Tag: deficit

BIG CORPORATIONS AVOID TAXES WHILE EMPLOYEES STRUGGLE

SUMMARY: Eighty-eight large corporations with over $105 billion in profits paid no federal income tax in 2025. Moreover, they got almost $5 billion in tax rebates! Many large and profitable companies also pay their employees so little that they rely on government-subsidized Medicaid for health insurance and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for food. The hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes dodged each year, as well as the cost of government benefits for employees, contribute significantly to the annual federal budget deficit.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

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At least 88 large, profitable corporations paid no federal income tax in 2025. Corporate tax dodging has increased in recent years in large part because of the two tax cut laws enacted by Trump and congressional Republicans: the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill in 2025 and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in late 2017.

These 88 corporations had over $105 billion in profits, paid no income tax, and got almost $5 billion in tax rebates! Given the federal corporate income tax rate of 21%, they dodged $27 billion in taxes. Based on the 35% income tax rate in place before the two tax cut laws, these corporations had their taxes cut by $41 billion in 2025 alone. [1]

Note that this analysis includes only corporations that have filed their 2025 tax returns and are one of the 500 largest U.S. corporations. It does not include thousands of other corporations or any privately owned companies.

Here are some of the most profitable and well-known corporations that paid no 2025 federal income tax and their 2025 profits:

  • Walt Disney                $8.3 billion in profits
  • Cheniere Energy        $7.0 billion in profits
  • CVS Health                $6.6 billion in profits
  • Tesla                           $5.7 billion in profits
  • Citigroup                    $4.5 billion in profits
  • United Airlines           $4.3 billion in profits
  • Amer. Elec. Power      $3.7 billion in profits
  • PG&E                         $2.5 billion in profits
  • 3M                              $1.8 billion in profits
  • Coinbase (crypto)       $1.6 billion in profits
  • Palantir Tech.              $1.6 billion in profits
  • PayPal Holdings         $1.4 billion in profits
  • Biogen                        $1.2 billion in profits
  • Yum! Brands              $1.0 billion in profits (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, etc.)

State corporate income taxes are typically based on federal income tax laws. As a result, these 88 corporations that paid no federal income tax also paid very little state income tax; their effective state tax rate was only 1.4%.

One of the main ways corporations reduce their federal income taxes is through special tax breaks written into federal laws. These include:

  • Accelerated depreciation, which allows corporations to reduce taxes by the full amount of infrastructure expenditures in one year even if the infrastructure will last for many years. This tax break has been used to spur recovery from recessions in the past but is now a permanent part of tax law due to the two tax cut laws identified above.
  • Research and development tax credits.
  • Tax deductions for stock options given to employees.

In 2025, corporations have so far reported taking $204 billion in federal income tax breaks. This represents a huge giveaway of 18% of total corporate income taxes paid to the federal government, which were about $1,130 billion in 2025 and were paid by hundreds of thousands of corporations. [2]

Six corporations claimed $83 billion of these tax breaks (41%). These are record-breaking amounts.

  • Microsoft                                   $19 billion
  • Alphabet (Google’s parent)       $18 billion
  • Amazon                                     $17 billion
  • Meta (Facebook, Instagram)     $14 billion
  • JPMorgan Chase                       $  8 billion
  • Nvidia (chip maker)                  $  7 billion

These corporations do not need tax breaks because they are struggling; they collectively have roughly $500 billion in cash on hand. Previously, the largest one-year tax break claim had been $5 billion by JPMorgan Chase in 2024.

Meanwhile, many large and profitable companies pay employees so little that they must rely on government assistance to survive. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently analyzed data from eleven states on Americans who use government-subsidized Medicaid for health insurance (about 28 million adults) and/or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for food (about 20 million adults). Roughly half of them worked at least part-time in 2024 and of these, two-thirds worked full-time. Most of them worked for private employers in transportation, food, or retail sales jobs. Of the approximately 150 employers across the eleven states studied that had employees enrolled in Medicaid or SNAP, seventeen were among the 50 largest corporations in the country by number of employees. The following companies were among the 25 employers with the greatest number of employees using Medicaid and/or SNAP in multiple states: Walmart, Amazon, McDonald’s, FedEx, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Target, Walgreens, and CVS. [3]

The hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes dodged each year, as well as the cost of government benefits for employees, mean that large, profitable corporations contribute significantly to the annual federal budget deficit and to the growing cumulative federal debt that just hit $40 trillion. The wealth of these corporations and their executives and shareholders gives them substantial political and economic power, which they have been wielding in their self-interest and to the detriment of all of the rest of us.

For lots of good news see Jess Craven’s Chop Wood Carry Water blog’s most recent good news Sunday post here.

[1]      Gardner, M., & Marasini, S., 4/14/26, “At least 88 profitable U.S. corporations paid zero federal income tax in 2025,” ITEP (https://itep.org/88-profitable-corporations-paid-zero-income-tax-in-2025/)

[2]      Buttikofer, S., & Gardner, M., 8/14/26, “Six companies reaped $83 billion in federal tax breaks in 2025,” ITEP (https://itep.org/six-companies-83-billion-in-federal-tax-breaks/)

[3]      U.S. Government Accountability Office, 6/22/26, “Federal social safety net programs: Millions of workers, including many employed by large employers, continue to rely on Medicaid and SNAP,” (https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108703)

TRUMP AND THE REPUBLICANS DO NOT CARE ABOUT MAKING GOVERNMENT WORK BETTER

The Trump administration and the Republicans in Congress are not trying to make government work better. They’re focused on destroying our federal government and making it unable to perform functions we all rely on in our everyday lives. They also plan to give huge tax cuts to wealthy individuals and corporations. Please contact your members of Congress and ask them to oppose the draconian budget Republicans have proposed.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

I probably don’t need to tell you that the Trump administration and the Republicans in Congress are not trying to make government work better. Rather, they want to destroy our federal government and leave it unable to perform functions we all rely on in our everyday lives.

This post will examine the Republicans’ budget proposal. My previous post documented the random slashing of personnel, which does not increase efficiency or make government work better. More examples of this have emerged in recent days. The Trump administration has disbanded the information technology group that was working to make the federal government’s public websites more user-friendly and functional. So, for example, it will no longer be working to make it easier and faster to get a passport from the Department of State or to use the free tax filing service of the IRS. [1] Many cybersecurity personnel from multiple agencies have been fired. Computer systems in the U.S. are not being effectively protected and Russia and other adversaries know this. Moreover, it has been reported that the Trump administration has stopped efforts to counter Russian cyberattacks. [2] Obviously, these actions are not doing anything to make the government more effective and efficient; quite the opposite.

Turning to the budget, the Republicans in Congress have proposed draconian cuts to agency and program budgets. They’ve set dollar-amount targets for cuts that reflect no analysis of need or efficiency. Their budget proposal has big cuts in everything that supports working Americans and their families. However, it includes big increases for defense and immigrant detention and deportation. It also extends and expands the very large 2017 tax cuts for wealthy corporations and individuals, which would cost $4.5 trillion over the next ten years. For example, the wealthiest 1% of Americans, with yearly incomes of over $743,000, would get an annual tax cut averaging $62,000. This is more than the yearly incomes of most of the 72 million people in the US who receive health insurance under Medicaid, many of whom are seniors in nursing homes. And make no mistake about it, Medicaid would have to be cut dramatically to meet the Republicans’ budget targets. [3]

These budget cuts are NOT about cutting waste or fraud; they are about cutting programs that working Americans rely on every day – from health care to nutrition programs to student loans to child and elder care. These deep cuts in programs are being proposed to make the tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations affordable, i.e., to keep them from exploding the budget deficit. Note that the Republicans’ budget proposal does NOT extend the tax credits that make health care more affordable under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obama Care) for 20 million low- and middle-income Americans, including three million small business owners and self-employed individuals. The Republicans’ budget proposal would also shift significant costs to state and local governments – which don’t have the capacity to pay them.

Despite the draconian programmatic cuts, the Republican budget proposal would increase the national debt by $4 trillion in less than two years.

It is abundantly clear that the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress, along with Musk and DOGE, have no interest in efficiency or making government work better. They want to break our government and turn our democracy into a dictatorship. Moreover, they act like bullies; being cruel and hurting people appears to be one of their goals. Why else would you separate children from parents and post gloating videos of immigrants in chains?

Mindless slashing of agency budgets and staff is harming our safety in multiple ways and weakening our economy. It will increase homelessness, hunger, and hardship for many; it will allow diseases to spread and environmental damage to grow.

I urge you to contact your US Representative and Senators and ask them to take strong action to oppose the draconian budget cuts Republicans are proposing.

If you have members of Congress who are Democrats, urge them to form a shadow cabinet and identify a party spokesperson. These individuals should critique the actions of the Trump administration on a daily basis by:

  • Identifying what it’s doing right and what it’s doing wrong.
  • Sharing data and people’s stories to document the damage that’s being done.
  • Presenting what Democrats would do differently and how people’s lives would be better if Democrats were running the government.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

In my next post, I’ll share some profiles in courage of those resisting and good news about how the resistance is growing and proving to be effective.

[1]      Hubbell, R., 3/3/25, “Every effort matters – now more than ever!” Today’s Edition Newsletter (Every effort matters—now more than ever!)

[2]      Cox Richardson, H., 3/2/25, “Letters from an American,” (March 2, 2025 – by Heather Cox Richardson)

[3]      Parrott, S., 2/25/25, “House budget would increase costs and hardship for many while providing huge tax breaks for a wealthy few,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (https://www.cbpp.org/press/statements/house-budget-would-increase-costs-and-hardship-for-many-while-providing-huge-tax)