Corporate Taxes: Who Pays the Most
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
Some companies do pay more than their fair share of U.S. taxes—almost 400% in one case. 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 |
| VeriSign | Information Technology | ||||||
| Fidelity National Information Services | Information Technology | ||||||
| Zions Bancorporation | Financials | ||||||
| Eastman Kodak | Consumer Discretionary | ||||||
| Sun Microsystems | Information Technology | ||||||
| Citigroup | Financials | ||||||
| Motorola | Information Technology | ||||||
| Goodyear Tire & Rubber | Consumer Discretionary | ||||||
| Northeast Utilities | Utilities | ||||||
| Dominion Resources | Utilities | ||||||
| Huntington Bancshares | Financials | ||||||
| CB Richard Ellis Group | Financials | ||||||
| United Parcel Service | Industrials | ||||||
| Apache | Energy | ||||||
| Mylan | Health Care | ||||||
| Marsh & McLennan | Financials | ||||||
| New York Times | Consumer Discretionary | ||||||
| Goldman Sachs Group | Financials | ||||||
| CA | Information Technology | ||||||
| Interpublic Group | Consumer Discretionary | ||||||
| Nicor | Utilities | ||||||
| Aon | Financials | ||||||
| ConAgra Foods | Consumer Staples | ||||||
| CenterPoint Energy | Utilities | ||||||
| Bank of New York Mellon | Financials | ||||||
| Integrys Energy Group | Utilities | ||||||
| Discover Financial Services | Financials | ||||||
| Hess | Energy | ||||||
| Pitney Bowes | Industrials | ||||||
| FIserv | Information Technology | ||||||
| Morgan Stanley | Financials | ||||||
| Qlogic | Information Technology | ||||||
| BB&T | Financials | ||||||
| Anadarko Petroleum | Energy | ||||||
| MeadWestvaco | Materials | ||||||
| Constellation Energy Group | Utilities | ||||||
| Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold | Materials | ||||||
| Bank of America | Financials | ||||||
| Tiffany | Consumer Discretionary | ||||||
| Harman International Industries | Consumer Discretionary | ||||||
| Manitowoc | Industrials | ||||||
| Schwab (Charles) | Financials | ||||||
| Capital One Financial | Financials | ||||||
| Clorox | Consumer Staples | ||||||
| Nordstrom | Consumer Discretionary | ||||||
| Legg Mason | Financials | ||||||
| PG&E | Utilities | ||||||
| Wells Fargo | Financials | ||||||
| Altria Group | Consumer Staples | ||||||
| ConocoPhillips | Energy | ||||||
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.
