Dozens of big profitable companies paid no federal taxes last year, report

A new study finds that at least 55 of the United States’ biggest corporations paid no taxes last year on billions of dollars in profits.

The study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy is being released as the Biden administration is attempting to raise taxes on corporations to help pay for spending bills, including the $2 trillion infrastructure-jobs measure, the details of which President Biden officially announced Wednesday.

The study by the liberal-leaning group also follows a tax bill passed in 2017 by a Republican Congress and signed into law by then-President Trump that reduced the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent. 

Dozens of Fortune 500 companies were able to further reduce their tax bill – sometimes to zero – as a result of a range of legal deductions and exemptions that have become staples of the tax code, according to the analysis and as reported by The New York Times. 

Salesforce, Archer-Daniels-Midland and Consolidated Edison were among those named in the report, The Times also reports.