Shocking Revelation: 75% of Fortune 500 Companies In The US Use Congress to Avoid Paying Taxes

New research has revealed that the top 500 largest corporations in the United States of America, have been using congress to avoid paying taxes to the country.

The Fortune 500, an annual list compiled and published by the Fortune magazine, ranks 500 of the largest US corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years.

The study said lobbyists representing the corporations have succeeded in manipulating congress to allow them set up offshore tax havens, and nearly 75% of them avoid an estimated $90 billion in federal income taxes each year.

According to the study, this has made Congress more concerned with extorting average Americans and small businesses. This is because the rampant offshore tax evading by the corporations has left taxpayers paying higher taxes and cutting government programs.

The study was led by the Public Interest Research Group Education Fund and Citizens for Tax Justice. It accused the corporations of holding over $2.1 trillion in accumulated profits offshore.

Authors of the study urged Congress to prevent corporations from using offshore tax havens by closing egregious loopholes and increasing transparency on their activities.

Program associate with the Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, Michelle Surka said, “When corporations dodge their taxes, the public ends up paying. The American multinationals that take advantage of tax havens use our roads, benefit from our education system and large consumer market, and enjoy the security we have here, but are ultimately taking a free ride at the expense of other taxpayers.”

The study accused the companies of deliberately registering their subsidiaries in the tax-exempted country, the Cayman Islands and utilizing legal accounting tricks to make much of their home-earned profits appear to be earned in the Cayman Islands.

In addition, it was also discovered that about 358 of the corporations operate subsidiaries in offshore tax havens including Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. As of 2014, these 358 companies maintain at least 7,622 tax haven subsidiaries. According to the study, if these corporations were to pay the full rate on those offshore profits, the US Treasury could collect some $620 billion.

The study, which quoted from SEC filings, disclosed that about 93% of the money that Microsoft has officially booked overseas is invested in US assets. Bank of America, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan-Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley are said to have disclosed a combined 412 subsidiaries in tax havens after receiving a bailout in 2008.

Apple is also said to have $181.1 billion booked offshore, and would have paid $59.2 billion in US taxes if these profits were not officially held offshore for tax purposes. The company is said to have structured two of its Irish subsidiaries to be tax residents of neither the US nor Ireland, and does not pay tax to any government from profits of those subsidiaries.

The world’s largest drug manufacturer, Pfizer, is said to be holding $74 billion in profits offshore in order to avoid paying US taxes. Already, the company is faced with over 1,000 lawsuits for selling Zoloft, a medication the company secretly knew could cause malformed hearts in newborns. The company is also said to operate subsidiaries in 151 tax havens.

The study also revealed that between 2009 and 2010, Google increased the amount of cash it reported offshore from $7.7 billion to $47.4 billion. Between 2005 and 2014, Walmart’s offshore income has grown from $6.8 billion to $23.3 billion. Other Fortune 500 companies fingered in the study include American Express, Nike, PepsiCo, Merck, Dow Chemical and General Electric.

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