Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most U.S. and foreign corporations doing business in the United States avoid paying any federal income taxes, despite trillions of dollars worth of sales, a government study released on Tuesday said.
The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.
Poor reporting and choice of headlines. If you read the article it is obvious your headline is not true, as the article says “paid no federal income taxes for AT LEAST ONE YEAR BETWEEN 1998 and 2005.”
D.D. .
The headline uses present tense, as if right now this is the case. But within just two lines it becomes clear that the actual story is that most corporations have had one or more years from ‘99-’05 for which they reported zero or negative income, meaning they paid no U.S. income tax that year. And for about half those companies, this happened two or more years during that period.
Using present tense (”pay” not “paid”) unambiguously implies that it’s currently happening. But the stats show this no-income situation applies to between 25% and 30% of corporations in any given year. That’s a VERY FAR cry from “most corporations”.
Ezekiel
Several readers felt this headline did not fairly represent the results of the study: GBU Editor
REUTERS photo by Kevin Lamarque
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