Yesterday President Obama released his tax return in which he paid $1,792,414 in federal income tax and another $163,000 in Illinois state taxes. President Obama donated $329,100 to 40 different charities. This does not count the $1.4 million awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. The tax law allows such awards to be directly donated to charity. This way he does not have to claim it as income, pays no taxes on it, but also does not get to take a deduction on it.
BillShrink has posted an infographic showing Your Taxes Vs America’s Top 25 Companies. They give a short history of the United States tax code, followed by a breakdown of the percentage of Americans in each tax bracket. President Obama is, of course, in the top tax bracket. The graphic then shows what the top tax bracket has paid each year. (This is a bit misleading since even though the top tax bracket was above 60% for a long time, there were plenty of tax loopholes to keep people from paying that much.) At the bottom, they show how much the top 25 corporations paid in taxes.
Businesses are also taxed on their income, but at a different rate than individuals. While individuals fall into higher tax brackets the more they earn and can owe the IRS up to 35 percent of their income, corporations often earn far more in profits, yet pay the government a smaller percentage of that income. Here is a graphic comparison of what you pay the government verses how little some of the largest corporations in America pay.
via Your Taxes Vs America’s Top 25 Companies @ BillShrink.
GE: 7,000 tax returns, $0 U.S. tax bill
GE had plenty of earnings last year — just not in the United States. For tax purposes, the company’s U.S. operations lost $408 million, while its international businesses netted a $10.8 billion profit.
That left GE with no U.S. profit left for Uncle Sam to tax.