Analysis finds Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Netflix, Apple and Microsoft averaged 18.8%, compared with 29.7% US average

The big American tech firms known as the “Silicon Six” have been accused of paying almost $278bn (£211bn) less corporate income tax in the past decade compared with the statutory rate for US companies making the same profits.

Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Netflix, Apple and Microsoft generated $11tn of revenue and $2.5tn of profits over the past 10 years.

Yet they paid an average 18.8% in combined national and federal corporation taxes, compared with an average 29.7% in the US, according to the Fair Tax Foundation (FTF), which said the Silicon Six had “hardwired” tax avoidance into their business models.

Analysis by the not-for-profit organisation found that if one-off repatriation tax payments in the US connected to historical tax avoidance were excluded, the average corporate income tax contribution of the six firms fell to 16.1% over the past decade.

  • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
    102·
    1 day ago

    So are they alleging fraud? The article seems to be making the companies out to be the bad guys, but it sounds more like the governments writing tax code to encourage this.

    • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      112·
      1 day ago

      You’re arguing as if tax cuts and loopholes in the tax code are ok, but they’re not. Just look at what Reagan did and tell me it’s all good.

      The first tax cut (Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981) among other things, cut the highest personal income tax rate from 70% to 50% and the lowest from 14% to 11% and decreased the highest capital gains tax rate from 28% to 20%.

      The second tax cut (Tax Reform Act of 1986) among other things, cut the highest personal income tax rate from 50% to 38.5% but decreasing to 28% in the following years and increased the highest capital gains tax rate from 20% to 28%.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_tax_cuts

      • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
        133·
        1 day ago

        I’m not saying it’s okay, I’m saying we shouldn’t be expecting companies to act ethically. They will avoid as much tax as possible, so we should focus on lobbying governments to change the tax law to reduce avoidance and increase tax liability.

        • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          61·
          1 day ago

          We should be demanding they act ethically. The hell the rules should be different for them than for us.

          • andrewta@lemmy.world
            4·
            17 hours ago

            We can demand anything we want. The reality is that’s never going to happen. Want a change? Change the laws. Make it so they can’t do it.

            Good luck with that though. The government is screwed at this point.

    • orcrist@lemm.eeEnglish
      52·
      1 day ago

      Perhaps I’m misunderstanding, but it sounds like you have a strange set of values. You have incredibly greedy companies mostly owned by incredibly greedy billionaires who are doing their best to take every single penny they possibly can, and according to you that’s not bad.

      Or, to put it another way, you wrote that the government tax code encourages this. What section of the tax code asks billionaires to take as much of our money as possible? Where is that written? What paragraph says, steal their money, go do it, it’s good!?