Even the 15% is based on taxable income, just an adjusted version of it. With good tax planning they can get their taxable income to zero while showing their book income as profitable. I feel like corporate should have to pick a method and report that for both tax and book. Then they'll think twice about showing zero taxable income of they also have to show investors zero profit.
The issue is that this degrades investor confidence in financials that they need to rely on. We saw this back in the 80s when there was a similar tax to the CAMT, and it just led to companies reporting lower book income so they could reduce their tax, and trying to get the accurate info to investors in other ways
That’s not really it. What you say exists, but the more common approach is losses carryover.
You can deduct previous year losses against today’s profit. So if you had $100M in losses in 2024, then $40M profit in 2025, your income taxes are zero. It will be zero if your profits are $60M or below in 2026
The 15% minimum technically doesn’t impact the effective tax rate of a corporation, which is what ITEP is using here to claim no federal income tax paid. It’s possible that some of these corps actually did pay it, but it’s also possible that their CAMT liability was also zero because of how the tax is calculated
It's mostly the way options for compensation are handled. GAAP rules and tax rules are different, the tax rules show the expense higher, which zeros out their net income. GAAP is more conservative.
It would be nice if the article had some sort of explanation as to what parts of the law are letting them do that. All they do is say "this is corporate tax amount for them and this is how much they should pay" but don't actually talk at all about what specifically lets them do that. There's a vague mention that Trump's bill does so but it doesn't say why it does so..
They're probably right that it is that bill that's made it even more eggregious but it would nice to know exactly how much that bill moved the needle. It's not like anyone (I hope) legitimately believes that they were paying their fair share before that bill came into effect.
I know this is crazy talk, but maybe companies should work on growth after they pay their taxes like the rest of us have to?
Because we’ve all been so worried about companies growing rather than paying taxes for decades now, and they seem to be growing just fine. All the while the debt is growing to worrying proportions. Companies can grow, invest and expand, but the country? We just have to be ok with crumbling and debt service.
If the businesses cannot grow and add new jobs without tax breaks, they are essentially subsidized by the people of the country and the people should get a share of the profits
You just don’t have an understanding of how corporate and business finances and taxes work. You seem to think Pepsi gets a W2 and pays an income tax just like a school teacher. They are paying taxes on profit. If there’s not profit, they aren’t taxed on some of that money. If the money they bring in revenue is spent on hiring, infrastructure, buying another company, etc then it very much isn’t profit.
I fully support raising the corporate tax to (at the very least) the 1993-2017 era (35-38%). We could and should go higher. There is no political will to do this. Biden promised while campaigning in 2020 but it never made it to the floor. The proposal which never made it the floor ended up being a lower raise than he had even promised on the campaign trail, still below the pre-Trump levels (21% flat, no variable).
How do you want it to work? Sounds like you think it should work like this.
I run a bodega. I buy a coke for .75 and sell it for 1.50. After costs, labor etc my profit is .25. You’d have me paying taxes on the 1.50 instead of the .25. I’d not be able to stay open.
A company that is able to write off the payroll as a tax write off, and is also paying their employees so little that they need fed assistance, is taking money from tax payers in two ways: Not paying taxes which they should have, and forcing other tax payers to cover the gaps on the poorest earners.
That’s double dipping.
Let’s say a company has a payroll that costs $1million. They can use that $1million as a write off against their tax liability. So they don’t need to pay for at least $1 million in taxes that they otherwise would have paid.
In addition, these companies that write off payroll such as Walmart, also have employees that need to be cared for by the federal government in the form of welfare, so Walmart gets away with paying them too little, AND getting a discount on their tax liability. That’s double dipping my friend.
Taxes for businesses are a multiyear business. Losses, depreciation, research investment, etc can be brought forward to adjust the current tax situation and that’s all perfectly legal. Business growth is the only thing keeping the immense US federal debt afloat, so it’s best not to strangle the goose here. Using existing anti trust laws to break up near monopolies could be a lever here.
They are carrying forward losses from previous years that are now being applied against a lower corporate tax rate.
Yes, all this is legal within the system, but that’s the problem: the system allows them to avoid taxes on profits that are earned using an infrastructure that others are paying for. All as those other taxpayers are losing their jobs and benefits, suffering from high inflation and wage stagnation. The tax laws need to be re-written to ensure that corporations pay some fair share of taxes. Many of the companies on this list receive $billions in government contracts. YUM brands always ranks among top 10 employers with employees on SNAP benefits, now being cut to enable lower tax rates for YUM corporate.
The most common tactic to reduce taxable income was accelerated depreciation, which allowed companies “to immediately write off capital investments.” This tax break alone reduced the income taxes of the 88 companies by a collective $11.4 billion in 2025, said ITEP.
Other significant provisions include the research and experimentation (R&E) credit, which was used by at least 40 of the companies to reduce their tax bills per ITEP. In addition, some companies used a new tax break under the OBBB that allowed them to immediately write off research and development expenses, reducing their total 2025 income taxes by at least $4.4 billion, says ITEP.
> YUM brands always ranks among top 10 employers with employees on SNAP benefits,
I wish people like you would turn on your brain for just one 1/2 second and actually try to have a genuine thought that isn't spoon fed to you by the algorithm.
The only people getting SNAP at these companies are part time workers or single parents. Because a full time worker (or a 3/4 time worker) makes too much to get SNAP. To qualify, you need to be either a part time worker or a single parent with dependents.
Neither of whom would be better off if they were fired, which seems to be what you are hoping for.
>YUM brands always ranks among top 10 employers with employees on SNAP benefits
Because if you add up all the employees at their restaurants, they are in the top 10 employers by size.
Walmart has the most employees on snap because walmart has the most employees. Amazon has the second largest number of employees on snap because Amazon has the second largest number of employees.
And of course these kind of clickbait articles that you need to learn to see through are always talking about the absolute number of employees, and not something more useful like the percentage of people on SNAP.
Oh that makes it all right. YUM keeps its employee hours down so they don’t have to pay them a living wage. How do you think they make that level of profit. I’m just wishing that YUM paid its employees a fair wage and treated its workers like human beings.
If a company employs a person who is receiving federal welfare, then that company can’t write off payroll as a tax write off. That’s double dipping on the American people!
A company that is able to write off the payroll as a tax write off, and is also paying their employees so little that they need fed assistance, is taking money from tax payers in two ways: Not paying taxes which they should have, and forcing other tax payers to cover the gaps on the poorest earners.
That’s double dipping.
Let’s say a company has a payroll that costs $1million. They can use that $1million as a write off against their tax liability. So they don’t need to pay for at least $1 million in taxes that they otherwise would have paid.
In addition, these companies that write off payroll such as Walmart, also have employees that need to be cared for by the federal government in the form of welfare, so Walmart gets away with paying them too little, AND getting a discount on their tax liability. That’s double dipping my friend.
You dont ever need to tell your employer you have kids and you never will.
This method would force companies to offer truly competitive wages or risk over paying on employees when they try to claim write offs at the end of the fiscal year.
If the company doesn’t know your personal family situation, then they will have no choice but to offer wages they are absolutely sure would place you in the correct tax bracket to make you unable to apply for welfare.
This is agitprop. Always "What?". NEVER an intelligent explanation of "Why?". Be angry! Be angry! ...now follow me.
Not saying I agree or disagree with the tax bills, but you need to explain so that the electorate can be informed enough to vote intelligently not rage. The reasons they paid zero federal income tax may be completely reasonable, i.e., massive capital expenditures, depreciation, prior losses, etc... most of these same tax avoidance strategies are available to citizens.
Case and point, their first examples are an automaker and an airline. Business structures with huge overhead and therefore huge opportunities to use tax loopholes. This stuff does not serve the electorate.
Your__Pal | a day ago
How are they getting around the 15% minimum from the Inflation Reduction Act?
Did I miss that get repealed at some point ? The article doesnt even address that.
Extra words extra words extra words.
Momoselfie | a day ago
Even the 15% is based on taxable income, just an adjusted version of it. With good tax planning they can get their taxable income to zero while showing their book income as profitable. I feel like corporate should have to pick a method and report that for both tax and book. Then they'll think twice about showing zero taxable income of they also have to show investors zero profit.
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 20 hours ago
The issue is that this degrades investor confidence in financials that they need to rely on. We saw this back in the 80s when there was a similar tax to the CAMT, and it just led to companies reporting lower book income so they could reduce their tax, and trying to get the accurate info to investors in other ways
johnniewelker | 16 hours ago
That’s not really it. What you say exists, but the more common approach is losses carryover.
You can deduct previous year losses against today’s profit. So if you had $100M in losses in 2024, then $40M profit in 2025, your income taxes are zero. It will be zero if your profits are $60M or below in 2026
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 20 hours ago
The 15% minimum technically doesn’t impact the effective tax rate of a corporation, which is what ITEP is using here to claim no federal income tax paid. It’s possible that some of these corps actually did pay it, but it’s also possible that their CAMT liability was also zero because of how the tax is calculated
firejuggler74 | 18 hours ago
It's mostly the way options for compensation are handled. GAAP rules and tax rules are different, the tax rules show the expense higher, which zeros out their net income. GAAP is more conservative.
RedDawn172 | a day ago
It would be nice if the article had some sort of explanation as to what parts of the law are letting them do that. All they do is say "this is corporate tax amount for them and this is how much they should pay" but don't actually talk at all about what specifically lets them do that. There's a vague mention that Trump's bill does so but it doesn't say why it does so..
They're probably right that it is that bill that's made it even more eggregious but it would nice to know exactly how much that bill moved the needle. It's not like anyone (I hope) legitimately believes that they were paying their fair share before that bill came into effect.
SmokeyJoe2 | a day ago
It mentions it towards the end of the article. Accelerated depreciation, research credits, foreign derived deduction credit.
CBFball | a day ago
So all extremely normal tax deductions to allow for company growth?
unsafeideas | a day ago
I think the primary complaint is about what is "normal". And about advantaging growth of large companies and monopolies in economy.
moshennik | 16 hours ago
small companies have the very same deductions available..
Source: I own a small company and use all the same deductions
SmokeyJoe2 | a day ago
Exactly. But it’s good ragebait for the financially ignorant.
CBFball | a day ago
Hell yeah
nochinzilch | 20 hours ago
I know this is crazy talk, but maybe companies should work on growth after they pay their taxes like the rest of us have to?
Because we’ve all been so worried about companies growing rather than paying taxes for decades now, and they seem to be growing just fine. All the while the debt is growing to worrying proportions. Companies can grow, invest and expand, but the country? We just have to be ok with crumbling and debt service.
ShitDollop | 18 hours ago
If they don’t grow there are no new jobs. We need six figure new jobs every month. Businesses aren’t like a household budget at all.
OldMastodon5363 | 18 hours ago
Jobs aren’t being created though. We had one of the worst years of job growth in decades last year.
ShitDollop | 17 hours ago
God, this used to be an economics forum 😭😭😭😭
Wellontheotherhand1 | 17 hours ago
If the businesses cannot grow and add new jobs without tax breaks, they are essentially subsidized by the people of the country and the people should get a share of the profits
thewimsey | 16 hours ago
So I assume you don't take the $16,000/$32,000 standard deduction? Because it's a tax break and you don't want to be subsidized by the rest of us?
nochinzilch | 17 hours ago
Why shouldn’t they be? Why should business get special treatment?
ShitDollop | 17 hours ago
You just don’t have an understanding of how corporate and business finances and taxes work. You seem to think Pepsi gets a W2 and pays an income tax just like a school teacher. They are paying taxes on profit. If there’s not profit, they aren’t taxed on some of that money. If the money they bring in revenue is spent on hiring, infrastructure, buying another company, etc then it very much isn’t profit.
I fully support raising the corporate tax to (at the very least) the 1993-2017 era (35-38%). We could and should go higher. There is no political will to do this. Biden promised while campaigning in 2020 but it never made it to the floor. The proposal which never made it the floor ended up being a lower raise than he had even promised on the campaign trail, still below the pre-Trump levels (21% flat, no variable).
nochinzilch | 17 hours ago
I know exactly how it works. I’m saying maybe it shouldn’t work that way.
ShitDollop | 16 hours ago
How do you want it to work? Sounds like you think it should work like this.
I run a bodega. I buy a coke for .75 and sell it for 1.50. After costs, labor etc my profit is .25. You’d have me paying taxes on the 1.50 instead of the .25. I’d not be able to stay open.
nochinzilch | 14 hours ago
That’s how us lowly wage slaves have to pay our taxes, why should companies get a better deal? Why can’t I deduct all of my expenses?
thewimsey | 16 hours ago
> after they pay their taxes like the rest of us have to?
You don't get any deductions? Or you don't take them?
nochinzilch | 14 hours ago
Those deductions are not anything like the total expenses a company would get. And you know that.
Cptawesome23 | 13 hours ago
A company that is able to write off the payroll as a tax write off, and is also paying their employees so little that they need fed assistance, is taking money from tax payers in two ways: Not paying taxes which they should have, and forcing other tax payers to cover the gaps on the poorest earners.
That’s double dipping.
Let’s say a company has a payroll that costs $1million. They can use that $1million as a write off against their tax liability. So they don’t need to pay for at least $1 million in taxes that they otherwise would have paid.
In addition, these companies that write off payroll such as Walmart, also have employees that need to be cared for by the federal government in the form of welfare, so Walmart gets away with paying them too little, AND getting a discount on their tax liability. That’s double dipping my friend.
Distinct-Response907 | 19 hours ago
Taxes for businesses are a multiyear business. Losses, depreciation, research investment, etc can be brought forward to adjust the current tax situation and that’s all perfectly legal. Business growth is the only thing keeping the immense US federal debt afloat, so it’s best not to strangle the goose here. Using existing anti trust laws to break up near monopolies could be a lever here.
grumpyliberal | 16 hours ago
They are carrying forward losses from previous years that are now being applied against a lower corporate tax rate.
Yes, all this is legal within the system, but that’s the problem: the system allows them to avoid taxes on profits that are earned using an infrastructure that others are paying for. All as those other taxpayers are losing their jobs and benefits, suffering from high inflation and wage stagnation. The tax laws need to be re-written to ensure that corporations pay some fair share of taxes. Many of the companies on this list receive $billions in government contracts. YUM brands always ranks among top 10 employers with employees on SNAP benefits, now being cut to enable lower tax rates for YUM corporate.
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 16 hours ago
>that are now being applied against a lower corporate tax rate
That hurts the company though. Losses are more valuable when tax rates are higher
grumpyliberal | 16 hours ago
Anything that gets you to Zero is valuable.
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 16 hours ago
Those losses can’t get a company to zero though, they’re limited. Revaluing them at the new rate increases the company’s tax rate
grumpyliberal | 16 hours ago
And yet they are at Zero.
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 16 hours ago
Not from losses though. Also, it’s pretty likely most of these companies aren’t actually at zero
grumpyliberal | 15 hours ago
The most common tactic to reduce taxable income was accelerated depreciation, which allowed companies “to immediately write off capital investments.” This tax break alone reduced the income taxes of the 88 companies by a collective $11.4 billion in 2025, said ITEP.
Other significant provisions include the research and experimentation (R&E) credit, which was used by at least 40 of the companies to reduce their tax bills per ITEP. In addition, some companies used a new tax break under the OBBB that allowed them to immediately write off research and development expenses, reducing their total 2025 income taxes by at least $4.4 billion, says ITEP.
thewimsey | 16 hours ago
> YUM brands always ranks among top 10 employers with employees on SNAP benefits,
I wish people like you would turn on your brain for just one 1/2 second and actually try to have a genuine thought that isn't spoon fed to you by the algorithm.
The only people getting SNAP at these companies are part time workers or single parents. Because a full time worker (or a 3/4 time worker) makes too much to get SNAP. To qualify, you need to be either a part time worker or a single parent with dependents.
Neither of whom would be better off if they were fired, which seems to be what you are hoping for.
>YUM brands always ranks among top 10 employers with employees on SNAP benefits
Because if you add up all the employees at their restaurants, they are in the top 10 employers by size.
Walmart has the most employees on snap because walmart has the most employees. Amazon has the second largest number of employees on snap because Amazon has the second largest number of employees.
And of course these kind of clickbait articles that you need to learn to see through are always talking about the absolute number of employees, and not something more useful like the percentage of people on SNAP.
grumpyliberal | 16 hours ago
Oh that makes it all right. YUM keeps its employee hours down so they don’t have to pay them a living wage. How do you think they make that level of profit. I’m just wishing that YUM paid its employees a fair wage and treated its workers like human beings.
Cptawesome23 | 16 hours ago
If a company employs a person who is receiving federal welfare, then that company can’t write off payroll as a tax write off. That’s double dipping on the American people!
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 16 hours ago
How is it double-dipping? A company is separate from its employees
Cptawesome23 | 13 hours ago
A company that is able to write off the payroll as a tax write off, and is also paying their employees so little that they need fed assistance, is taking money from tax payers in two ways: Not paying taxes which they should have, and forcing other tax payers to cover the gaps on the poorest earners.
That’s double dipping.
Let’s say a company has a payroll that costs $1million. They can use that $1million as a write off against their tax liability. So they don’t need to pay for at least $1 million in taxes that they otherwise would have paid.
In addition, these companies that write off payroll such as Walmart, also have employees that need to be cared for by the federal government in the form of welfare, so Walmart gets away with paying them too little, AND getting a discount on their tax liability. That’s double dipping my friend.
thewimsey | 16 hours ago
So your solution is for the company to just not hire single parents or part time workers?
Cptawesome23 | 13 hours ago
You dont ever need to tell your employer you have kids and you never will.
This method would force companies to offer truly competitive wages or risk over paying on employees when they try to claim write offs at the end of the fiscal year.
If the company doesn’t know your personal family situation, then they will have no choice but to offer wages they are absolutely sure would place you in the correct tax bracket to make you unable to apply for welfare.
dallast313 | 14 hours ago
This is agitprop. Always "What?". NEVER an intelligent explanation of "Why?". Be angry! Be angry! ...now follow me.
Not saying I agree or disagree with the tax bills, but you need to explain so that the electorate can be informed enough to vote intelligently not rage. The reasons they paid zero federal income tax may be completely reasonable, i.e., massive capital expenditures, depreciation, prior losses, etc... most of these same tax avoidance strategies are available to citizens.
Case and point, their first examples are an automaker and an airline. Business structures with huge overhead and therefore huge opportunities to use tax loopholes. This stuff does not serve the electorate.