Corporate tax chartbook: How corporations rig the rules to dodge the taxes they owe

Source: Frank Clemente, Hunter Blair, and Nick Trokel, Economic Policy Institute and Americans for Tax Fairness, September 19, 2016
From the introduction:
In recent years, corporate profits have reached record highs, and so too has the amount of untaxed profits U.S. corporations have stashed offshore: $2.4 trillion. And it is estimated corporations could owe as much as $700 billion on those profits. In short, corporations are dodging more and more of their tax responsibilities. ….

…. This intentional erosion of the U.S. corporate income tax base has real consequences. Rich multinational corporations avoiding their fair share of U.S. taxes means that domestic firms and American workers have to foot the bill. It also means that corporations are not paying their fair share for our infrastructure, schools, public safety, and legal systems, despite depending on all of these services for their profitability.

This chartbook details the extent of corporate tax avoidance.

Key findings include:
• As of 2015, U.S. corporations had $2.4 trillion in untaxed profits offshore. Another study, looking at S&P 500 companies, found they held $2.1 trillion as of 2014. This roughly five-fold increase from $434 billion in 2005 stems largely from anticipation of a tax holiday.
• Corporations owe up to $695 billion in U.S. taxes on their $2.4 trillion in offshore profits. Having paid just 6 percent to 10 percent in taxes to foreign governments, they owe between 29 percent and 25 percent in U.S. taxes, based on a 35 percent tax rate with foreign tax credits.
• President Obama has proposed taxing the current stock of offshore profits at 14 percent (less foreign taxes paid), which could give corporations a tax cut of $500 billion on their offshore profits. (Republicans propose an even bigger tax break.) A 14 percent tax rate would raise just $195 billion. This is $500 billion less than the up to $695 billion they owe. That’s a tax cut of up to 72 percent for the country’s worst tax dodgers.
• Some large multinationals adept at tax dodging would receive huge tax breaks under Obama’s plan. Apple would get a tax break of $36.5 billion, Microsoft $20.7 billion, and Citigroup $7.1 billion (based on the profits they had stashed offshore at the end of 2015).
• U.S. corporate offshore profits are not “trapped” overseas. Companies can invest these untaxed profits in any U.S. firm, deposit them in any U.S. bank, or use them to purchase any government security as long as it is not directly invested in the U.S. parent. A congressional study found that 46 percent of the offshore profits of 27 companies were invested in the United States in 2010. And, of course, nothing stops them from simply returning profits home—except for a desire to not pay taxes.
• Corporate reorganization here in the United States likely further erodes the corporate tax base by $100 billion a year. In the United States, the business sector has substantially reorganized as pass-through entities in search of lower tax bills.