The United States has in recent years been grappling with both its political and economic identities. Tax reform, naturally, has proved to be one of most hotly contested policy battlegrounds, with a confluence of contradictory agendas -- partisan, industrial, and theoretical in nature -- muddying the waters. In the process, the role of the large multinational corporation as a tax-paying entity has come under intense scrutiny.
With memories of corporate greed and Great Recession bailouts still fresh in the minds of taxpayers, the myriad "revelations" about corporate accounting practices that have emerged from inspection of quarterly financials have fueled indignation as well as confusion among us little guys who feel as if we might be getting the short end of the stick.
This all, of course, raises a number of very important questions -- from how much large corporations really pay in taxes and how easy those numbers are to distort, all the way to what the ultimate taxpayer hierarchy should be between consumers and corporations.
WalletHub attempted to shed some light on those issues by analyzing annual reports for the S&P 100 -- the largest and most established companies on the stock market. We compiled 2012 data on company profits, withholding practices, and tax payments on the state, federal, and international levels to determine effective and deferred tax rates for each business.
Note: For visual purposes, we excluded the companies with the five highest and lowest effective tax rates.
- S&P 100 companies pay roughly 30% lower rates on international taxes than on U.S. taxes.
- Tech companies -- including Apple, eBay, and Google -- paid up to 80% lower rates abroad.
- Six S&P 100 companies are actually paying a negative overall tax rate and are therefore due a tax refund: Abbott Laboratories, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, AIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Verizon.
- Among the remaining companies that owe taxes, Citigroup, Visa, AbbVie, and MetLife pay the lowest rates.
- The average S&P 100 company pays a 14% higher tax rate than the top 3% of consumers.
| Company Name | Stock Symbol | 2012 Overall Tax Rate | 2012 State Tax Rate | 2012 Federal Tax Rate | 2012 International Tax Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average | N/A | 26.9% | 3.1% | 29.2% | 23.1% |
| Citigroup | C | 0.1% | neg. income | neg. income | 32.4% |
| Visa | V | 2.9% | (24.3%) | 9.7% | 18.3% |
| AbbVie | ABBV | 7.9% | N/A | N/A | 5.2% |
| MetLife | MET | 8.9% | neg. income | neg. income | 13.5% |
| Texas Instruments | TXN | 9.1% | (0.6%) | (13.5%) | 13.7% |
| Mondelez International | MDLZ | 9.5% | neg. income | neg. income | 19.1% |
| Amgen | AMGN | 13.3% | 0.2% | 30.5% | 4.2% |
| General Electric | GE | 13.6% | N/A | 3.3% | 23.1% |
| eBay | EBAY | 15.4% | 6.4% | 59.7% | 3% |
| UPS | UPS | 17.1% | (4.9%) | 7.8% | 26.4% |
| Medtronic | MDT | 17.6% | N/A | N/A | 8.1% |
| GOOG | 19.4% | 2.9% | 37.9% | 5.3% | |
| Baxter | BAX | 19.5% | (6.7%) | 60.6% | 14.2% |
| Qualcomm | QCOM | 19.5% | (0.4%) | 9.9% | 31.1% |
| Pfizer | PFE | 19.8% | neg. income | neg. income | 16.4% |
| DuPont | DD | 19.9% | (4.7%) | 2.5% | 25.7% |
| Cisco Systems |
CSCO | 20.8% | 2% | 48.4% | 7% |
| Oracle | ORCL | 23% | 4.3% | 29.9% | 12.5% |
| Coca-Cola | KO | 23.1% | 3% | 43.6% | 13% |
| The Bank of New York Mellon | BK | 23.6% | 5.2% | 20.4% | 20.5% |
| Johnson & Johnson | JNJ | 23.7% | N/A | N/A | 14.9% |
| Microsoft | MSFT | 23.8% | 9.6% | 139.7% | N/A |
| EMC | EMC | 24.1% | 3.3% | 37.5% | 7.6% |
| IBM | IBM | 24.2% | 4.4% | 18.2% | 25.4% |
| Honeywell | HON | 24.4% | 1.6% | 31.5% | 17% |
| Eli Lilly |
LLY | 24.4% | 2.2% | 23.4% | N/A |
| Schlumberger | SLB | 24.4% | 2.3% | 29.9% | 21% |
| Twenty-First Century Fox | FOXA | 24.5% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| United Technologies | UTX | 24.8% | 4.6% | 28.4% | 19.8% |
| Nike | NKE | 25% | 7% | 30% | 20.7% |
| Apple | AAPL | 25.2% | 5.6% | 64.6% | 1.9% |
| PepsiCo | PEP | 25.2% | 5.6% | 32.9% | 16.7% |
| Capital One | COF | 25.8% | 1.5% | 24.7% | 20.9% |
| Intel | INTC | 26% | N/A | 26.6% | N/A |
| JPMorgan Chase | JPM | 26.4% | 2.9% | 21.9% | 36.2% |
| Procter & Gamble | PG | 27.1% | N/A | 26.3% | N/A |
| Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold | FCX | 27.5% | 1.6% | 21.1% | 34.6% |
| Accenture | ACN | 27.6% | 5.9% | 37.3% | 23.9% |
| AT&T | T | 27.8% | N/A | 25.9% | N/A |
| Merck |
MRK | 27.9% | 0.4% | 46.6% | 7.7% |
| Gilead Sciences | GILD | 28.8% | 1.3% | 35.9% | 3% |
| Ford Motor | F | 28.8% | (2.5%) | 31.3% | 29.2% |
| US Bancorp | USB | 28.9% | 4.4% | 24.6% | N/A |
| 3M |
MMM | 29% | 2.9% | 25.5% | 29.4% |
| National Oilwell Varco | NOV | 29.2% | 2.6% | 30.3% | 25.1% |
| Philip Morris International | PM | 29.5% | N/A | N/A | 28.2% |
| MasterCard | MA | 29.8% | 1.2% | 30.8% | 26% |
| Monsanto | MON | 30.2% | 3.3% | 28.3% | 27.5% |
| Allstate | ALL | 30.2% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| American Express | AXP | 30.5% | 3.5% | 20.7% | neg. income |
| Caterpillar | CAT | 30.7% | 1.6% | 31.9% | 28% |
| Wal-Mart Stores | WMT | 31% | 3.2% | 29.2% | 26.9% |
| Berkshire Hathaway | BRK-B | 31.1% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Anadarko Petroleum | APC | 31.4% | 106.1% | 11.4% | 28.1% |
| Raytheon | RTN | 31.6% | N/A | 31.4% | 34.2% |
| Wells Fargo | WFC | 32% | 3.8% | 29.4% | 6.2% |
| Colgate-Palmolive | CL | 32.1% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Comcast | CMCSA | 32.3% | 3.5% | 28.3% | 43.3% |
| Halliburton | HAL | 32.3% | 2.1% | 30.5% | 31.4% |
| McDonald's | MCD | 32.4% | 6.8% | 44.3% | 22% |
| American Electric Power | AEP | 32.4% | (2.3%) | 34.6% | N/A |
| Lockheed Martin | LMT | 32.6% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Starbucks | SBUX | 32.8% | 4.7% | 30.7% | 21.1% |
| Goldman Sachs Group | GS | 33.3% | 9.6% | 34.1% | 15.7% |
| Walt Disney | DIS | 33.3% | 2.8% | 30.1% | 36.5% |
| Dow Chemical | DOW | 33.9% | neg. income | neg. income | 30.8% |
| Boeing | BA | 34% | 1.8% | 33% | 14.8% |
| Time Warner | TWX | 34.3% | 2.3% | 23.8% | 12066.7% |
| Exelon | EXC | 34.9% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Target | TGT | 34.9% | 3% | 32.4% | neg. income |
| Emerson Electric | EMR | 35% | 3.3% | 35.6% | 30.1% |
| FedEx | FDX | 35.3% | 3.6% | 29.7% | 50.6% |
| Altria Group | MO | 35.4% | 5.2% | 30.2% | 31.3% |
| Southern | SO | 35.6% | 3.9% | 31.7% | N/A |
| UnitedHealth Group | UNH | 35.9% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Costco Wholesale | COST | 36.1% | 5.6% | 33.3% | 30.8% |
| Norfolk Southern | NSC | 36.6% | 3.7% | 32.9% | N/A |
| Walgreen | WAG | 37% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Home Depot | HD | 37.2% | 4.5% | 32.6% | 38.4% |
| Union Pacific | UNP | 37.5% | 4.3% | 33.2% | N/A |
| Lowe's |
LOW | 37.6% | 4.6% | 31.9% | neg. income |
| CVS Caremark | CVS | 38.6% | 6.2% | 32.4% | N/A |
| ExxonMobil | XOM | 39.4% | N/A | 25.7% | 40.7% |
| Occidental Petroleum | OXY | 40.2% | 2.3% | 30.5% | 43% |
| Chevron | CVX | 43.2% | 6% | 28.1% | 45.2% |
| ConocoPhillips | COP | 51.5% | 6.3% | 16.9% | 61.6% |
| Apache | APA | 59% | 0.6% | 27.8% | 74% |
| Amazon.com | AMZN | 78.7% | N/A | N/A | neg. income |
| FB | 89.3% | 3.7% | 36.4% | neg. income | |
| General Dynamics | GD | 161.4% | (1.9%) | 98% | neg. income |
| Abbott Laboratories | ABT | (89.8%) | neg. income | neg. income | 17.5% |
| Morgan Stanley | MS | (45.6%) | neg. income | neg. income | 34.8% |
| Bank of America | BAC | (36.3%) | 28.8% | (159.3%) | 109.7% |
| AIG | AIG | (27.9%) | neg. income | neg. income | 5.4% |
| Bristol-Myers Squibb | BMY | (6.9%) | neg. income | neg. income | 14.4% |
| Verizon Communications | VZ | (6.7%) | (3.1%) | (3.6%) | (6%) |
| Devon Energy | DVN | neg. income | neg. income | neg. income | neg. income |
| General Motors | GM | neg. income | neg. income | neg. income | neg. income |
| Hewlett-Packard | HPQ | neg. income | neg. income | neg. income | neg. income |
| Simon Property Group | SPG | Tax-free REIT | Tax-free REIT | Tax-free REIT | Tax-free REIT |
Sources: The data used to compile this report comes from the Internal Revenue Service, Quantria Strategies, Yahoo! Finance, and corporate annual reports.
