Let's Talk About About Fairness As 34% Of Large Profitable Corporations Pay 0 In Federal Taxes

A new GAO study revealed that 34% of large profitable corporations pay nothing in US federal taxes, but Republicans won't talk about this lack of fairness.

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GAO Study Finds Big Profitable Corporations Aren’t Paying Their Fair Share

The GAO study found:

In each year between 2014 and 2018, approximately 68 percent of all corporations had no federal income tax liability after credits. This level remained stable throughout the time period, remaining within a percentage point of the 5-year average. A lower share of large corporations, of which there are approximately 50,000 in each year of our data, had no federal income tax liability in each year from 2014 through 2018.

Over the 5-year period, an average of 51 percent of large corporations had no federal income tax liability. However, this share increased from a low of 47 percent in 2014 to a high of 58 percent in 2018. A still lower share of profitable large corporations had no federal income tax liability in each year from 2014 to 2018.

The share of profitable large corporations owing no federal income tax after credits increased from approximately 22 percent to approximately 34 percent between 2014 and 2018, averaging 25 percent over the 5-year period. The number of profitable large corporations in the data ranged between approximately 25,000 and 35,000 between 2014 and 2018.

The number of large profitable corporations remained stable between 2014 and 2018, but the percentage of these corporations that paid zero federal taxes grew.

It is time for a real conversation about fairness, and Republicans have already made it clear which side they are on.