Here’s How 72% of Fortune 500s Use Congress to Avoid Paying Taxes, Sticking You With the Bill
(article from 2015 but no doubt is as relevant now)
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At least 358 companies, nearly three-quarters of the Fortune 500, operate subsidiaries in offshore tax havens, including Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Although the profits are supposed to be trapped offshore, about 93% of the money that Microsoft has officially booked overseas is invested in U.S. assets, according to SEC filings. As of 2014, these 358 companies maintain at least 7,622 tax haven subsidiaries.
If these corporations were to pay the full rate on those offshore profits, the report estimates that the U.S. Treasury could collect $620 billion. With Congress more concerned with extorting average Americans and small businesses, this rampant offshore tax dodging has left taxpayers paying higher taxes and cutting government programs as the federal debt increases. After receiving taxpayer bailouts in 2008, Bank of America, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan-Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and Morgan Stanley disclosed a combined 412 subsidiaries in tax havens.
With $181.1 billion booked offshore and notorious for inducing sweatshop suicides, Apple would owe $59.2 billion in U.S. taxes if these profits were not officially held offshore for tax purposes. By structuring two Irish subsidiaries to be tax residents of neither the U.S. nor Ireland, Apple does not pay tax to any government for their offshore profits.
Faced with over 1,000 lawsuits accusing the company of selling Zoloft while secretly aware it could cause malformed hearts in newborns, Pfizer operates subsidiaries in 151 tax havens. As the world’s largest drug manufacturer, Pfizer officially holds $74 billion in profits offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes.
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http://thefreethoughtproject.com/75-fortune-500-companies-avoid-paying-taxes-this