Technology | ||||||
| Prudential Financial | Financials | ||||||
| Denbury Resources | Energy | ||||||
| El Paso | Energy | ||||||
| American Tower | Telecommunication Services | ||||||
| Qualcomm | Information Technology | ||||||
| Altera | Information Technology | ||||||
| Intuitive Surgical | Health Care | ||||||
| AK Steel Holding | Materials | ||||||
| Entergy | Utilities | ||||||
| Yahoo | Information Technology | ||||||
| Adobe Systems | Information Technology | ||||||
| Time Warner | Consumer Discretionary | ||||||
| Microchip Technology | Information Technology | ||||||
| Southwest Airlines | Industrials | ||||||
| Ciena | Information Technology | ||||||
| Wyndham Worldwide | Consumer Discretionary | ||||||
| Autodesk | Information Technology | ||||||
| Corning | Information Technology | ||||||
| Compuware | Information Technology | ||||||
| Convergys | Information Technology | ||||||
| Hospira | Health Care | ||||||
| Cognizant Technology Solutions | Information Technology | ||||||
| Xilinx | Information Technology | ||||||
| Hartford Financial Services Group | Financials | ||||||
| Xerox | Information Technology | ||||||
| Waters | Health Care | ||||||
| Apple | Information Technology | ||||||
| Frontier Communications | Telecommunication Services | ||||||
| EOG Resources | Energy | ||||||
| Peabody Energy | Energy | ||||||
| Cabot Oil & Gas | Energy | ||||||
| Citrix Systems | Information Technology | ||||||
| Hewlett-Packard | Information Technology | ||||||
| eBay | Information Technology | ||||||
| Monster Worldwide | Industrials | ||||||
Data: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's
Methodology: We looked at the companies in the S&P 500 index, excluding those with two or more recent years of losses, and instead of the "effective tax rate" companies calculate and apply to their income statement, pulled out the figure companies disclose as cash taxes paid. That's the closest number available in public filings to the check they wrote to the IRS and other tax collectors around the world. Dividing that by pretax income excluding extraordinary items, we came up with a tax rate closer to reality. Real estate investment trusts, and companies based outside the U.S were dropped from the list. To minimize the impact of one-time anomalies, we then averaged the last four years' numbers.
